The boom in virtual porn may be busted.
Sex workers are claiming they’re getting kicked off adult content site OnlyFans, just as the platform began to experience a surge in X-rated action amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The subscription-based social network touts itself as a platform where users can directly monetize their creations — however it’s recently become a haven for adult content deemed too risqué for Instagram.
That may not be the case for long.
“I knew something was up,” adult content creator Allie Awesome tells Rolling Stone. The flustered sex worker claims her OnlyFans account was unexpectedly canceled over an unspecified fraudulent charge report on her bill.
Despite emailing the service numerous times to complain, they told her it was “permanently deactivated, there was nothing they could do, and my customers were being refunded,” says Awesome. Contrary to the email, her subscribers claim they’re yet to see their money.
The perplexed performer was finally able to get her account reinstated after emailing Alana Evans, the president of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, and even tweeting about the bizarre incident. However, OnlyFans support maintains that her account’s cancellation was due to a “glitch” in the system.
The platform hasn’t responded to The Post’s request for comment.
Awesome isn’t the only one to be jettisoned under mysterious circumstances. The sex worker says she received dozens of emails from fellow sex workers claiming they’d experienced the same thing.
“I never did anything wrong . . . never talked about my Snapchat, doing meet-ups, or other restricted stuff,” says fellow performer Railey Boo, who knew something was awry after her $1,200 account balance vanished without warning.
“It looks like my OnlyFans has been deactivated,” tweeted self-proclaimed girlfriend-for-hire Noelle Flayer last week. “You can still view it but I’ve been locked out and keep getting an error message that the user does not exist.”
Dominatrix Katharina Amara says she was abruptly suspended over a sex toy video despite the fact that the clip didn’t feature “bruises, blood, scat, fisting, etc.” or any of the other depictions prohibited by OnlyFans’ content guidelines.
However, mass purges of sex merchant accounts come as OnlyFans experienced a 75% spike in new accounts with 170,000 new users per day. Indeed, OnlyFans has become a refuge for “civilians” (code for sex industry outsiders) who are using the platform to supplement their income after losing their jobs over coronavirus concerns.
These newbies aren’t the only ones hopping on the OnlyFans craze. “Baby Driver” actor Ansel Elgort memorably stripped down on the site in April to raise money for COVID-19 first responders.
As a result, sex workers like Mrs. Hell worry that they could be getting displaced by legions of sex trade laymen as the site becomes more mainstream.
“More people into the vanilla lifestyle think it’s easy to make money on there, so it could have an impact [on our ability to make a living],” Mrs. Hell tells Rolling Stone.
Unfortunately, hawking their bodies on another site isn’t an option for many sex workers, who cite OnlyFans’ unparalleled earning potential. The economic opportunity is the subject of Blac Chyna’s docuseries about OnlyFans.
“There’s a lot of money to be made from OnlyFans,” says Awesome, who firmly believes “there is no better platform.”
“If you’re trying to sell porn, having the entire country cooped up at home with nothing to do is kind of a dream scenario,” Los Angeles-based porn star Kate Kennedy told The Post in March. The enterprising sex worker said she made four figures in tips and fees through her Only Fans account within a week — about what she typically earned in a month.
Not only that, but going online is often the sole option for sex workers who’ve been furloughed amid nonessential business closures. After her legal brothel outside Las Vegas shuttered, call girl Alissa Starr offered to become people’s virtual girlfriend for Amazon gift cards and groceries.
“There is a concern among people in the industry that as it grows, OnlyFans may at one point turn its back on the content creators who’ve helped to build the brand,” says Evans.