The Sex Industry

[princeofcarthage]

Should we be really surprised though, pornhub faced the hammer and so did patreon

[harcha]

what hammer are you talking about though?
of really looked at tumblr and said "yeah, that's a good idea"

[princeofcarthage]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same. Visa and Mastercard suspended transactions for pornhub.

[RefluxSemantic]

Show hidden quotes

I often wonder how differently the world would react to things like this if it was something that primarily affected men's income.

Regardless, the ban isn't that big of a deal. There are plenty of other sites where people can sell their porn. The only people who will really be affected by this are newbie sex workers and consumers.

At this point, society might even mind less when it affects men's jobs.

Thank you for finally talking about the worst kind of discrimination: the kind against me

This is an incorrect interpretation of my take. I'm all for feminism but I honestly doubt that people mind it less when women lose their jobs. If anything, it appears to me that when its primarily women losing their job it's an extra talking point that attracts extra attention. In general, it seems that 'inequality' affecting women gets more attention than other inequality, which is something that I hope will slowly disappear when we fight against all bad things, regardless of whether it affects men, women or other genders. In this view, the eternal emphasis on women as victims is counterproductive. These sex workers are victims not because they are women, but because they are losing their jobs for stupid reasons. Let us focus on that.

Kind of hard to agree with that, when we are literally making zero progress on climate change because male dominated industries will lose jobs.

Are you for real with this statement?

Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but yeah.

To engage in good faith, I'll add that I definitely could've been more specific in my disagreement with your post. Some of it rings true, but my most specific disagreement is with your first 2 sentences.

Well even hyperbolically I think that is a superbly bad take. But I am sure you see that yourself.

[wardyb1]

Show hidden quotes

I often wonder how differently the world would react to things like this if it was something that primarily affected men's income.

Regardless, the ban isn't that big of a deal. There are plenty of other sites where people can sell their porn. The only people who will really be affected by this are newbie sex workers and consumers.

At this point, society might even mind less when it affects men's jobs.

Thank you for finally talking about the worst kind of discrimination: the kind against me

This is an incorrect interpretation of my take. I'm all for feminism but I honestly doubt that people mind it less when women lose their jobs. If anything, it appears to me that when its primarily women losing their job it's an extra talking point that attracts extra attention. In general, it seems that 'inequality' affecting women gets more attention than other inequality, which is something that I hope will slowly disappear when we fight against all bad things, regardless of whether it affects men, women or other genders. In this view, the eternal emphasis on women as victims is counterproductive. These sex workers are victims not because they are women, but because they are losing their jobs for stupid reasons. Let us focus on that.

Kind of hard to agree with that, when we are literally making zero progress on climate change because male dominated industries will lose jobs.

Are you for real with this statement?

Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but yeah.

To engage in good faith, I'll add that I definitely could've been more specific in my disagreement with your post. Some of it rings true, but my most specific disagreement is with your first 2 sentences.

Well even hyperbolically I think that is a superbly bad take. But I am sure you see that yourself.

Feel free to explain to me why it is so superbly bad.

[wardyb1]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same. Visa and Mastercard suspended transactions for pornhub.

At least publicly, MasterCard has come out and said they did not push OF to change any policy positions. Believe them or not but that's the public statement from MC anyway.

[harcha]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same. Visa and Mastercard suspended transactions for pornhub.

but this isn't the case for OF as they use a processor that is used by plenty of NSFW sites. (ccbill)
this also shouldn't be an issue for pornhub because they are a giant umbrella consisting of a huge number of sites and capable of choosing a payment processor on their own terms

[RefluxSemantic]

Show hidden quotes

I often wonder how differently the world would react to things like this if it was something that primarily affected men's income.

Regardless, the ban isn't that big of a deal. There are plenty of other sites where people can sell their porn. The only people who will really be affected by this are newbie sex workers and consumers.

At this point, society might even mind less when it affects men's jobs.

