Public Perceptions of Sex Work are Changing, but that Doesn't Mean Sex Workers are Safe

“Rather than stand up for the stigmatized and vulnerable, OnlyFans made the decision to lose out on millions, possibly billions in revenue to bow to the pressures of the conservative minority, and to reinforce negative stereotypes about the sex work industry, conflating it with trafficking and child abuse rather than doing the basic work to support and understand the members of the industry they were serving. ”

In the past two weeks, we've seen one of the biggest names in digital sex work, OnlyFans, first vow that they were going to remove all adult explicit content from the site, and then after a week of getting butt-fucked by the press, by the hundreds of thousands of sex workers who they were ostensibly and suddenly forcing out of work in the middle of a pandemic, and by the millions of subscribers and members of the public who think sex work is work, OnlyFans then magically reversed their ban, having miraculously figured out a way to make their bank/payment processors work after all.

It was a cop out that everyone saw from a mile away. OnlyFans had long been hinting that they wanted to distance themselves from the very people that the majority of their profit comes from (99% of their top earners are sex workers) because of the stigma of being part of the adult industry. However, OnlyFans would be nothing without the sex workers who use it, and most importantly, the sex workers who started creating content on it during the pandemic, which established OnlyFans as one of the giants of the digital sex world industry. However, it was clear from the start that they were uncomfortable with the sex workers who used the platform, often banning or freezing accounts with little explanation given, and last year when Bella Thorne infamously started an OnlyFans account only to back out and explain it all away as some sort of joke or flimsy attempt to support sex workers, OnlyFans used it as an opportunity to change their terms to make it harder for sex workers to get paid out; which stymied the income of thousands. With the soft launch of their app earlier this year, OnlyFans saw the stringent ToS of the iOS store as a chance to once and for all get rid of those pesky sex workers that they made their fortune on. (Don't worry Apple, we haven't forgotten you and what you did to Tumblr and all the other apps like it. Your Draconian approach to gentrifying the internet via our phones won't work forever).

Any idiot with half a brain could've told you that yanking the rug out from under your biggest earners was not only a bad business move for your company, but that turning out thousands of vulnerable people and removing their sole source of income in the middle of a global pandemic was, ummm, not a good look. OnlyFans went from being a platform in which sex workers could reclaim economic independence and power to being reviled as a money-grabbing, selfish and cruel website that never cared about anyone but their own bottom line. And that was definitely true. In statements following up their initial announcement, they explained that the move was an economic one, motivated by how difficult it is to get banks and other financial entities to fund and process sex work payments/subscriptions. It's not impossible though, on Pornhub you can pay for premium content, give creators tips, subscribe to channels and all of that. Chaturbate, ManyVids, and other contemporaries of OnlyFans also show that it's not impossible to support and host adult content on your site. It took less than a week for news sources to find out that OnlyFans was just using money as a cheap excuse to cover up the fact that they didn't want to stand up against pressure from anti-porn groups that were campaigning against OnlyFans to take down adult content because "OnlyFans is host to the most trafficking of anywhere on the internet" (an unverified and completely false claim). Rather than stand up for the stigmatized and vulnerable, OnlyFans made the decision to lose out on millions, possibly billions in revenue to bow to the pressures of the conservative minority, and to reinforce negative stereotypes about the sex work industry, conflating it with trafficking and child abuse rather than doing the basic work to support and understand the members of the industry they were serving.

In the year of our Lord and of Covid variant delta 2021 however, public perceptions about sex work have changed. Increased exposure to sex workers through social media and news sites have led more people to understand that sex work is work, and that sex workers are just like us, people who are trying to eke out a living despite the iron hand of capitalism trying to crush us all. There is more understanding that sex work does not equal sex trafficking, and that for many, turning the patriarchal structures of objectification and sexualization into something empowering and economically viable can be very healing. The reaction to OnlyFans' decision to boot sex workers was swift and harsh. Thousands of people publicly condemned the company for betraying the very people who made them such a successful company in the first place, and after merely a week, OnlyFans was forced to abruptly turn around and change their mind. Many saw it as a victory, seeing it as David defeating Goliath, but by no means does it mean that sex workers are safe.

