Since nothing important is happening today, I’ll tell you what I think of OnlyFans. Okay, I was exaggerating about it being an evil, Satanic plot to destroy the world. However, it is an evil software platform destroying the tattered remains of the sexual marketplace, and here’s why.
For those of you who didn’t know, OnlyFans is a service where women post erotic photos of themselves available to subscribers who pay a monthly fee for it. Supposedly there are 100 million accounts; I’m not sure how many are “content creators” and how many are “sponsors”, but I’m afraid to say that the figure does seem credible. It’s not too different from what certain paid users of Instagram already have been doing. So what’s the problem with this?
I figure that most objections to what I say will fall under two categories:
- Buh- buh- buh- that’s capitalism at its finest!
- You can’t tell me what to do! I can do anything I want!
For item 1, according to Fascist economics, value is created when someone makes or does something of value. (Pointing a camera at your hoo-hah doesn’t count.) I’ll spare you a lecture on Socialist labor theory, but pointing a camera at your hoo-hah doesn’t count either. Therefore, monetizing the hoo-hah is a form of grifting. If reactionaries and radicalinskis can agree on this, then maybe there’s something to it. Even if not for that, there are certain market externalities to consider, which I’ll deal with shortly.
For item 2, you are a spoiled brat in a woman’s body sticking out your tongue and then yelling “Fuck you, Dad!” Grow up and get a real job.
The economic perspective
To get a more complete picture, consider that the definition of “economy” means a method of distribution of scarce resources. When we think of the economy, we generally think of the monetary system with all its intricacies. That certainly does qualify as one. Another economy is social in nature, rather than monetary: the sexual marketplace, in which men and women form relationships with each other. Now, it’s time for a digression.
Market externalities are unintended side effects (for better or worse) of economic activity. Let’s say that the city buys the block next door to your house and turns it into a big flower garden. That creates a positive externality; it will make your property values go up and fill your air with fragrance. Suppose instead that a developer buys the block and creates a small strip shopping center which is leased to a rowdy biker bar, a methadone clinic, and an X-rated movie arcade (you know, the little booths with the holes in the walls). Now your property values have gone down, it’s noisy at night, the crime rate went up, and sometimes you’re cleaning up beer bottles, used condoms, and syringes that went over the fence. That’s a negative externality. Either way, whether you got the flower garden or the public nuisances, someone sold property nearby and (for better or worse) it affected your property values and, to a degree, your enjoyment of life.
What happens when inflation rates are unbalanced? If as a tourist you go to St. Mark’s Plaza in Venice and get a little cup of coffee, you might be surprised that it costs fifteen bucks. If you go to Mexico and buy a big dinner, it costs what you’d usually pay for lunch. If you go from Flyover Country to San Francisco, lunch costs what you’d pay for dinner.
What happens when the sexual marketplace is unbalanced? Back in the barbarian days, you might be able to get a virgin bride by paying her father a dozen goats or something. There were (and still are) plenty of societies in which the family pays the husband-to-be a dowry. What a deal! Note, this isn’t my preferred model for society, and I don’t understand how they make it work, but they do.
So that was an example of when men are valued much more than women. Today’s society in the USA and many other Western countries features the opposite situation. This is thanks to decades of radical feminism and the man-bashing that’s accompanied it, unfortunately aided by male feminists. Women aren’t buying men for a dozen goats, of course, but the following does occur:
- Ordinary women believing ordinary men aren’t good enough for them
- Bar flies rejecting men who they don’t deserve in the first place
- Snotty, stuck-up attitudes
- Princess Complex
- Pursuit of exiting men rather than quality men, often leading to turbulent relationships with violent and unstable guys, or getting pumped and dumped by musicians and celebrities
- Men responding by checking out of the social scene, wasting their time with online porn, or even getting sex changes
Note that this is very time-dependent. Young women are like kids in a candy store. When they get older and “hit the wall”, they can’t attract the kind of men they’re used to getting, and might have to settle for someone with a bald spot or pot belly. By the time that usually happens, it’s almost too late to have children. I could go a lot further into all this, but this unbalanced valuation causes a lot of misery for everyone. This has gotten a lot worse in recent times. Online dating tends to skew this. As Roosh put it, women can pick up men on Tinder as easily as ordering pizza. (The difference is that pizza isn’t free.) However, only about 5% of Tinder’s male user base is getting much action from this; the rest are ignored and might as well be invisible. It’s easier for a cat lady to find someone than it is for an ordinary young guy.
Why OnlyFans may be the final nail in the coffin for the sexual marketplace
Again, OnlyFans readily enables women to sell erotic pictures to men who have to pay a monthly subscription. With moral standards at an all-time low, there’s little disincentive for a young woman to monetize her hoo-hah. However, like other so-called “sex work”, this mixes the economic spheres of the monetary economy and the sexual marketplace.
This is where market externalities come in. Does it affect the monetary economy? It does a little, by siphoning productivity away from men. Also, the e-THOTs seldom pay taxes on their “earnings” while the rest of us who actually work for a living have to give unto Caesar. (Feel free to report this crime if you know if this happening; the IRS will give you a commission!) Does it affect the sexual marketplace? It does to a much greater extent, by inflating the already unsustainable market value of the hoo-hah. It also further degrades what little is left of society’s moral standards. There’s a reason why “sex work” has been considered a vice and a public nuisance since at least the Bronze Age.
Unlike prostitution, the men aren’t getting anything out of the e-THOT racket except for a glance! This won’t satisfy the libido any more than looking at a steak will satisfy a starving man’s hunger. (Sure, a guy can whack off while looking at the pictures, but that’s like eating dog food while dreaming of steak.) It’s exploitation of lonely men, plain and simple. Perhaps some of these lost souls imagine that these greedy girls actually like them. The truth is that they’re thought of as simps. Guys, don’t do that – have some self-respect!
rainbowalbrecht 