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Youth as young as 12 see OnlyFans as an appealing alternative to traditional work, study finds

www.psypost.org Teens as young as 12 see OnlyFans as an appealing alternative to traditional work, study finds

A qualitative study involving Spanish adolescents found that many minors are familiar with OnlyFans and view it as a realistic source of income. The study raises concerns about how media exposure shapes adolescent perceptions of sexuality, gender, and economic opportunity.

A new study published in the journal Sexuality & Culture has found that many adolescents in Spain, including those as young as 12, are not only aware of OnlyFans but also see it as a viable and even empowering way to make money. In group discussions with over 160 teenagers, researchers discovered that platforms promoting erotic content are influencing how young people—especially girls—view economic opportunity, self-worth, and sexuality. Teens frequently framed content creation as a personal choice or expression of agency, while minimizing the risks.

A Boring Dystopia @lemmy.world

Youth as young as 12 see OnlyFans as an appealing alternative to traditional work, study finds

www.psypost.org /teens-as-young-as-12-see-onlyfans-as-an-appealing-alternative-to-traditional-work-study-finds/

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Not The Onion @lemmy.world

Youth as young as 12 see OnlyFans as an appealing alternative to traditional work, study finds

www.psypost.org /teens-as-young-as-12-see-onlyfans-as-an-appealing-alternative-to-traditional-work-study-finds/

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97 comments

"People as young as 12 have realistic views of the economic viability of sexuality, how dare they."
- Somehow I doubt that. More likely they view it like being a YouTuber, streamer, or influencer, when in reality it's primarily video production and marketing. It's not just "film titties get money", you have to actually convince people to subscribe.
  
  It is like being a YouTuber. People think it's easy money and then they make jack-shit with barely any audience all while working their ass off. Only a few get big, most burn out after lots of work and little success.
- I think that the larger problem is that you probably aren't going to be an erotic actress for your whole life.
  Like, what the authors seem to be focusing on is the degree to which teens might see this as an alternative to traditional work or being educated:
  Another important finding was how strongly OnlyFans was associated with financial success. Teens repeatedly cited the platform as an easier and more appealing alternative to traditional work or education.
  So, okay. Say you're a young woman and 20, and you make pretty good money putting on cat ears and licking a microphone or whatever's presently in vogue compared to most other things you could be doing at that age. But...are you going to be doing that at 30? 40? 50? Are you likely to make enough to retire off that in the time that you're successfully doing that? Because if you haven't acquired a skillset in that period for a lifelong career...like, if you forego education for that, that could be a really expensive exchange.
  Now, in fairness, I kind of feel like some similar issues also apply to things like being a professional sports player. Short viable career for most sports, high risk of not being able to make it big enough to retire off earnings. But we also haven't had a radical recent shift in the pro sports industry.
  I guess maybe pro gamers could be in a similar position. I don't know how many teens plan to do that (though I haven't seen a lot of material agonising about the number of teens who want to become pro gamers). I have seen a lot of material concerned about the wildly-beyond-what-can-be-sustained numbers who want to become social media influencers, though.
  EDIT: Regarding influencers:
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-media-influencers-86-of-young-americans-want-to-become-one/
  86% of young Americans want to become a social media influencer
  I can't give you a percentage of society that can be viably dedicated to trying to influence others on social media off the cuff, but I am very confident that it is far, far less than that. If anything remotely approaching that level tries to do the field full time and make major tradeoffs for it, that's going to potentially be very costly for society.
  
  There's not really any stigma to being a former sports star, that's one big difference.
- I don't think you can extrapolate that from this. Recognizing economic hardship and understanding nuanced sexual dynamics in society are very different.
  It would be like saying a child understands the military industrial complex and systematic oppression just because they liked GI Joe action figures or want to be in the army. Lots of kids just think helicopters and explosions are cool. Then their opinions change as they get older and begin to understand the actual toll on human life that a war takes.
- This is an insane fucking take. Yes 12 year olds should not be feeling a desire to make pornography.
  
  It doesn't say they desire to make it, but that they recognise it's a viable way to make a living, which is true. I think this says more about how terrible wage slavery is and how difficult it is to survive on minimum wage, than anything else.
  
