OnlyFans ditches sex work ban in abrupt reversal — but creators remain wary

Less than a week after OnlyFans sent shock waves through the adult entertainment industry with an announcement that it would soon be banning pornography from its platform, the company has reversed course, saying it will continue to support explicit content. “We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change,” OnlyFans tweeted early Wednesday morning, referencing the date on which it had previously said it would begin banning sexually explicit content. In a separate statement to The Times, a company spokesperson said the proposed policy changes “are no longer required due to banking partners’ assurances that OnlyFans can support all genres of creators.” On Tuesday, OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely told the Financial Times that the initial decision to ban porn had been forced by banks repeatedly flagging and rejecting wire transfers related to the platform’s payment of sex workers. She also called on U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and her own representative, Brad Sherman, “to get involved on behalf of their constituents who would not have been able to afford rent before this ban was suspended.” “With banks and credit card companies’ discrimination unmasked,” Moody said, “our representatives can’t ignore us any longer.” The now-reversed ban would have posed a serious financial and logistical crisis for the many sex workers who make their living on the platform, which allows them to circumvent porn studios and other intermediaries and sell explicit content directly to consumers, with OnlyFans taking a flat 20% cut of sales. “I think everyone will keep earning on OnlyFans as long as we can, but there’s definitely a higher awareness that we need to be diversifying platforms.” Bloom added via Twitter: “I’ve spent a lot of time transferring content over to AVN Stars and ManyVids and will continue to do so as well as look into the other member sites creators have been discussing.” AVN Stars and ManyVids are among the OnlyFans competitors that sex workers said they might move to if OnlyFans did ban explicit content.