OnlyFans Is Teaching A Generation That Paying For Sex Is Normal

[corbe]

OnlyFans Is Teaching A Generation That Paying For Sex Is Normal

By: Alannah Peters
August 26, 2025
 
From early fame to young adult sexualized branding, the path is becoming alarmingly predictable.

Arecently advertised “opening” in a group of young women who sell sexualized images of themselves drew an astounding 12,000 applications from other Gen Zers hoping to engage in onscreen prostitution. The incident is a stark reminder that in the age of social media, youth is a product, sexuality is the price tag, and Gen Z influencers are building careers around sexualized branding, with platforms like OnlyFans blurring the line between influence and exploitation.

Gen Z’s appetite for quick, online sexual content may also be feeding an aversion to real-world intimacy. A 2021 UCLA study found that 38 percent of Californians ages 18-30 had no sexual partner in the last year, the highest level of sexual inactivity in a decade. The timing is clear: Instagram launched in 2010, and 10 years after, intimacy looks more like content than connection. Social media’s nonstop feeds are replacing real connection and making sex less common.

The profitability and cultural pull of this shift are also rooted in long-standing dynamics. As psychologist Jan Antfolk writes in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, “men — regardless of their age — have a preference for women in their 20s.” In the context of social media, this creates a built-in audience for young creators and fuels a predictable pipeline from early fame to sexualized monetization.

Born in 1997, Bella Thorne entered the public eye at just six weeks old. At 13, she landed the lead role on Disney Channel’s Shake It Up, launching her into mainstream fame. In 2020, at age 22, Thorne joined OnlyFans, becoming the first person to earn $1 million in 24 hours, and is widely regarded as the first Gen Z A-list celebrity on the platform. Her incredible success prompted OnlyFans to institute new payment caps and payout rules.

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https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/26/onlyfans-is-teaching-a-generation-that-paying-for-sex-is-normal/

[240B]

OnlyFans is NOT 'paying for sex'. Paying for sex is a completely different thing which involves a 'real person' and real sex. Real smells, real warmth, of a real body, with real feel.

OnlyFans is just paying for images and videos. I would not call that sex. It is just simple autoerotic self-gratification, the same as any other pornographic website.

[corbe]

   Typical that you would come in here and overanalyze SEX and onlyfans into a big fat 'NO'. 
   Cut your brother some slack @240B I'm going through a dry spell now that Robin has left me.

[DefiantMassRINO]

I've always thought of marriage as paying for sex on an installment plan.

[240B]

   Typical that you would come in here and overanalyze SEX and onlyfans into a big fat 'NO'. 
   Cut your brother some slack @240B I'm going through a dry spell now that Robin has left me.

Spent most of my youth in the military travelling all over the world. The term 'paying for sex' is something I am very familiar in several cultures. Looking at a website is very far from the fun and excitement of real sex with girls and women of all kinds.

You would be amazed at how some cultures think of sex, especially Asian countries and parts of Scandinavia and Europe. For a lot of countries, sex is more of a 'friendly' fun common thing that normal people do than it is some kind of deep commitment. They do not have all the Puritanical Western baggage that we are raised with. Those girls will have sex with you just because they like how you look and like hanging out with you and nothing more. For us in the West, it is kind of surprising. Do you want to have sex? is not a question a girl normally asks you in America. Overseas the question is not unusual at all.

My comments have nothing to do with you @corbe as a poster, you have nothing to do with the writing and publishing of the article. My comments were more directed to thefederalist.com who seem to think that paying for a website is the same as real sex. While it may be distantly related, paying for a porno website cannot be considered 'paying for sex'. Paying for sex is a real actual thing. Paying for a website does not come close.

Too many young men in America today do not know the difference.

[corbe]

   Good points all @240B consider me educated.   

[Wingnut]

I've always thought of marriage as paying for sex on an installment plan.

You go in upside-down with negative equity.

[jmyrlefuller]

Yeah, um... OnlyFans is not sex. It lacks any of the intimacy or real-world consequences of real sex. Paying for OnlyFans is not going to get you a child.

A society that views paying for sex as normal is one that has decided that reproduction is a business. That, for the right price, anyone is entitled to it, that denying it to someone subjects you to the wrath of anti-discrimination laws. There is no right to refuse service in a society that treats sex as something that can be bought.

The United States is as far away from that kind of society as one can possibly get.

It, like other forms of porn, is merely a facsimile of sex used to partially placate those who do not have access to it or worse, those who have grown unhealthily addicted to it.

[rustynail]

Nobody rides for free..

[corbe]

  By this time in my Life Ida figured we'd have sex booths at the local slot car racetracks and poolhalls that I frequented as a sexually frustrated teenager. 

  Hook up a couple of wires, deposit your $$$ and

  Boy, was I off by a century.

[Smokin Joe]

Spent most of my youth in the military travelling all over the world. The term 'paying for sex' is something I am very familiar in several cultures. Looking at a website is very far from the fun and excitement of real sex with girls and women of all kinds.

You would be amazed at how some cultures think of sex, especially Asian countries and parts of Scandinavia and Europe. For a lot of countries, sex is more of a 'friendly' fun common thing that normal people do than it is some kind of deep commitment. They do not have all the Puritanical Western baggage that we are raised with. Those girls will have sex with you just because they like how you look and like hanging out with you and nothing more. For us in the West, it is kind of surprising. Do you want to have sex? is not a question a girl normally asks you in America. Overseas the question is not unusual at all.

My comments have nothing to do with you @corbe as a poster, you have nothing to do with the writing and publishing of the article. My comments were more directed to thefederalist.com who seem to think that paying for a website is the same as real sex. While it may be distantly related, paying for a porno website cannot be considered 'paying for sex'. Paying for sex is a real actual thing. Paying for a website does not come close.

Too many young men in America today do not know the difference.

Bloody hell! A generation of wankers?

[Wingnut]

Nobody rides for free..

Cash, grass or ass.

[Hoodat]

Spent most of my youth in the military travelling all over the world. The term 'paying for sex' is something I am very familiar in several cultures.

You're not 'paying for sex'.  You're paying for her to leave.