Thank you for finally talking about the worst kind of discrimination: the kind against me

This is an incorrect interpretation of my take. I'm all for feminism but I honestly doubt that people mind it less when women lose their jobs. If anything, it appears to me that when its primarily women losing their job it's an extra talking point that attracts extra attention. In general, it seems that 'inequality' affecting women gets more attention than other inequality, which is something that I hope will slowly disappear when we fight against all bad things, regardless of whether it affects men, women or other genders. In this view, the eternal emphasis on women as victims is counterproductive. These sex workers are victims not because they are women, but because they are losing their jobs for stupid reasons. Let us focus on that.

Kind of hard to agree with that, when we are literally making zero progress on climate change because male dominated industries will lose jobs.

Are you for real with this statement?

Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but yeah.

To engage in good faith, I'll add that I definitely could've been more specific in my disagreement with your post. Some of it rings true, but my most specific disagreement is with your first 2 sentences.

Well even hyperbolically I think that is a superbly bad take. But I am sure you see that yourself.

Feel free to explain to me why it is so superbly bad.

Because it is ludicrous to think that people dont care about global warming because they are so sexist that they think it is specifically bad that jobs are lost in male dominated industries. If you truly think so, Im quite sure you've lost touch with reality.

Not to mention that going green will actually create many jobs in male dominated industries, so even if one were to consider your case somewhat sensible it is also quite wrong.

[wardyb1]

Show hidden quotes

I often wonder how differently the world would react to things like this if it was something that primarily affected men's income.

Regardless, the ban isn't that big of a deal. There are plenty of other sites where people can sell their porn. The only people who will really be affected by this are newbie sex workers and consumers.

At this point, society might even mind less when it affects men's jobs.

Thank you for finally talking about the worst kind of discrimination: the kind against me

This is an incorrect interpretation of my take. I'm all for feminism but I honestly doubt that people mind it less when women lose their jobs. If anything, it appears to me that when its primarily women losing their job it's an extra talking point that attracts extra attention. In general, it seems that 'inequality' affecting women gets more attention than other inequality, which is something that I hope will slowly disappear when we fight against all bad things, regardless of whether it affects men, women or other genders. In this view, the eternal emphasis on women as victims is counterproductive. These sex workers are victims not because they are women, but because they are losing their jobs for stupid reasons. Let us focus on that.

Kind of hard to agree with that, when we are literally making zero progress on climate change because male dominated industries will lose jobs.

Are you for real with this statement?

Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but yeah.

To engage in good faith, I'll add that I definitely could've been more specific in my disagreement with your post. Some of it rings true, but my most specific disagreement is with your first 2 sentences.

Well even hyperbolically I think that is a superbly bad take. But I am sure you see that yourself.

Feel free to explain to me why it is so superbly bad.

Because it is ludicrous to think that people dont care about global warming because they are so sexist that they think it is specifically bad that jobs are lost in male dominated industries. If you truly think so, Im quite sure you've lost touch with reality.

Not to mention that going green will actually create many jobs in male dominated industries, so even if one were to consider your case somewhat sensible it is also quite wrong.

1. People don't care about global warming because fossil fuel companies spend billions and billions of dollars in lobbying and misinformation, convincing governments and people that a) it isn't real, and b) that they will so extremely affected by green energy policies that it isn't worth doing anything about.
2. People aren't so sexist that they think "hey, that's a male dominated industry, I now care for it more". But society definitely has an unconcious bias to male dominated fields and protecting them, and included in that is the older masculine identity that hinges on a stable, respectable job/income. As a result it serves as a much larger "poliitcal" group.
3. Of course going green will create many jobs in male-dominated industries, but that doesn't change the extreme misinformation that is infecting rural, lower economic, lower educated areas convincing them otherwise. All they see is them losing their jobs and getting nothing in return.

[RefluxSemantic]

Your second point is just complete baseless speculations and basically logically boils down to the statement that you're right because you're right.

[princeofcarthage]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same. Visa and Mastercard suspended transactions for pornhub.

At least publicly, MasterCard has come out and said they did not push OF to change any policy positions. Believe them or not but that's the public statement from MC anyway.

Yes but MC is not the only one, and we do not know what they use.