Many sex workers on Twitter complained that within the week of uncertainty, they lost hundreds, if not thousands of subscribers, costing them a significant amount of income. The abruptness with which OnlyFans magically found ways to process payments/deal with banking systems proved that it was never an insurmountable problem, just an inconvenient one. And OnlyFans has still not promised to never ban sex workers from the platform. They've 'suspended' the exodus, but by no means cancelled it. Sex workers online have been telling one another to move to other platforms, to publish their content upon multiple websites so that the cancellation of one platform isn't as devastating, and finally to try to offload their content entirely, and to move back to private websites by which subscribers can reach them personally. They are surviving the turmoil, not because OnlyFans is 'saving' them, but because sex workers are resourceful, resilient, and ever-determined to not be erased.

Accountability is important. Accountability and public shaming forced OnlyFans to reverse their decision on banning explicit content. But that doesn't mean that sex workers are safe. It doesn't mean that we've built a world that thinks about their needs, that offers them protection from predators or the religious conservatives who wish they didn't exist. Sex workers are still as marginalized and uncertain as ever, forced to continue using platforms like OnlyFans that they know will drop them at any moment. So while the OnlyFans reversal is a small victory, it is by no means a permanent change. We still need to be vocal and persistent, that sex work is not something that will go away or disappear or turn its head in embarrassment, but it is an intrinsic and important profession, one that carries its own risks, and that by consistently normalizing it can we really help protect and support sex workers.

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The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.

Thank You Furry Much

Last weekend, my best friend visited me in the city by the bay. It was the first time she had come to see me since I moved her, and it was nice. It's been a long time since we had spent this much time together, just the two of us, and I was looking forward to it. Even though we are nothing alike, we are also so similar that we've been mistaken for sisters before. So don't let anyone ever tell you that girls aren't complicated.

Saturday morning we were at the farmers market looking for ingredients to make a blue cheese tomato cobbler because we're gentrified dickheads who love to recycle and support local businesses, like the good ex-Christians we are. And while we took a break in the shade watching the cool boys on skate boards that we used to think were too old for us and now looked way too young, a literal parade of fucking furries walked past. There were foxes and mice and bunnies and a dragon, there were animals we didn't recognize, and some that we were pretty sure Disney had not given the license to recreate. It was great. Many a tail was being carefully held to avoid it being dragged along the dirty waterfront, and the faces of each character, frozen in a look of joy or blissful eagerness, made me feel like I was in a baseball stadium getting ready for a t shirt cannon.

Obviously, we immediately began speculating about whether *all* of the costumes were present.... i.e., if you fucked a furry would it be a human dick or a animal one? If a deer had a vulva, would it be au natural, and did that mean it bright pink fur? Our jokes immediately went to sex because that's what culture has grasped first and foremost; that furries were just people who wanted to be animals, primarily so they could fuck other animals.

But later that weekend I did a deep dive into the world of furries; visited some chatrooms, stalked some websites. Primarily, to be totally honest, it was out of a sexual curiosity. Out of all the kink and sex parties I've ever been to, I had never seen a single furry. Are furries part of the kink community, or were they something else all on their own? When I started to do my research, I found out they were a community all of their own; that people had been doing this since the 70s (and some even before that) and that it was so much more than just fucking someone in a mascot costume. People in the furry community carefully cultivate 'fursonas' which are animal figures or personas. They often have very specific avatars and personalities, and furries often make very complex and engaged stories surrounding their fursonas, and there's a LOT of furry art online. A LOT. Many furries make their own fursuits/costumes, which was often incredibly detailed and even include moving parts like swishing tails, blinking eyes, or twitching ears. A lot of furries participate in super active online chat rooms and often go to conventions. There are a lot of furry communities all over the world where people can share their interests in safe spaces, and play out being their fursonas without judgement.

When we don't understand something, we feel like we have license to make fun of it. We find ways to other it, to make it more maligned than it needs to be. We shame people for pursuing their interests, because they are not our interests. We often use sex to achieve these means, because sex is already such a shame-filled and taboo topic in our society. So many of us had crushes on characters in the Lion King, or Robinhood, or any other countless Disney movies. We call ourselves brave as lions, hungry as bears, lazy as house cats. We have no problem anthropomorphizing animals by calling them our fur children, and we have no problem acting ourselves like animals. We just have a problem with people who love it more than us, because we feel uncomfortable around things we don't understand, or don't identify with. So here's to the gorgeous furries of San Francisco, the confurence goers who see themselves as foxes or mice or lions or more. Here's to you guys living your best lives; I see you now, and I'm so happy that you've found a passion that makes you feel happy, and that makes you feel like you belong. Our planet may be a small one, but there's enough room at the table for everyone to have a seat.

