ShortHand: E-Pimping – Exploitation & Abuse on OnlyFans

**Hannah Maguire** (0:13)
Since the dawn of time, the business of sex work has attracted weasely woman haters looking for a profit. Procurers, panders, pimps, whatever you want to call the go-betweens for Hawley Johns and Ladies of the Night, these delightful creatures have always been there to claim a cut of sex workers' hard-earned money, and coercion and violence are never far away. When OnlyFans arrived in 2016, it promised a new era of sex work. For what felt like the first time, sex workers had total creative and financial control. But it wasn't long for a new breed of money-grubbing middlemen to emerge, proving without a doubt that wherever there is money to be made from women's boobies, there will be men who will do whatever it takes to steal a cut. And it doesn't stop at shady financial dealings. We're talking blackmail, threats, and even acts of brutal violence for stepping outside of the rules.
Welcome to the horrifying new frontier in digital exploitation.
E-pimping. This is the shorthand.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:13)
When OnlyFans first came out 10 years ago, it was marketed as a subscription platform, one where popular content creators could sell photos and video content to paying fans. And at first, there was nothing implicitly sexual about it.

**Hannah Maguire** (1:27)
Do you know who the highest earner on OnlyFans is?

**Suruthi Bala** (1:30)
No.

**Hannah Maguire** (1:31)
It's Cardi B.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:32)
Oh.

**Hannah Maguire** (1:33)
And she doesn't post her boobies or nothing. It's just like behind-the-scenes stuff.
We also have been reached out to buy OnlyFans several times. They're trying to poach us off Patreon.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:44)
Oh, I see.

**Hannah Maguire** (1:46)
That has died down a bit though.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:50)
I'm still planning my foot, Wiki. Don't worry about it. Except I've got this really savage tan line on my feet right now from the summer, and it just looks like my feet are dirty all the time, and there's not much I can do about it.
So yeah, it wasn't really meant to be sexual at first. But during the pandemic, when everyone was sad, lonely, and a bit horny, that all changed. And OnlyFans offered a more intimate alternative to old hat pornography. Here, fans could interact with their favourite sexy creators one-on-one, through DMs and custom pay-per-view content. The real product being sold on OnlyFans wasn't just smut. It was relationships. Or at least the simulation of that.
And for many, it totally democratised the industry. OnlyFans creators could operate from the safety of their own homes, and technically didn't have to do anything that they weren't comfortable doing. With porn studios, production companies, and pimps eliminated from the equation, creators had unprecedented control over their content and their earnings. They could set their own prices and build their own brands, whatever that looked like, whether it was niche fetish content or digital girlfriend experiences.

**Hannah Maguire** (3:03)
But as soon as it became clear how much money was flowing on OnlyFans, a certain male-dominated sphere of the internet decided that they wanted a slice of pie. And thus, OnlyFans' managers or OFMs were born. Like any other type of talent manager, OFMs offered to help scale up their clients' brands and grow their fan bases in exchange for a fat chunk of commission.
And as a business idea, it kind of makes sense. OnlyFans thrives on access.
The more fans a creator has, the more demanding it is to stay on top of all the personalized interactions that bring in the real earnings. Things like sending customized pay-per-view content and daily messages. So in addition to growing a creator's fan base through social media, managers help keep the loyal fans all horned up and engaged by selling them pricey pay-per-view items. That's essentially sexting. OnlyFans management agencies employ chatters to ghost write the messages posing as the creator writing to her fans. And that might sound a bit surreal, but when you consider how an OnlyFans creator with thousands of dedicated subscribers could actually manage to exchange messages with each fan every day, now you know that they don't.

**Suruthi Bala** (4:17)
That all sounds fine as a business prospect. Plenty of creators do have legitimate dealings with agencies and make a shit ton of money thanks to them. But not all OnlyFans managers are created equal. The platform's total lack of regulation on third-party involvement means any old loser can become an OnlyFans manager.
And with masculinity influencers peddling how-to guides codifying exploitation and deception into the OFM business model, the industry is crawling with predators.

**Hannah Maguire** (4:47)
It's also exactly what happened with porn in the 90s. I read Jenna Jameson's autobiography years ago.
But one of the things that I've always remembered from it is she draws a diagram of what a porn star's boyfriend slash manager, which is what they always become, looks like. And it's exactly the same thing.