[princeofcarthage]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same. Visa and Mastercard suspended transactions for pornhub.

but this isn't the case for OF as they use a processor that is used by plenty of NSFW sites. (ccbill)
this also shouldn't be an issue for pornhub because they are a giant umbrella consisting of a huge number of sites and capable of choosing a payment processor on their own terms

" OnlyFans said its decision to remove explicit content from the platform was prompted by its, quote, "banking partners and payout providers," unquote, the companies that allow users to pay for their subscriptions."

Yes but if Visa and Mastercard decides their cards won't be used for transactions on Pornhub there is not much any payment processor can do.

[Dolan]

But society definitely has an unconcious bias to male dominated fields and protecting them, and included in that is the older masculine identity that hinges on a stable, respectable job/income. As a result it serves as a much larger "poliitcal" group.

Maybe the reason why that bias exists is because men have always been expected to be the prince on a white horse saving the damsel in distress.
In society, women tend to marry up and men tend to marry down, that's been the case for ages.
So when society secretely expects men to prove their status, how do you think that's even practically possible? By equalising everything? Then no mating game would even take place.
In fact, this might explain why currently Western societies have such a huge percentage of virgins/incels and why so many women complain they can't find men to marry.
Because men are at a historical low in terms of educational enrollment and achievement. What can you expect when you beat this idea into your population that men are evil psychopaths that need to be restrained and pathologised as natural born troublemakers.
But anyway, I don't really care, because the Anglophone West is going down in flames anyway, and this is just part of the rot that eats that culture from the inside.

[XeeleeFlower]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same.

but this isn't the case for OF as they use a processor that is used by plenty of NSFW sites. (ccbill)

It's my understanding that OF was doing their payment processing in house, meaning that they had their own processing via their own banks. The getting rid of explicit porn ("tasteful" nudity is still allowed, btw) is because their banks changed rules. In addition to that, OF is seeking outside funding and investors are hesitant to invest in porn because it doesn't look good on their portfolios. The owner is trying to get external money so he himself can cash out and move on to the next thing. Why would he want to cash out when things are going so well? Well, things aren't exactly going well on OF. I can write a whole thing about it all here if anyone is interested.

[princeofcarthage]

Yes please. I thought OF was doing pretty well with 130 million users and $2 Billion in revenues?

[occamslightsaber]

The payment processors which pressured onlyfans to drop sexually explicity content also had earlier forced patreon to do the same.

but this isn't the case for OF as they use a processor that is used by plenty of NSFW sites. (ccbill)

It's my understanding that OF was doing their payment processing in house, meaning that they had their own processing via their own banks. The getting rid of explicit porn ("tasteful" nudity is still allowed, btw) is because their banks changed rules. In addition to that, OF is seeking outside funding and investors are hesitant to invest in porn because it doesn't look good on their portfolios. The owner is trying to get external money so he himself can cash out and move on to the next thing. Why would he want to cash out when things are going so well? Well, things aren't exactly going well on OF. I can write a whole thing about it all here if anyone is interested.

I wonder how OnlyFans will decide what is “tasteful nudity” or not. Reminded me of this Onion video:

[XeeleeFlower]

When Patreon and Tumblr closed their doors to sex workers, OF quietly became the new go to place. A lot of similar sites were taking a higher cut (40-50%) at the time. OF only took 20%. In addition to the lower percentage cut, OF also offered creators the ability to refer others for a lifetime 5% on all their earnings. Keep that last part in mind. Once upon a time, OF covered all chargebacks and allowed pretty much any content (keep this in mind too). The site itself was slowly growing and had the normal growing pains of a new company. People were, for the most part, pretty satisfied with their OF experience (except for support since that has always been abysmal.) Regardless, things were fine up until a few months after COVID hit.