What Does Love Need?

I’ve been having some hard conversations with my primary partner last week. The wounds are still raw, with emotion still oozing out painfully with every breath.

The last time I saw him was in February 2020 in New York. We took the subway, went to bars, partied in a huge warehouse with hundreds of strangers, and in general acted like the virus that was currently exploding across China wasn’t going to affect us. I remember us seeing a man in a full hazmat suit sitting on the subway and we laughed to ourselves, thinking man, this guy is being a bit paranoid isn’t he?

I remember the moment I got into the cab that would take me to the Penn Station. I kissed him and hugged him and told him I would see him soon. We had our wedding to look forward to in May, a honeymoon in Japan in July, and countless other plans. It was going to be a month at most until I saw him again, just how it’s always been. But February 2020 was fifteen months ago, and I haven’t seen him once, outside of zoom, the occasional selfie, and the plethora of childhood photos that his parents sent me as a funny Christmas present.

Despite running a magazine about sex and culture, and despite being someone who constantly talks and thinks about sex, I realized recently that it had been months since we had sent each other big compliments or risqué texts, months since we had tried to have a digital movie night or a fun zoom dinner. It was horrifying for me, and I was so disappointed in him and in myself. How did we get to the point where we weren’t caring for each other in such basic ways?

It’s easy, we were spending our time just trying to survive. The pandemic made it almost impossible for anyone to think of anything else besides where to get pasta or toilet paper. We became occupied with the immediate in front of our faces, in the present moment of every day as we saw death tolls rising, and in the intimate details of our apartments; the only thing that was keeping us safe from a world that felt very dangerous and very real.

Recently, we’ve started a process of conscious uncoupling, even though that’s a term that both of us loathe. It is trying to figure out how to break up with someone you still love tenderly, who didn’t cheat on you, who didn’t start snoring or stop cleaning up after themselves. It’s made me ask a lot of questions about what relationships need to survive. Because ours survived for so long without sex or even physical proximity. Hell, I would’ve given a lot just to be on the same continent as him. It’s forced me to rely on conversation as the sole means of emotional connection, and in so many ways we are realizing that we needed more than that.

It’s in the end of relationships that you often think about defeat; about failures to launch and about the embarrassment and shame and anger of feeling; everyone else is getting it right, so why didn’t you? We are going through that though, with all the tears and resentment that go with that. Why can’t we make it a little longer? Push a little harder, wait for a little bit more? But I think sometimes when we push love, love pushes back. It’s understanding that you’re not entitled to someone’s love and attention, and that learning to appreciate it daily will go a long way in supporting them when they can’t always give it to you. Love is sometimes not demanding more from someone, but being satisfied when you get less.

Just Because I’m Slutty Doesn’t Mean I Want to Fuck You

Artwork by Coral Black

“Was I, a feminist blogger who writes mainly about sex and consent, someone who had just sexually harassed one of my friends?”

I love a hibernating flirtation. While I am flirtatious by default, I am respectful in my friend groups to always maintain a respectability. I'm Sense and Sensibility, but with just a bit of ankle showing, and a fire Instagram full of thirst traps. I post sexual content sometimes because I'm a sexual person. I post feminist content because I'm a feminist. I post terrible dog photos because my dog is very dark brown, and also very fast. All of these things I love about myself, but sometimes it leaves me vulnerable.

A couple of weeks ago a friend dmed me. Let’s call him Joe. We had talked previously about wiring in his new house and about getting his cats to start an OnlyFans (OnlyFelines) and whatnot. But this time it was different. This time he led with "would you let me touch your butt." Which was great. I love flirting. And consent. I love when men ask me questions. We teased each other, and he talked about his kinks. We continued the conversation on Signal because it's encrypted and hey, we aren't fucking idiots. Joe sent me a couple of dick pics. He asked me where I wanted him to come. It was sensual and playful and all consensual play in early January between two adult friends. I thought it was chill, until a couple of days ago when I sent him a playful video.

