OnlyOop: BBC investigation(s) likely catalyst for OnlyFans changes, expose moderation issues

[scullies]

earlier today we had a post about the drastic change in content parameters coming to OnlyFans (OF).

[tl;dr if you missed it]
once considered a major outlet for sex workers to share and be paid for their work and now a platform hosting A to D list celebs, the service announced that starting in October they would no longer host sexually explicit content (tho they would

Comments

[v_is_for_violet]

You can’t have porn without exploitation of vulnerable people. That’s just the cold hard truth. The older I get the more I feel like human sexuality was never meant to be commodified or sold for the consumption of strangers. It just brings so much devastation and wounds that are hard to heal

[myhipusername]

Seriously. People might disagree with me but I wish all type of sex work, whether it’s stripping or making media content, never existed. It clearly does way more harm than ‘good’ but it’s here to stay until we re evaluate our values on a societal standard in how predators come about, what we do about them, and how to help those who become victims. I used to be big supporter of sex work, bc I believed liberation = choice but our reality is not that black and white unfortunately. Institutions and systems are in place that don’t allow that to happen for us to just say “I’m in control!”

Editing to say that of course my feelings on this can change and learning is all about communication so!

[slinkydinks]

Sex work is as old as civilization. Like with anything, banning it just creates an unsafer black market. And people who were already disenfranchised like trans poc and oftentimes reliant on sex work wind up getting punished rather than just the johns. Establishing a well-regulated, legitimized means of sex work would seem to be the best option between "no sex work at all" or "laissez faire." In my mind, it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing, and if anything, either ends of the binary aren't real solutions.

Is sex work inherently exploitative? Yes, and I do think if we had better social safety nets, people wouldn't need to turn to sex work (I mean, unless that's what they really wanted to do and didn't need to, I guess). But in terms of the energy and political will/public support required, I would think creating a legalized sex work outlet--especially in the name of preventing exploitation of minors--would be more feasible than creating that giant all-encompassing social safety net.

[myhipusername]

Yes!! Same with drugs or guns. Banning it won’t make it go away, just makes it go more underground. It’s absolutely backwards that the sex worker ends up getting criminal charges and not the johns buying from them. The part makes me most worried is how victims of violence won’t bother to come forward in fear of getting in trouble themselves. We need sex work to be taken more seriously bc these individuals deserve their basic rights and protection but as they are considered deviant in our society we push them off the to side and pretend they don’t exist. Disturbing to the bone

[laura_luvage]

The current favoured approach of legalisation by sex worker 'supporters' is that of New Zealand which has not prevented exploitation of minors (https://ellyarrow.wordpress.com/2019/07/13/child-trafficking-under-new-zealands-decriminalization/ and https://ellyarrow.wordpress.com/2019/07/13/more-pedocriminal-apologetics-from-the-pro-prostitution-lobby/... )

[slinkydinks]

For sure, legalization of sex work alone will not stop human/child trafficking. They're kind of two separate but intertwined issues. But my point was that outright banning will not solve either problem and have deleterious consequences for sex workers.

Treating sex work like an occupation with worker protections, worker licensing and data collection, and health/safety regulations/monitoring can alleviate some of the adult sex worker exploitation. But for things like child abuse, the perpetrators were never going to go through "legitimate" means anyway, and it requires investigative/law enforcement agencies' efforts to crack down. In the very least, "legitimate" platforms/outlets would not be (unwittingly) party to hosting CP/etc. Or it would be minimized by comparison.

[laura_luvage]

One of the main problems is that many people do say that legalisation will magically solve everything. I don't think banning will work either, I support decrim.

Sex work isn't like other 'work' though, in any other proper regulated industry you would have PPE when coming into contact with bodily fluids for example. It breaks so many of the legal requirements that most Western countries would require for it to be safe for workers. Worker licensing pushes many into working illegally even in countries where prostitution is legal. There's a number of articles explaining why treating it as an occupation wouldn't work in the sense of protections.

Perpertrators will definitely try and appear legitimate though, as I pointed out above (the two articles) organisations that promote legalisation have been found guilty of pimping, trafficking and referring to raped children forced into prostitution as 'child sex workers'.

The main issue is that it isn't an easy issue to fix. Neither prohibition nor legalisation works for a lot of issues.

[slinkydinks]

Sex work isn't like other 'work' though, in any other proper regulated industry you would have PPE when coming into contact with bodily fluids for example. It breaks so many of the legal requirements that most Western countries would require for it to be safe for workers.

While I agree it's definitely not typical, plenty of occupations have high-risk hazards that are specific to their fields. For example, construction, solar turbine engineers, underwater welding, or BSL3+ lab researchers. What that means to me is that non-conventional situations require non-conventional risk mitigation solutions and a certain amount of acknowledgment of risk on behalf of the worker. Because no amount of regulation and oversight is perfect: employees still get sick, injured, maimed, or even die on the job. What we can do is is used data-driven policy to reduce risk and harm. Again, as much as prohibition isn't a solution, neither is a wild, wild west approach

[laura_luvage]

Most of those high-hazards though have protections in place to massively reduce the risk, the closest you could get to in prostitution is requiring condom use which still wouldn't mitigate a lot of risks