COVID caused people to lose their jobs. Strippers could no longer work. They started an OF. Several porn stars already had an OF, but those who didn't, also started one. Same with escorts, sugar babies, and all other forms of sex workers who rely upon physical contact. As more and more people joined, it became more and more mainstream. Blogs began to pop up with affiliate links to start an OF (referring someone nets you 5% of their earnings) promising easy money working from home. People who had never done any sort of sex work in their life began to jump in and try to get some of that sweet cash that they just knew was waiting for them. What was once a slowly growing and pretty unknown company became a monolith practically overnight. The site suffered from crashes, things stopped working, everything was a mess, and the actual sex workers who had been using it suffered immensely from the instability. In addition to the instability, OF decided to take away the 5% lifetime referral bonus (red flag) and also began to implement rule changes as to what is and isn't allowed. Their T&C were always a bit vague and companies change their T&C all the time, but OF gave zero warnings that things were changing and many creators were kicked from the site with zero chance to change their content to more "approved" content (another red flag). Another thing that began to occur was chargebacks (another red flag).

Then came the celebrities. I don't remember her name, but when Bella something or Belle, whatever, joined, things changed. There was once zero limit what someone could spend on a creator. Findoms could charge an individual $500 just for a pic of themselves giving their sub a middle finger. When Bella? joined, she sold a "nude" pic for $200. While she was "nude", it wasn't what people were expecting considering that she had covered herself up in it. People paid $200 to get a not really nude photo from someone who sold it as a really nude photo. Many many chargebacks happened because of this. As more people became aware that chargeback were indeed possible, more and more people began to issue chargebacks. You could subscribe to someone for a month, get all their content for whatever they charged, then just get your money back. OF then implemented a new policy that limited how much an individual could spend on the site in a day (another red flag).

A huge thing that banks and payment processors do not like are chargebacks. Chargebacks are a risk for any company, but they are more likely to happen within the sex industry. This is why there are high fees associated with adult entertainment. There are even levels of fees. If content is more soft core, lower fees are charged. Harder and/or more niche content requires higher fees. OF was basically telling their banks that they were hosting soft core content so they were getting away with paying lower fees. As OF got bigger and bigger, their processors were like, "wait a minute, this isn't all soft core and you're also getting hit with way more chargebacks than you should. We need to increase your fee rate and also limit what kind of content you host." OF tried to comply. They put a lot of effort into trying to make their site not synonymous with hardcore porn. But the owner knew all along that the site was fucked. It had gotten way too much attention too quickly. Too many chargebacks. Fees were eating into their 20% cut. Stuff with Pornhub was going down. Things were looking bleak.

With the PH fiasco, payment processors and banks became even more wary. Side note: the entire thing was spearheaded by a bunch of anti sex work religious fucks who don't actually care about helping people, which if you're interested you can read about here and here. Anyway, all sites (finally!) began to be more strict with verifying that all parties are consenting adults. The problem is, when you have a massive site that grew too much too quickly, things will easily slip through cracks. Thus, OF allegedly hosted underaged porn even after they became more strict with verification. Rumblings that an expose was about to be released about this combined with the owner desperately seeking investors so he could cash out caused OF to ban explicit content.

[gibson]

Post nut clarity really fucking them over I guess. The classic live by horny dudes, die by horny dudes.

[XeeleeFlower]

I wonder how OnlyFans will decide what is “tasteful nudity” or not.

I find this to be hilarious tbh

any exhibition of the anus or genitals of any person which is extreme or offensive

[RefluxSemantic]

Isnt the business model and product that is being offered inherently at fault (at least partially)? There's no way in telling whether the specific content is really what it claims to be, or whether the content is actually to the buyer's liking based on vague descriptuons, so a refund policy needs to be in place. But of course the content would generally be worthless, or at least worth much less, after initial consumption. So it is impossible to prevent people abusing a refund policy. I see xeelee claiming all the measures taken to deal with this are 'red flags', but I dont really see what the alternative for this kind of content is.

Furthermore it is of course extremely common for any new business to initially offer more competitive prices, to then slowly increase their prices once they have a huge market share and choke out content creators (or whatever equivalent there is) that way. Unfortunately this isnt really a red flag, its really the way our economy operates.

[XeeleeFlower]

Isnt the business model and product that is being offered inherently at fault (at least partially)? There's no way in telling whether the specific content is really what it claims to be, or whether the content is actually to the buyer's liking based on vague descriptuons, so a refund policy needs to be in place. But of course the content would generally be worthless, or at least worth much less, after initial consumption. So it is impossible to prevent people abusing a refund policy. I see xeelee claiming all the measures taken to deal with this are 'red flags', but I dont really see what the alternative for this kind of content is.

