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Comment by andy_ppp | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone else here feel the Onlyfans phenomenon is just exploiting sad lonely men who’d be better off leaving the house, doing some exercise and trying to eat healthier and build their IRL social networks?

This whole cam-girls making a fortune this way seems somehow more dishonest than normal porn to me, maybe because it’s about these guys (who can never have relationships with these women) building a personal and intimate relationship as one of her “fans”. I almost see this as being like gambling where people need to acknowledge maybe how powerful sex is and being a technology that should be regulated similarly.

I wonder if nobody calls out this exploitation because society keeps suggesting that all men are privileged, which is definitely not true for at least 60% of the male population.

Anyway I’ll probably get downvoted for this but these double standards have been irritating me for a while :-)

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Society is incredibly gynocentric. Few journalists have any interest in how the dating apps exploit lonely men either (by upselling them boosts, superlikes, gold, platinum, and other memberships that the platforms know won't do much to help the average guy on there).

Male mental health is ignored a lot and it's sad.

> Male mental health is ignored a lot and it's sad.

Until it's dangerous. Some intervention between sad and shooter would serve society well.

I suspect the economics of OnlyFans is similar to the economics of gambling, loot boxes, and heroin. 20% of the users are generating 80% of the revenue. People can form an unhealthy relationship to anything, but there’s probably a lot of people getting real enjoyment out of OnlyFans without it causing personal problems.

Edit: as has been pointed out, I’ve misrepresented the parent comment. It’s late here, my apologies.

There seem to be a lot of assumptions here that I don’t agree with. So perhaps this comment isn’t for me, in which case feel free to ignore the following.

People seem to add so many values into the mix when it comes to sex work. If these old lonely people paid carers to visit them at home, would that be somehow different? Are these old lonely people somehow exploited because there is sex involved? If they cannot make rational choices because sex is involved then I’d say that is the problem.

Also, where does being able to “have” someone figure into any of this? There is no ‘you must be at least this hot to enter’ scale, people get together for all kinds of reasons. Plus, “have” sounds a lot like possession of someone, which I think we all think is bad? Right?

I think there are a lot of values encoded in the above comment, but I also know it wasn’t intended negatively.

1. I didn’t say old, maybe you misread?

2. I think I’m suggesting some men (the most obsessive and biggest spenders?) would use onlyfans instead of having a relationship. I’m not saying it’s right that a proportion of men become obsessive but it happens right?

3. I’d say a lot of men don’t make rational choices about sex.

1. That’s embarrassing, you’re absolutely right

2 & 3. I agree that a lot of men don’t think rationally about sex, and I think that has various societal causes. But I also think that is the problem here, and that possible obsessive OF use is one of the more minor symptoms.

>a lot of men don’t think rationally about sex, and I think that has various societal causes

Really? I don't think so. My understanding is that sexual activity (or lack thereof) affects hormonal balance and that in turn affects mood. To make a very blunt example, if someone isn't getting any and the fake interaction provided by OF makes them feel better, do we really need to look for a societal explanation? If I give you a painful but harmless electric shock and you try desperately to get away, do I need to posit that it's because you've been culturally conditioned to be afraid of electric shocks?

Eating McDonald’s makes you feel better if you’re hungry but it’s not food.

I didn't say it was a good feel-good, just that that it does make them feel good. I don't think anyone can deny that. If buying content on OF made one feel bad nobody would do it.

It's pretty great if you just buy the burgers though

>where does being able to “have” someone figure into any of this?

The GP said "have relationships with these women", not "have these women".

I clearly should have read that comment more closely before getting on my high horse. Apologies.

To be fair I made heavy refinements to it so you may have read a less cogent version, specifically on the relationships thing! Sorry about that!

Ah no problem! :-)

It is at the intersection of pornography and parasocial online relationships (seen in Youtube, Twitch and other influencers), both extremely profitable. Looking at some of the revenue breakdowns the fees to message are just as significant as subscription costs.

On average I don't think it is particularly healthy to replace real social/ sexual relationships with parasocial ones and I think that is the primary use for these services. For the most part they lack real meaningful intimacy which is a significant benefit that real relationships provide. I don't think many who maintain healthy social and romantic relationships are the majority of users of the platform.

Well among other things: way to utterly and entirely ignore the LGBT creators on there who are making money but also creating erotic content for their communities.

It is a correct reading that my comment didn’t make assumptions about those creators or communities. That’s because it was about something else, that I think consuming this kind of porn is particularly bad because it is largely lonely low status men obsessing about and giving money to rich powerful women on OnlyFans. I find it interesting to point out there might be an unfavourable power dynamic here in the opposite way to how it usually occurs within our society.

> rich powerful women on OnlyFans

Are they powerful though? Or rich even? They might have momentary reach like some celebrities and influencers but does that extend to effecting consumer behavior and would advertisers work with them?

I agree with your general premise it's exploiting loneliness and the clients aren't always engaging in these things in a healthy way (see also, parasocial relationships with streamers, etc). But I'm not sure if there is any targeted regulation that would actually achieve harm reduction. Banning it will just send it underground and make it more dangerous for the participants, and harder for people to seek help. Maybe tax it and then re-invest the proceeds into the mental health?

Clearly you don’t use onlyfans lmao. It’s just porn dude.

It's clearly not "just porn" or it would have no value at all since there is unlimited free content. It seems like the entire value the platform provides is some kind of social interaction with the content creators.

hm. i think it is "just porn" with just a few performers making money otherwise too. the novelty of the content makes up for the competition from free sites

I know a few onlyfans girls and I can tell you it is not just porn. A friend even had one subscriber texting her about how he's trying to stop using it because he knows he's getting unhealthily attached

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