It was set to disappear after one viewing on Instagram, and he told me after viewing it that maybe we should keep it halal, since we were in the same friend group. That's totally fine. However, Joe then went on to tell me that he had been drunk and high a couple of weeks ago when he had first messaged me and that the next morning, he had read over the text messages and realized he had gone too far. At no point did he ever say that to me, and so I had just continued flirting along and thinking things were cool. I felt like a fool for thinking that we were on the same page, and then an asshole, for flirting with someone who didn't feel comfortable with the situation. I hadn't asked the next day about consent because I hadn't known that he was drunk. Was I, a feminist blogger who writes mainly about sex and consent, someone who had just sexually harassed one of my friends?

I worried enough to talk about the situation with my best friend, who wrinkled her eyebrows when I told her the whole story. "Doesn't he have a girlfriend?" was her first question.

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. I had had no idea that Joe was in a relationship. I quickly pulled up his Instagram to see if I had missed the signs, if I had willfully not noticed them, but there was nothing. No vacation photos, no tags, nothing. I was horrified nonetheless and reached out to a mutual friend for confirmation, and the answer was yes. I was in disbelief. He had made me feel like it was me being weird, but really, he was the one who was in a relationship, and who had engaged in our interaction willingly, and deceitfully. I confronted him about it, and he told me that he knew that I hadn't known he was in a relationship, and he had taken advantage of it. I confirmed it with a different friend (who is male) who then told me that "he didn't want to excuse his behavior, but maybe they had been in a rough patch of their relationship, and that Joe had been really stressed about the election."

Time for me to unhinge my jaw and swallow some men whole.

“I was flushed with anger and grief, that I put myself out there as a sexual person because I like sex, but it gets used to do harm towards other people.”

We were ALL stressed about the election. I haven't seen my primary partner in a year due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. But I haven't been a dick about it. I felt disappointed, and angry. I felt awful for his girlfriend, and outraged on her behalf. I was angry that he never told me that he had a girlfriend, and that even when apologizing for taking it too far and making it too sexual, he never mentioned her. Not only that, but I was flushed with anger and grief, that I put myself out there as a sexual person because I like sex, but it gets used to do harm towards other people. I realized that while men fought for the sexual revolution and for the right for women to have more promiscuous sex, it wasn't really for women to be liberated. Here I am, a confident woman in the 21st century, and I keep meeting dickheads to whom consensual, safe, and clearly communicated sexual relationships are not enough for them. For them, the thrill is that it's not consensual. For them, the thrill is exploiting women's sexuality for their own benefit.

I'm tired of feeling like if I'm being sexual, I will get unsolicited dick pics on the internet all day and night. I'm tired of feeling like if I'm being prudish, that I will get mocked, pressured, or teased for not giving in to the whims of men. No matter what I do, it's somehow not the correct move, and that has nothing to do with my sexuality and everything to do with men wanting dominance and power. Men don’t want easy access to sex. They want to have power over women in sexual situations.

“I am demanding more from the men in my life, asking them the ways they’ve planned to take care of me, and how they intend to respect my boundaries, and how they will communicate with me. I am demanding excellence, and respect, both for myself and for my fellow women. ”

How do we move past this power struggle though? These were supposed to be my FRIENDS. These were men who prided themselves on being knowledgeable about consent, about being protective and mindful of misogyny, of patriarchal structures and deep rooted sexism. With friends like these, who needs enemies. As I've always said, women need to treat dating like a team sport. Met a fun man? Invite him to meet all your friends and have them all give you feedback on whether they felt comfortable around him. Know a coworker who once hooked up with the guy your roommate matched with on Bumble? Ask for a report. Now, I’m going to start calling out bad behavior in my friend groups and start asking them to be accountable for it. I am no longer going to try and protect shitty men. We are stronger when we band together, when we can create accountability and call men out on the harm they are doing. It also starts with unlearning the harmful belief that we must protect male feelings above our own. I used to worry that I would blow someone's life up when I called them out on their bad behavior. Now I know that it is not my responsibility to care for them. I told Joe that he had to tell his girlfriend about what happened, otherwise I would tell her myself, and I would bring screenshots. I called my other friend out for making stupid excuses on Joe’s behalf for why he had cheated on his girlfriend with me. I am demanding more from the men in my life, asking them the ways they've planned to take care of me, and how they intend to respect my boundaries, and how they will communicate with me. I am demanding excellence, and respect, both for myself and for my fellow women.

I am going to keep my insta DMs open for now, because I don't want to feel like I've been shamed into abstinence or that I am self-censoring because men have abused the privilege of my feed. But I am going to write about this, and blare it loudly across my platforms. I am going to put a head on a pike outside my inbox as a warning. Yes, I am sexual. I may show my ankles and maybe even my tits and ass. But I still deserve respect, and honesty, and I will no longer settle for anything less.

