OnlyFans and teens: how to help them understand that their bodies are precious

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to meet a group of 16-year-olds at a high school for a meeting about affectivity.

The teacher referred to one of my novels, I didn’t know it, but I was waiting for you (Mimep Docete, 2016) as a tool to dialogue with the teens about things like falling in love, getting into a committed relationship, and respect for one’s body. He had noticed how a reductive view of human sexuality was quite common for that cohort.

The professor acknowledged that, certainly, it’s not exactly nor solely the kids’ “fault,” as they timidly approach adulthood. The problem is rooted in the constant pollution they breathe, and what pollutes their views about love is pornography, which is rampant on the internet. Though, if the internet has such power over them, it’s because we have created an educational vacuum.

I myself was surprised by what they had to say. What really struck me was the fact that they had a positive view of virtual platforms where ordinary people can sell images of their bodies or even sexual services. They saw nothing wrong with sites like OnlyFans, to name just one of these platforms.

Warning: teenagers can sell their own nudes

We’ve always known that sex “sells.” However, in the past, it was mainly people from the entertainment industry who “sold their bodies,” while today, anyone can, using online streaming platforms.

Thanks to the internet and online platforms, anyone can earn money “from the comfort of one’s own home” by selling the most intimate side of oneself. We already explored this topic in an article entitled “OnlyFans and Twitch: streaming and entertainment platforms or legalized prostitution?”

OnlyFans was founded in 2016 as a portal where people pay for content (photos, videos, live streaming) with a monthly subscription – a sort of pay-per-view. Lately, it’s become trendy to sell sexual or violent content, which is banned by rules about obscenity by normal platforms and copyright laws, but which continues to go unregulated, and contributes to the platform’s growing fame. At this point, OnlyFans is mostly known for this sort of content.

The biggest problem is that teenagers aren’t properly protected. A BBC documentary #Nudes4Sale investigated the spike in sales of intimate content made by minors, showing that a large number of underage creators use social media and streaming platforms to sell their images or videos in exchange for money or gifts.

Despite the fact that platforms try to censor certain types of content – it is obviously illegal for a minor to show themselves naked online – they don’t always succeed in doing so, or at least not in a timely manner. This results in inappropriate content circulating, which circulates even more precisely because of the young age of the subject.

In other words: underage users manage to create their accounts by circumventing the platforms’ security checks, and the platforms don’t always manage to detect users who circumvent these rules.

Adolescence: the most delicate phase of life for education about affectivity

Loneliness increases the risk of abusing pornography. According to data from the Global Digital Report 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdowns, people have dramatically intensified not only their use of digital devices but also of pornography. However, these platforms themselves become new sources of loneliness. Young people who approach sexuality impersonally like this risk missing out on the value of authentic relationships. They also risk not understanding the added value – intrinsic to intimacy – of tenderness. Where human beings are treated as consumer goods, the perception of inner emptiness increases.

Our teenage years are some of the most complex and delicate of our lives. As teenagers, we’re plagued by changes and uncertain about the future. We beg for others’ approval to prove our own self-worth. Thus, teens might even frown upon the idea of making someone pay to see their naked bodies.

This is why some teenagers, if they’ve not been taught properly about respecting their bodies and caring for their affectivity, can easily fall into traps like those set by platforms like OnlyFans.

Even when young people aren’t personally involved with these practices (i.e. they don’t sell or buy erotic images), these tools still directly influence their relationship with sexuality. The platforms inevitably shape the way they view their bodies and their own intimacy. Young people run the risk of growing up with the idea that it is permissible to do whatever they want, as long as it’s consensual, and then end up getting hurt.

“We were born to love”: young people need to hear that

Returning to my meeting with the high-school kids, when I spoke about “self-giving,” of “ownership of one’s body,” of the “importance of pure intimacy,” the first to raise their hands – to say they were bothered by this – were three girls.

They said things like: “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it,” “You do what you want, but aren’t I allowed to do the same?” “Your words make me feel judged: does putting photos on OnlyFans really make me a bad person?”

One after another, they got defensive. They would raise their hands to retort before I even finished speaking. Their aim was to defend an alleged good (the freedom to do anything), probably without even knowing that there is another way.

One girl asked me: “If a husband and wife decide to film themselves during their most intimate moments to make money, where’s the harm in that?”

I would like to reiterate my response for all young people who maybe haven’t seen any alternative to what the increasingly pervasive world of pornography offers: “When a husband and wife experience authentic intimacy, they are already completely satisfied by what they share. If they seek further satisfaction by other means, maybe something is missing in that relationship. If you experience such poor intimacy that you try to sell it, you simply have no idea what love is…”

For the first time, after an hour of discussion, that answer left them silent.

In that silence, I saw my hope revived – just a bit.

At the end of the hour, everyone ran off. I stayed with the lecturer, and we looked at each other puzzled.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw a boy approach us timidly. He was attentive the whole time, but never joined in discussions. God only knows what he was thinking. “I just wanted to say thank you for coming,” he said. Then he said goodbye and walked away.

His grateful eyes were a sign that there were open hearts in the room. One need only engage young people and offer them a different message: a message that shows the value of relationships, instead of degrading them.