Only Fans Users Aren't Who You Think They Are

Splash (not her real username) has been on Fetlife as long as I have: seven years. She’s a poly domme switch with no fewer than five Fetlife groups. When she’s not giving kinksters a moderated space to bounce around in, she’s hosting munches. Among the 140 posts on her profile, you’ll find writings on ethics, kink, and how to access COVID tests in her city. She’s also a Polyland contributor.

Munch hosts are the givers of the kink scene. They put a tremendous amount of work into creating a space where noobs can flourish. If you’re new to kink and find play parties too terrifying, your local munch host will make sure you’re comfortable and safe. 12-step groups call the newcomer the most important person at a meeting, and I think the same is true of kink. The better we onboard and help our noobs, the healthier and safer our kink scene will be. That makes munch organisers like Splash the most important volunteers we have.

Splash has a chronic illness, but she still finds the spoons to field questions from noobs attending her kink social, both on Fet and Discord.

Splash has an active kink life. She has platonic and nonplatonic play partners. She has a D/s relationship, a most excellent kitty, and more than her share of dad jokes. Her album looks like all our albums: self-taken pictures of marks, scenes, and, of course, smutty Wordles. You know munch hosts are nothing without their Wordles.

She also has two profiles. The second one is her Only Fans account. Yep, Splash is one of those models you see on the front page. Her affiliate posts for clicks and signups.

If you think Only Fans users contribute nothing to the community, I have these questions for you:

Do you host a munch like Splash?
Do you invest your time into moderating five groups?
Do you write about ethics on Polyland?
Do you answer noob questions on Discord?
Do you have 140 Fet posts?
Did you help your kink community to access COVID tests in ’21?

If you think Only Fans models are all vanilla and thus not part of the kink scene, I’m going to guess that five minutes ago you found Splash sufficiently kinky to pass through your gatekeeping.

Before you tell me #NotAllOnlyFansModelsAreSplash, which Only Fans models are? You and I are clueless about the very real humans behind these accounts, but I do know one thing about them: They all have loved ones, financial woes, student loans, and hobbies. And many of them are kinkier than you might think.

I defend Only Fans folk an awful lot. I hate the click bait, but up to 75% of sex workers experience sexual violence on the job. Only Fans and camming sites are reducing those numbers. They are literally saving lives. In an age of FOSTA, sex workers are left without the vetting powers they once had. The internet has vanquished them, so Fetlife is an important safety tool. Only Fans allows them to do sex work without risking their lives.

Next, you’re going to tell me sex work isn’t skilled work. I’m sure your job as an advertising voice-over artist is crucial to ending the war in Ukraine, but it takes a lot of skill and investment to produce the work they show here. There are photographers and expensive lenses. There’s the work entailed in maintaining those perfect bodies. There are the social skills required to deal with some pretty awful clients. If you put me in front of a camera, I guarantee you I would not look sexy like Splash. I buy my underwear at Woolworths.

Your next argument will be the ugliest of them all: Sex work is immoral. If you’re sex-negative enough to see it that way, perhaps it’s you who doesn’t belong on a sex-positive website.