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The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.

Artwork by Coral Black. Coral received her BA from Western Washington University in fine arts and interdisciplinary studies. She specializes in figurative and landscape oils, photography, and block printing, all with an emphasis on texture. When she’s not in her studio, Black is—who is she kidding, she's always in her studio. Black lives with her family in the PNW where she operates an illustration and design business. You can find more of her work at coralsuecreative.com

Dick Pics and Why I Want Them

“Rather, they were tentative offerings of themselves, saying, ‘this is how I see myself, this is what I like about myself, and I hope that you like it too.’ They are feminine, and thoughtful in a way they never were before.”

In a time of quarantine, sexting has made a raging comeback. It’s easy to see in terms of the raging increase of the use of dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, as more and more people turn to socially distanced outdoor hangouts, or zoom dates, Netflix shared streaming and texting marathons. Everyone needs a dedicated friend to shelter in place with, and you gotta admit, there’s something kinda sexy about the end of the world. 

I hopped on Bumble before the shelter-in-place order came down, and stayed in touch with two or three guys after it started. It felt dangerous to feel like there was a person in the city who was into me, and that I couldn’t have them. Or, for the one who lived by himself, it was comforting to know that if all hell broke loose, I had someone to save me. (ahem, I’m a feminist, but if the purge is about to happen, I’ll take the guy with muscles, please and thank you). 

For the most part though, I’ve spent lockdown alone in my apartment with my computer and my vibrator. Before, it was so easy to invite guys back and watch them leave in the morning while I sipped my coffee, but now, not so much. Now, I felt like I have taken fifteen years off of my life and reverted to being the geek I was back in high school. I can no longer rely on body language or facial expressions to read a man. Now, I had to hang onto every single word of his text messages, which were always timed a strategic two or three hours after I had sent mine. The weeks stretched into months, and I was glued to my phone, waiting for the next ;). 

I was climbing up the walls and I needed some relief, and that came in the form of dick pics. Almost all of them were unsolicited, and some sent around the distasteful hour of 3am, but each one was received with delight and immediate, careful examination. I’m dating men who are solidly in their thirties, and I’m impressed with the exponential improvements in penis photography since the last era I got dick pics, which we will not mention except to say it was the before times.

No longer is there dirty laundry in the background, or a stack of pizza boxes just beyond his thigh. Now, there were tasteful rugs and private bedrooms (not private apartments, mind you… who are we kidding, I still live in San Francisco). Now, I’m getting mood lighting. Now, I’m getting Armani boxers pulled down, and manscaping. 

One photo in particular, is one of my favorites I’ve ever received. Taken from mid thigh, it’s a tasteful upshot of the bottom of the shaft all the way up to the head, with a tuft of tissue paper placed in anticipation on his stomach. His shirt is pulled up to crop-top level, and gloriously, part of his face is peeking out from the right side of his glorious dick. This was not a hastily taken photo, it was a carefully staged shot that had taken an extra layer of dexterity, most likely a timer, and care. I was absolutely delighted. It meant he cared! And more than that, it meant that he cared about what turned me on.

These dick pics hit different during quarantine. They aren’t a taste of things to come, but a careful and vulnerable exploration of what that man things I would find attractive. There was no text that accompanied any of them that told me exactly what holes he wanted to shove himself into, because gross. Rather, they were tentative offerings of themselves, saying, ‘this is how I see myself, this is what I like about myself, and I hope that you like it too.’ They are feminine, and thoughtful in a way they never were before. 

In a world in which many guys will ask girls for nudes, no matter what, and have the nerve to get annoyed when girls don’t comply, it’s been nice to be on the receiving end. Maybe in some ways quarantine is the great equalizer. While I’ve sent a number of nudes myself, I no longer feel the pressure to do so, and I almost always ask for compensation in the form of a dick pic. With ample amounts of time at home, the men in my life have no excuse except to finally, carefully, pose. I wanna see the family jewels, boys.

When the pandemic ends, who knows if I will see dick pics in the same way again. Will they go back to the drunken and frenzied, aggressive and unwanted photos of before? I hope not. I’ve grown to love these dick pics for their nuance and care. Let’s create the space where men can send a sexy nude, where they can be the object of desire. I want to sit back and see.

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The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.