By Sarah Davies (she/her)
I would like to pay my respects to the owners of the Yugambeh and Kombumerri land, upon which I live, work, study and write. I acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded, that I actively benefit from this, and that there are many battles still faced today by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. I will never fully understand the colonial impacts that are still felt so strongly today, but I stand with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in their ongoing struggle for justice and sovereignty. Always was, always will be.
Disclaimer: I am not a sex worker, nor am I an expert in this field of work. I will therefore not be trying to explain how sex workers feel, or speak for anyone in that community. I am, however, trying to bring attention to the damage that can be inflicted when we, as feminists, do not include sex workers in our feminism and activism, as well as when we do not think critically about, or hold accountable, celebrities or highly influential people who jump on trends. I hope to use the privilege I hold to amplify the voices of the sex workers who have already spoken on this issue. OWP as an organisation stands strongly behind its value of supporting the labour rights of sex workers as workers, and supporting inclusionary action such as decriminalising sex work, and safe workplaces for sex workers.
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If you don’t follow a lot of sex workers on social media, you may have missed the whole Bella-Thorne-is-actively-ruining-lives thing. Let me bring you up to speed.
COVID-19 has resulted in the shutdown of many clubs and brothels. It has also restricted the ability and increased the danger for sex workers to do their job. Due to this, OnlyFans has been a saving grace. OF is a page where you can have paid subscribers to your channel – kind of like YouTube, where you can then upload videos or photos of yourself, and get paid for it. You can upload any content, including writing, fitness training, art, etc. and it has become extremely popular with sex workers. Basically, sex workers can monetise their influence, by uploading content behind a paywall, and also receive tips. This is an extremely safe way for sex workers to work during COVID, and still receive enough money to pay their rent, buy food and live.
However.
As OF is increasing in popularity, and sex work is being included in movies like Hustlers, as well as music videos, it has become almost trendy to be seen as a sex worker. This creates an issue for actual sex workers, who rely on the money their work brings in to provide for themselves and their families. And, to be honest, even if this money wasn’t absolutely critical, they are the one who have put the effort in, spent years honing their craft and own abilities, and don’t deserve to have their work gentrified.
*Sex work can include stripping, as well as full-service sex work, which includes sexual acts or intercourse.
@prettyboygirl has incredible content about the ethical way to rent a strip club for celebrities who wish to use one for filming a music video or television series/film, which includes hiring and paying the dancers that already work there, ensuring everyone is compensated for the time the club is shut down for filming, getting to know the sex workers that work there, ensuring they ACTUALLY see the money that is being paid (instead of it ending up in the manager’s/owner’s pockets), and ensuring all the workers are adequately tipped. Please also see the references at the end of this piece for more people who engage in sex work to follow and learn from.
So, sex work is becoming trendy to include in music videos, and OF is blowing up.
Enter Bella Thorne.
Source: instagram @bellathorne
Bella recently announced that she was creating an OF account, causing outrage within the sex worker community. If this confuses you, think about how sex workers have to constantly walk the thin line between promoting their work and their OF site on other social media, while being constantly censored and/or deleted, while facing the stigma that still exists with sex work, while continuing to create enough content to live, while sometimes still learning new ways to keep their audience engaged, while doing their own filming or photos, while worrying about the impact COVID is having, while also sometimes working or studying or raising a family. According to @stopspeakingforus, sex workers can’t have their OF links in their Instagram bio, or even discuss sex work without using terms like ‘swork’, ‘s*x work’, etc. so the algorithms don’t find them and shut them down. Meanwhile, Bella can post suggestive videos, as well as have her OF site linked.
Classism much, Instagram?
On top of this, within 24 hours, Bella’s OF had raked in over USD $1million. Whatever, she’s a celebrity, people care.
HOWEVER.
As @erikaheidewald said in a series of Tweets, Bella promoted nude PPV (pay per view) photos, which caused many people to pay USD $200 on top of their subscription fee to see said nude photo. When subscribers opened it, however, it was a lingerie photo. Therefore, these people had been scammed. OF has a policy where you can get a refund if you get scammed. All of a sudden, thousands of people are asking for their money back, and because OF has processing costs they have to pay that comes out of this, they lose money. In order to prevent this happening again, OF then changed their policy, so now the maximum price someone can pay for a PPV message is USD $50, the maximum a tip can be is USD $100 (when it used to be limitless) and the money you make off OF now has a 30-day pending period, when it was previously a week.
*While Bella claimed the image of her site promoting nude photos was fake, and she didn’t make this promise, OF changed the policy within days of her earning her first USD $1million, and many users of OF have come forward claiming they were promised nude photos. OF has also denied this is because of Bella, and due to backlash, now say they will continue to review the limits in place.
Basically, instead of charging USD $200 for a more explicit photo, you can now only charge USD $50. Then OF takes 20% of that, and then taxes take a little more. Instead of getting around USD $150 for each PPV, you now get around USD $30.
This is all because Bella Thorne – who holds the privilege of being white, cis-gendered, and socio-economically stable, as well as others – allegedly promised people a nude photo and didn’t deliver. She didn’t HAVE to promote nudity, her and her team could have promoted anything and people still would have paid.
Now, hundreds of thousands of sex workers are getting about 85% less than they used to for the same thing, during a pandemic, amidst the classism and discrimination they still face every day.
This is all information I have learnt about through sex workers I follow on social media. While news outlets are now reporting on this, because Bella apologised (is it an apology, though?), sex workers have been discussing this for days.
For me, I had to acknowledge that, had I not followed people who engage in sex work and learnt about this issue FROM THEM, I might have sat back and thought, ‘Well done, Bella, so great of you to bring awareness to the stigma sex workers face, and try to make it more mainstream’. That line of thinking is dangerous, puts myself in a superior category (saviour) and because I wouldn’t have known the actual damage it was doing to the income of sex workers, I would probably have praised her. Now, because I do follow sex workers, and am aware, I was able make a more informed opinion – not that my opinion is needed in this instance. However, I am now not contributing to the ongoing stigmatisation of sex work, and can also inform others.
This is why it is important to learn FROM those who are directly affected by an issue, instead of ABOUT them from someone else. This can apply to anything, btw.
Now, regardless of whether Bella was the reason OF changed their policy, there still exists the problem of her feeling entitled enough to insert herself where she was not needed, showing a whole lot of self-centring, and ending up having hurt people she claimed to be helping in the first place. She also claimed to be making a movie about sex work, despite never having been an actual sex worker in the first place – she is a celebrity, would never rely on that money, had teams of make-up artists, hair stylists and wardrobe assistants, and would only ever experience a highly-glamourised version of sex work.
Bella is just the most recent example of people engaging in the gentrification of areas of work like sex work, where those involved are ignored, marginalised or overlooked. She may have had good intentions, but intentions don’t matter. She should have done her research, spoken to sex workers and made an informed decision, instead of assuming whatever she did was going to help. This is not a call to ‘cancel’ Bella. Instead, hopefully, it is a way we can instead review the mistakes that have been made, ensure that we, as feminists, don’t make the same mistakes, and learn from this situation. In doing so, we also need to acknowledge that simply learning from this, instead of directly feeling the effects, is a privilege in and of itself.
Here’s hoping Bella redistributes the millions she earned back into the sex worker community, and has listened to the many valid criticisms she’s faced.
To follow:
Please remember these pages are created as safe spaces for those who engage in sex work, and not for those of us who do not, to comment, or voice opinions on topics we know very little about. If you are financially able, and learn from these voices, please consider paying for your education via Patreon/PayPal, etc.