The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks
There&#x27;s this common meme of blaming anti-sex-work sentiment on some bloc of US Evangelicals who secretly rule the Western economy and politics. Because surely, it couldn&#x27;t be <i>the market</i> speaking out against adult material?<p>Here&#x27;s an alternative hypothesis: between those anti-sex fundamentalist religious groups (Christian or otherwise) and people who absolutely love everything sex-related, there&#x27;s the <i>vast majority</i> of people who find the whole topic uncomfortable to a large degree. Whether they themselves like porn or not (or like, but feel guilty about it[0]), whether they make use of various meatspace sex services or not, they don&#x27;t like being reminded of it. They don&#x27;t like sex being mixed with other areas of life. They might especially not want <i>their kids</i> to be exposed to porn, or to become sex workers.<p>The market caters to majority case. <i>Advertisers</i>, especially, cater to majority. In such hypothetical world (which I posit might just be the real one), the market itself will exert pressure against overt pornography and sex work, and anything that associates itself with it.<p>So, perhaps, there&#x27;s no conspiracy in play - maybe it&#x27;s just the majority getting the things to how they want them to be.<p>(It&#x27;s supposed to be good, right? When some people here complain that technology is increasingly user-hostile and exploitative, there&#x27;s no shortage of arguments saying it&#x27;s not conspiracy, it&#x27;s just the market catering for majority use case. So which way is it?)<p>--<p>EDIT: Three more thoughts.<p>1) Of course, the degree of discomfort with sex topics is a spectrum. But on this spectrum, sex work and hardcore pornography are <i>one of the extremes</i>, not the middle point. Thus, the majority being uncomfortable shouldn&#x27;t be a surprising concept.<p>2) I suspect the same thing happens with drugs. There&#x27;s people who are strongly anti-drug, often on religious basis. Then there&#x27;s people who are for everyone (responsibly) ingesting whatever they want. But in between, there is - in my experience - the majority who&#x27;s afraid. Afraid of health effects, afraid of associations with organized crime, afraid of being shunned by others. And so, even legally selling mind-altering substances (other than alcohol and cigarettes, which have been normalized over centuries) faces the same challenges as sex businesses.<p>3) One can say it&#x27;s religion all way down. Perhaps. Atheism as a cultural phenomenon is a very new thing in the history of humanity. The way people think about sexuality carries thousands of years of baggage. It&#x27;s not going to change overnight, or over investment round, or over election cycle. So I don&#x27;t think you can fix the problems faced by sex workers by telling Visa or Mastercard to chill out.<p>--<p>[0] - There&#x27;s no shortage of pundits - secular, religious, and religious pretending to be scientific - that make careers out of convincing people that porn is bad for you.