Statements on OnlyFans deplatforming legal sex work

For immediate release: Thursday, August 19, 2021
Press contact: press@fightforthefuture.org

The following statement is attributable to Lia Holland (she/they), Campaigns & Communications Director at Fight for the Future.

“OnlyFans deplatforming legal sex work is a perfect example of why we need an Internet with less choke-points for censorship.

Big Banks and payment processors should never be the arbiters of who or what can exist online, and it’s disturbing that in the year 2021 these behemoth monopolies are still throwing their weight around to censor consensual, legal, online self expression. No corporation should be able to arbitrarily decide where and how we are able to spend our money, but that’s exactly what’s happening here.

OnlyFans is the latest to cave in a long, hypocritical tradition of prioritizing the moral concerns of major financial institutions by deplatforming the very people responsible for the website’s success: sex workers. Banning sexual content is not going to make anyone safer—in fact, it will put sex workers in harm’s way by eliminating a safer revenue stream for a lot of marginalized folks. It is laughable that OnlyFans would call this an “inclusive” move when it literally excludes the primary marginalized community that has been using their services to generate safer, sustainable income since its inception.”

The following statement is attributable to Cathy Reisenwitz (she/her) Writer, Sex and the State, and OnlyFans creator.

“​​OnlyFans was the most empowering way for adult creators to connect with our audience. I’ve benefited tremendously from OF personally. But at the end of the day I’ll be fine. I can’t say that about sex workers who depended on OF. Many of them are going to have to turn to in-person sex work, made all the more dangerous by SESTA/FOSTA, to make ends meet. I’m angry our deeply sex-negative, whorephobic society allows lying evangelicals and SWERFs to dictate the limits of our freedom of speech and put sex workers’ lives and livelihoods in jeopardy for no benefit to anyone. Every problem, from CSAM to trafficking, that banning porn is supposed to solve is actually exacerbated by stigmatizing and criminalizing online porn.”