Independent sex workers are typically an ethical group. If someone says that their content is x and will feature y, it will. With OF, newbies claimed all sorts of things about their content and did not deliver because they didn't understand what they were actually doing. This is why refunds were not much of a thing until COVID. People were happy with what they were paying for, but with the new sex workers and new clients, people became unhappy. OF could no longer cover chargebacks because there were too many so it came out of the sex worker's income.

Furthermore it is of course extremely common for any new business to initially offer more competitive prices, to then slowly increase their prices once they have a huge market share and choke out content creators (or whatever equivalent there is) that way. Unfortunately this isnt really a red flag, its really the way our economy operates.

I'm not sure what you mean here because OF still only takes 20%. If you're referring to the 5% referral thing, then this is an absolutely unheard of thing to happen, especially in the sex industry.

[RefluxSemantic]

Isnt the business model and product that is being offered inherently at fault (at least partially)? There's no way in telling whether the specific content is really what it claims to be, or whether the content is actually to the buyer's liking based on vague descriptuons, so a refund policy needs to be in place. But of course the content would generally be worthless, or at least worth much less, after initial consumption. So it is impossible to prevent people abusing a refund policy. I see xeelee claiming all the measures taken to deal with this are 'red flags', but I dont really see what the alternative for this kind of content is.

Independent sex workers are typically an ethical group. If someone says that their content is x and will feature y, it will. With OF, newbies claimed all sorts of things about their content and did not deliver because they didn't understand what they were actually doing. This is why refunds were not much of a thing until COVID. People were happy with what they were paying for, but with the new sex workers and new clients, people became unhappy. OF could no longer cover chargebacks because there were too many so it came out of the sex worker's income.

Furthermore it is of course extremely common for any new business to initially offer more competitive prices, to then slowly increase their prices once they have a huge market share and choke out content creators (or whatever equivalent there is) that way. Unfortunately this isnt really a red flag, its really the way our economy operates.

I'm not sure what you mean here because OF still only takes 20%. If you're referring to the 5% referral thing, then this is an absolutely unheard of thing to happen, especially in the sex industry.

To the first point I have some remarks:
- Generalizing like that is not very productive. Surely there are both ethical and unethical content creators, just like there are humans that are nice and humans that are not. I dont think you can generalize away the fact that some of the content creators will effectively scam consumers. Similar measures are taken with ebay's refund policy and even that policy is somewhat flawed. The reality is that a consumer has little garantuee that the seller is trustworthy, and thus platforms implement measures to give them some more confidence in making a purchase. Even if the 'scammers' are a minority, they still exist and make such a policy almost necessary.

Secondly, I believe that at least some countries require some form of refund policy by law (eg in Dutch law I am allowed to return and refund anything I buy online up to 14 days) which would further complicate matters.

All in all, in many ways I wonder if the business model is viable at all without taking the actions that they took. And if it is, they would still take actions that screw over content creators just like how delivery services screw over restaurants and consumers with their ridiculous fees.

[harcha]

I think Jerom has a good point. At least those are the expected growing pains. It was a good platform for creators when it was small, but when it got big, it got more attention from everyone - law enforcement, investors, bad actors like scammers or even abusers, etc.

[Cometk]

Isnt the business model and product that is being offered inherently at fault (at least partially)? There's no way in telling whether the specific content is really what it claims to be, or whether the content is actually to the buyer's liking based on vague descriptuons, so a refund policy needs to be in place. But of course the content would generally be worthless, or at least worth much less, after initial consumption. So it is impossible to prevent people abusing a refund policy. I see xeelee claiming all the measures taken to deal with this are 'red flags', but I dont really see what the alternative for this kind of content is.

Independent sex workers are typically an ethical group.

- Generalizing like that is not very productive. Surely there are both ethical and unethical content creators, just like there are humans that are nice and humans that are not.

aren't you just generalizing more?

[XeeleeFlower]

Sigh. As someone whose friends outside of esoc are 90% sex workers, I think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this kind of stuff.