Sex worker N’jaila Rhee explains why the OnlyFans porn ban fiasco was completely unshocking

Business of Business:  Can you explain what you do now and your past relationship to OnlyFans?

I am actually one of the community activists for New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance. And we are a sex worker-led organization that fights for not only sex workers rights, but decriminalization. And I have been a sex worker since 2003. So I've been in the game a little while. I also used to blog and cover the adult industry and talk about, you know, the, the changing tides. I was there for when the adult industry went from, you know, you could have your own site with a webmaster and pull in $20,000 a week to nobody was making any money because all your stuff was getting put on a site for free.

The last 20 years, the adult industry has been a crazy, terrifying roller coaster. And that kind of goes for everybody from the more  "privileged" completely legal sex work to, you know, street-based, more perilous sex work...I'm mostly doing cam and like phone sex work. And a lot of it is independent.

There's the practice of when something new and interesting comes out, you basically park your name on it for branding purposes. I never really used [OnlyFans] to its full capacity, because I personally didn't feel like it was the safest or going to be the most reliable place for me to work.

What made you think that?

Well, even before the whole Bella Thorne nonsense, and just seeing the courting of celebrities, and seeing who was doing community outreach to sex workers, I just thought, you know, "They're courting a lot of the mainstream." And also the site was not built with sex workers in mind. Initially, they wanted it to be a platform for influencers, and, you know, to basically be Patreon on your phone. But the thing is, Patreon is already on your phone. So I kind of felt like, while yes, they are allowing us on the platform, it was not made for us. And because of that, and looking at some of their chargeback policies, their blocking policies, I just was like, "I don't think this is for me."

Did you feel like they were using sex workers to get somewhere?

Absolutely. Because, you know, there are a lot of other platforms that kind of do the exact same thing that OnlyFans does, but cater to sex workers. Some of them even take a lower cut. So OnlyFans really became a front-runner because they were getting so much exposure and because it became like, you know, a cultural thing, pop stars are on it. And it was kind of seen as like the place to be. It was like the Xerox almost of sex work for a while, where it was assumed if somebody was in the adult industry, they were on OnlyFans.

That's a good way of describing it, the "Xerox of the sex industry." So what was your reaction when you first saw the news, we know that changed now [about OnlyFans banning porn]?

It was kind of one of those like, "I told you so." Because I know a lot of people, older sex workers, that have been in the business a long time. We're like, "Hey, so it's not actually great that Beyonce dropped OnlyFans in a song." And it's not great that there's a former Disney star [Bella Thorne] on it, because it's going to be like another Tumbler, where they have all this traffic because of us.

“But sex workers, we are the ones that drove traffic to OnlyFans. And we knew that if push comes to shove, or if Mastercard comes knockin', we are the first ones to be gone.”

Because OnlyFans does not advertise you. You have to do all your own marketing if you have OnlyFans, which isn't that weird for our industry. But sex workers, we are the ones that drove traffic to OnlyFans. And we knew that if push comes to shove, or if Mastercard comes knockin', we are the first ones to be gone. We're kind of the canary in the coal mine in that way.

So I was not shocked in any way, shape, or form, that they made that announcement. I just thought it was poorly timed. Because you know, we're still in a pandemic, we're still in a place where, you know, a lot of people depend on this income, and there isn't really anything else to replace it right now. Because everybody says, "Oh, just go to another site." But then sex workers really aren't allowed on most newsletter sites. So it's very hard to gather all your fan base and your customers and be able to do like an email blast and say, "Hey, I'm moving to here."

Right now, the best place we have is Twitter. And you know, for how long? It seemed very disrespectful. They're like, "Oh, well, October 1, we want all your stuff. God, we don't care where you put it. But don't put it up on OnlyFans." It seemed almost kind of cruel. Like if you were like a stripper, you can't just work at a club because the clubs aren't open. Or even if the clubs are open, most people aren't really going to them because, you know, the Delta variant.

It's such a hard situation that everybody's in. So it did seem pretty callous that the majority of your creators, you're saying, "Oh, to make it more hospitable to more diverse creators, we're going to kick off the majority of our creators."  It seemed to me that it was kind of a stunt. So maybe it was to say, "Hey, payment processors are making us do this," but it also kind of seemed like they might have been courting, like a buyer...which, you know, if everybody leaves, they don't care. They've gotten their money, and whoever is going to sell it afterwards is gonna take the hit.