  "Pornography" on OF is... a wide term, if we're being honest.
  There are a TON of creators there that pretty much just make noise against a microphone, with their fingers, and that's it (ASMR). They may (Or may not) do it in skimpy clothing.
  That being said, should 12 year olds be feeling a desire to be a soldier when they grow up? A construction worker? Or, any other line of work where you literally sell your body + useful years of your life doing back breaking work that leaves you on pain meds after the age of 45?
  
  healthier than working construction
  
  They also should be able to say “yes, I’m 18” and just access this content. Right?
- Not very realistic, to be honest.
  They really should stay in school and develop a skill. Hoping for an only fans career is a good way to end up as a strt hkr.

In all fairness, you don't have to spend very long working in retail to feel like sex work not only probably pays much better, but is also probably a lot less degrading.
- 100% this. I've been sexually assaulted, spat at, threatened with the police, had a snake pulled on me (???). None of these things happen to you on only fans ( I guess you might have another kind of snake pulled on you eyyy) and you'd make significantly more money.

“Teens as young as 12“
Im pretty sure that's now how teens work...
- Was I not a teen at 12? They fucking lied to me? Pitchforks and torches out.
  
  I thought the term was pre-teen. I remember adamantly making the distinction when I was twelve because I wanted to be so mature and not a kid.
  Jesus Christ Im surprised my parents didn't roll their eyes straight out of their sockets...
  
  "ThirTEEN". it's kind of right there in the name...

The solution is, of course, more censorship.

That tells a lot about the job market.

I mean, oldest profession and all that. Shouldn’t be surprising. When you can just fill mason jars with tap water and let the imaginations of some horny others do the rest, what’s not to like?
- Wait what's the mason jar part all about? Do they sell their bath water or something?
  
  Yeah, some porn influencers (e.g. Belle Delphine) sold their “bath water” for, like, $500 a pop. They sold out in minutes. Desperate people are very easy to manipulate.

Somebody start monitoring GOP members for trips to Spain

I'm a 32 year old man with a receeding hairline. I too see OnlyFans as an appealing alternative to traditional work. Unfortunately no one else wants to see that.
- You would have an audience, but it's probably not the audience you want.
  
  remember that only fans audiences are paying for their seat
- I do
  I want to see that

Don't like 90% of onlyfan people make next to nothing? I thought only a small portion of them can actually afford to do it "full time".

The children yearn for the.. yikes.

Fascists: Omg, young people see online sex-work as a possible solution to their future bondage under capitalism!
Me: Change the system so that they can have a future otherwise.
Fascists: We're more interested in overreacting.
- They would be more interested in those young people's onlyfans account.
- Making it worse so people behave even more understandably, so they can faint in response even harder.

y i k e s

Articles like this showcase a weird 180 in moral logic over the last century.
On one hand, it is now stigmatized for younger people to have sex. Age of consent went up and 12 year olds are not allowed to do OnlyFans because it is harmful for them.
On the other hand sex and sex work is promoted as non harmful and a fun innocent activiy.

In person sex work might be safe from AI, only fans probably not.

Sorry, kids. Porn is another line of work that's going to dwindle away, thanks to AI.
- I am glad I will live in a world where I don't have to worry about seeing my daughters selling their sex online. I will only indirectly see them sell it to their partners for protection and attention.
  
  Apparently going full removed is fine tho.

My ex saw onlyfans as a great way to make a living and express her sexuality after we broke up.
It did not go as well as she thought it would.
- It never does.

