“I Made £4000 a month from selling pictures of my boobs to silly men.”
This is a story about a university student who started up an explicit social media account, in hopes of making a bit of extra cash to help her through her degree, but ends up becoming more popular than she would ever imagine. Making thousands of pounds a month from her scandalous content, this is the empowering story of broke student who has now become her own boss and personal pornographer.
But this is isn’t just any story, it’s a story about my best friend. A strong, smart and beautiful girl studying to become a lawyer. She appears much like your average young girl, living in her own 2 bed apartment, with her loving boyfriend and working harder than anyone else I know…
Oh, and she’s basically a porn star.
Roxy, (her name isn’t actually Roxy, but for legal reasons I needed a fake name and for some reason this just suited her. Wild, sexy and a little weird and unusual) is a university student studying law. As a student myself I understand the difficulties of trying to balance university work, having a job, and a social life all at the same time. My dad always told me “there is only room for two out of the three” and being 20 years old and living independently for the first time, obviously your social life is always going to be at the top, that’s why everyone goes to uni right?
With such a demanding degree, Roxy physically couldn’t hold down a job, but having a taste for the finer things in life meant she needed to make money somehow. That’s where the idea to start an ‘Only Fans’ came in. Only fans is a new phenomenon, only introduced in early 2019. Within the first year of it coming to light, the company has made millions of dollars in revenue due to its extreme popularity. It is a social media platform, much like Instagram and twitter.
However, with OnlyFans your viewers have to subscribe to see your content and pay a monthly fee to access your sight. Now you’re probably thinking who the hell is going to pay to see pictures of girls when you can just go onto any other social media platform — or Pornhub — This is where the site stands out, the content posted here is explicit. Ranging from cute pictures of girls posing in their underwear, to full on porn. Obviously the raunchier the page, the more money you make.
To put it simply, it is a modern-day way for women to become their own pornographer, this is now what Roxy has become. She started up her account expecting to make a couple of hundred extra pounds a month by selling pictures of herself (the most extreme she will do is topless, for now) to help her through her life at university. But after 4 months of having the account she had made over £4000 and was in the top 14% of all creators. What went from a part time job went to a full-blown money-making business. I mean why wouldn’t you?! As she said:
“All I have to do is throw on a skimpy G-string and find the right lighting and angles and I’ve made myself a hundred quid.”
Women — and the female form in general — have been sexualised for thousands of years and this has only gotten worse in modern day society. I understand why to a certain extent, women are beautiful creatures, and men love us! But we are fed up, fed up of the sexualization. The fact men can walk around with their nips’ out but we can’t!? So, Roxy thought (alongside the thousands of other women) why shouldn’t I make money off it? She said:
“Women have been sexualised for centuries, the male gaze within the media has always been a huge problem which has caused this extreme sexualization.”
The media has always been this way, sexualising women, even without it being obvious. In the 1970’s page 3 girls, and sexy girls in general were the main feature of the newspaper. Primarily being produced for the benefit of the male consumer. Women know it is too difficult to reverse this now, sadly it is a part of society and something we see — even if we don’t notice it — from a very young age. However due to the rise in feminism women are now using it too their advantage. Trust me, I would be too but A) Due to my social awkwardness, I can’t take anything sexual seriously, and B) I don’t think my tits are big enough. Roxy also said:
“I don’t just do this for the money, it is honestly one of the most empowering things I’ve done. I was worried about feeling dirty but it’s the exact opposite. I feel like a boss ass bitch!”
She has become her own boss from her OnlyFans and is extremely successful from it. The history of porn and the industry itself has always been extremely male dominated. There was — and still is — a lot of patriarchy and oppression against women, usually with the women just being used for the video and to benefit the male consumer (also sometimes females, don’t get me wrong, us girls love porn too) But the creation of OnlyFans is a major leap for women in the sex industry, they can now be in complete control of what they are doing and what they feel uncomfortable with, and can make almost double the amount of money in the safety of their own home.
Like I said men have sexualised women for thousands of years so yeah, if a dirty old man wanted to pay me thirty pounds a month to see a couple of pictures of my perfectly natural and normal boobs — be it so, a little small — then I wouldn’t say no. We never chose for this sexualisation, and the creation of these social media sites legitimises the female oppression we have faced for centuries.
Much like everything nowadays though, you can’t do something without someone else getting offended or judging you, and this is even more of an issue when it comes to anything involving sex. Women have supported this new trend and way of making money in a massive way. Encouraging it and promoting it is a huge breakthrough for women’s oppression. Unsurprisingly, the majority of judgements and critique has come from males. An anonymous source said:
“If I had a daughter and I found out she was selling pictures of her boobs for money, id disown her. I’d never date a girl like that.”
What firstly annoyed me about this is that, the girl probably wouldn’t want to date an arrogant, small minded man like this dude anyway. And secondly he then continued to say:
“Go out and get yourself a proper job instead of getting your m*nge out for a couple of quid”
Which I thought was pretty rich coming from the scaffolder who still lives at home with his mom and dad, and only has to empty the dishwasher as his way of paying rent, which he still finds a way to complain about.
To cut a long story short, Roxy is now on track for a 1st in her Law degree as well as giving sexism and patriarchal standards the middle finger by building her own empire off of men and earning tonnes of cash while she’s at it.
