On today’s installment of historically-trusted newspapers publishing edgy, out-of-touch OpEd-s that approximately no one asked for, the New York Times decided to celebrate Labor Day last Monday in the most New York Times way imaginable — honoring the working class by printing a buzz-word heavy, fear-mongering essay attempting to categorize OnlyFans as a big, bad, purple-feathered-hat-wearing pimp.
“What is being done to them is neither sex, in the sense of intimacy and mutuality, nor work, in the sense of productivity and dignity,” wrote Harvard Law professor and anti-porn activist, Catharine A. MacKinnon in her essay, entitled “OnlyFans Is Not a Safe Platform for ‘Sex Work.’ It’s a Pimp.” “Survivors of prostitution consider it ‘serial rape,’ so they regard the term ‘sex work’ as gaslighting,” she continued, later adding that “legitimizing sexual abuse as a job makes webcamming sites like OnlyFans particularly seductive to the economically strapped.”
Throughout MacKinnon’s reductive essay – which among other cringe-worthy mistakes, falsely blames the media for popularizing the term “sex work,” (in reality, a sex worker and activist named Carol Leigh coined the term in the late 1970s, which is still widely favored today), consistently confuses sex work with trafficking, and claims sex work can never be consensual as it’s selling one’s body (just wait until she learns about manual labor jobs!) — there is one thing missing: A single f—ing scrap of nuance.
“There is no way to know whether pimps and traffickers are recruiting the unwary or vulnerable or desperate or coercing them offscreen and confiscating or skimming the proceeds, as is typical in the sex industry,” she wrote. “OnlyFans takes 20 percent of any pay, its pimp’s cut.”
Before delving into MacKinnon’s wild claims that OnlyFans is a pimp, it’s important to make a clear distinction between sex work and trafficking, ones she fails to make in her article.
“Sex Trafficking is and always has been a long-standing global problem which is often confused with sex work,” reads a resource from STOP THE TRAFFIK, an anti-trafficking organization founded by Stephen Chalke, MBE, who once served as a Special Adviser on Human Trafficking for the UN. “Accurate statistics for the number of people enslaved into the sex industry are almost impossible to accumulate because of the hidden nature of the crime. Undeniably, Sex Trafficking or Sexual Exploitation is a human rights violation and it can happen to anyone, adult women, young girls, men and boys are all at risk,” he continued, noting that “the distinctions might seem obvious, but they are often overlooked.”
So where, exactly, does this distinction lie? Good ‘ol consent. “When a person willingly takes part in the sale of sex, it is consensual and doesn’t affect their human rights. This is called Sex Work,” the site continues. “When a person takes part in the sale of sex through threat, abduction or other means of coercion this is called Sex Trafficking. The differences can almost be invisible, so you may not recognise a trafficked victim. You may see a girl in the streets looking for ‘work’ and assume she is a sex worker but, the reality could be far from that.”
Considering these nuances, it can be helpful to think about the differences between sex work and human trafficking as a spectrum, where on one side, an adult knowingly and enthusiastically consents to sex work and on the other, someone is coerced, a distinction The National Harm Reduction Coalition outlines in their resources about sex work.
“The National Harm Reduction Coalition defines sex work as the provision of sexual services by one person (the ‘sex worker’) for which another person (‘client’ or ‘observer’) trades money or any other markers of economic value,” they explained. “While there are all sorts of reasons why people may engage in sex work, we believe that all sex work falls on a spectrum from choice (i.e. someone chooses to do sex work, regardless of whether they have other options) to circumstance (i.e. someone may not choose to engage in sex work under different circumstances, but is sex work is providing them with something they need right now) to coercion (i.e. someone is being forced by someone else to enage [sic] in sex work).” they continued, adding that “any sex work done against the sex worker’s will and without consent is trafficking, and does not condone sex work that is not explicity [sic] consensual.”