Do any of y'all pay for OnlyFans?
Like, I am single and horny/lonely, but… I don’t get it, even theoretically. What’s the appeal of viewing some performer through a one-way digital window over the deluge of free content?
And I get that some would be into that, but (apparently) a significant fraction of the planet? That I don't understand.
- i don't pay for it but it's the only sexy content that i understand why people would pay for.
  paying for big companies like a porn site or a porn studio only to see them produce the same fucking formulaic bullshit over and over again is what i wouldn't understand.
  paying for a single person who you might know from other things for a more personal feed and maybe custom content? yes. we live in the age of streaming, podcasts, patreon. people pay for these because it is or feels more genuine, personal, and interesting. plus there's a lot of cases where you might know the person from youtube, or twitch or whatever, so it's more interesting to some people than a studio pornstar. not that they don't have their own content either.
  plus there's the simple aspect of (more) directly supporting creators. people sub on twitch to people like hasan piker despite the fact that he doesn't run ads and allows his content to be rebroadcast for free on YouTube by fan channels on top of his own channel. literally the only reason subscribe to his channel is to give him money. people do it because they think it's worth it.
- It’s a lot of money people. I have a gay friend doing only fans. Some stooge pays him $100 weekly just to call him every morning to say good morning.
  
  Even if I had infinite money, I just don't picture getting much satisfaction from that...
  Makes sense, I guess, but still.
- I genuinely think that a lot of these people's brains are too small to comprehend what's going on in these transactions.
  There are so many socially awkward losers that end up believing the women they're giving money to actually care about them, so they keep doing it.
  It's sad and pathetic, but as long as it's legal these people will be taken advantage of accordingly.

Well with this White House they’re going to earn a lot of money

Well, that’s probably the only people left who could get paid for porn. There’s lots of republicans on the internet.

So, basically what this says is that- the ~~pedophile’s~~, I mean… the conservative’s plan seems to be working as expected.

We are not religious in any way, for good reason. We also don't necessarily shelter our kids. But my kids around this age don't even know what Only Fans is. And them and their friend group never say or do anything even alluding to knowing or caring about these kinds of things.
These kids are being exposed to something and some kind of authority figures are failing them.
- They know what it is. My 11 year old knows what it is because of YouTube, memes, and such.
  Knowing what it is and actively viewing it because you know what it is are two separate things.
  
  Your first failure in this response is a presumption that everyone's kids have unrelenting access to YouTube, memes, or social media. Especially presuming parents are not at all making time to give the kids context as things come up due to school or otherwise, or as we open doors and give more independence.
  I know lots of neighborhood kids who are clearly parented much more closely and have no clue about this stuff. I also know some neighborhood kids that play GTA online every night.
  Parenting and children are not monoliths, and anecdotes aren't truths for everyone.
- how do you know they don't know what it is? it's hard to believe when every other twitch streamer and Instagram influencer has an account they promote from their main page.
  
  Because I'm actually involved in their lives? They also don't have unrelenting access to shit like Instagram and twitch.
  You can see the difference with the school or neighborhood kids who do (some, not all, they're all different). We don't necessarily restrict them from associating with those kids, but we frequently check in, ask about things, watch some of the interactions, and provide context as necessary. Always focusing on what it means for them. What is their gain/loss. Essentially avoid the "because I said so" and focus on why they care about something (it helps to think selfishly if you were in their shoes).
  Without aggressively steering their lives (like my parents did), it is interesting to me how when they're just basically supported like independent humans, with respect, and some decent but not overbearing guardrails, they basically have no interest in some of that stuff. That'll eventually change, but the peer pressure just doesn't seem to click the same as 30 years ago.
  I think when you either don't parent at all, or aggressively parent, you inadvertently push kids where they shouldn't go. I would know cause I lived it. There's a balance somewhere in there and I'm watching it happen IRL for years now.
  And to be clear, I am NOT tooting any horns. That's what my parents did. It was all about their success being parents. Fuck no. My job is to raise functional adults. They are not my property or trophy. This isn't about me or my success. Before anyone attacks that shit as usual. I'm just speaking honestly.

Now I want the woke crowd to defend mainstreamification of sex work.
- As part of the woke crowd, what I want to see is the „mainstreamification“ of respect for and safety of the people in sex work. You know, because they’re people.
- Now I want the unwoke crowd to defend mainstreaming of child labor...
- sex work is work no different than other jobs other than puritanical stigma against it
  
  I don’t agree. I have a simple test which anyone cam do. Ask yourself- Would I promote my child (obviously once they become legal age) to do xyz?
- Sex work is exploitative not because its sexual, but because its work under capitalism.
  
  Would it be not exploitative otherwise, how?
- Who fucking cares what you want. Go away troll.
  
  How am I a troll?

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