Right, right. Interesting. And yeah, when the news reversed itself, what did you think about that?

Well, I think it was very important that the conversation is being started with the fact that banks and payment processors are the ones telling businesses who they can do business with. Because OnlyFans, it was completely legal sex work. There's unfortunately a lot of people who conflate all sex work no matter what with human trafficking. And that's just not the case. And the fact that a payment processor has the power to say, "Oh, well, we're not going to do this type of business, so now this type of business no longer should exist" is very scary. And I'm very happy that to a lot of people, it kind of stopped being like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, there's not going to be any boobs on OnlyFans," to "Wait, what do you mean Mastercard is telling me what I cand consume? What do you mean, Mastercard isn't going to process payments to people who made all this money?"

So I am glad that that conversation got started. But I do feel like for a lot of people, the trust has already been broken. And I would not feel confident putting content up there, because who knows when. But that's, unfortunately, that's being a sex worker in 2021. You don't know when the platform that you like to be on is going to disappear.

I liked being very independent. I like doing independent cam shows. And I had a payment processor that basically I could put up my storefront, people would book me I could do what I want, they took their cut, I get my money, and it was great. But they closed their doors, because they're saying, "Oh, we were having problems," probably the same problem that OnlyFans was having with Mastercard, or different credit card companies. And this was way before that New York Times article going after Pornhub.

“[The hard part is] the process of taking that money and actually getting it into your bank account, and keeping your bank account so you can pay your rent.”

So it's always been a problem because banks have been closing the accounts of sex workers for well over a decade...For a long time, I was very afraid of putting a StreamMate check in my bank account because I didn't want it to be closed. So what I would do is cash the check, and then put it in my bank account, which means I got less of my money. But I had to stop doing that because a check cashing places stopped cashing StreamMates' checks. They were put on a list.

They were like, "Oh, well, we can't trust this." And I was like, "What do you mean, you can't trust it? It's a legitimate business."  It really made it a lot harder to make money because like, okay, now I've made the money. But [the hard part is] the process of taking that money and actually getting it into your bank account, and keeping your bank account so you can pay your rent.

So what's the way what's the what's the way forward for you or anybody else who you know in this business? 

I hope that this really gets people engaged in activism and saying, "Hey, we are a part of society and sex work should be decriminalized." So full service workers and other workers can make a living. And those of us that are already doing sex work that is legal, it should not be stigmatized.

But also I feel like a lot of the changes in payment processing are orchestrated by [non-government organizations] who just don't want sex work to exist. So they're equating all of it with child pornography, trafficking, and like the worst of the worst, in an effort to save us, but they're going to "save us" out of being able to have homes, they're gonna "save us" out of being able to support ourselves, get ourselves help. And just, I kind of feel like they're "saving us" right into the grave. And they don't care because they can fundraise off our corpses.

“They're equating all of it with child pornography, trafficking, and like the worst of the worst, in an effort to save us, but they're going to 'save us' out of being able to have homes, they're gonna 'save us' out of being able to support ourselves." 

So it seems like times are a little dark. But that's kind of always the case, unfortunately. So I hope that this will make more sex workers vocal about their labor rights, and hopefully, those of us that have the privilege to be able to speak out will start speaking out more. And I'm very glad that I would say 20 years ago, when I was on MySpace...but there wasn't a cry of injustice from non-sex workers, the way I see people who aren't sex workers saying, "Hey, that's messed up. Mastercard, you don't get to say that these people can't make a living if they're making an honest living."

So I feel like the public opinion of sex work as artists, and labor has changed dramatically, from, you know, the 90s, and the 00s and the 2010s. I feel like now is the time if you're going to advocate for decriminalization, if you're going to advocate to, you know, fight stigmas that make it more arduous to do sex work, it's now that we have to do it, because we've never really had this much support.

While it is scary, I would hope non sex workers realize that like, we're the canaries in the coal mine. Like, they come after us, and once we're gone, like who's next? Are we now going to say, "Well, Mastercard doesn't like the fact that you're talking about politics." So they're not going to process payments for your nonprofit? Or "Mastercard doesn't like that you talked about the trans issues?"

Like it's very scary to think that corporations can almost legislate what the majority of not just Americans, but people around the world can consume. So I would say hopefully, people take this as as a warning.