Recently, a couple of my friends were joking about starting OnlyFans, but just for feet pics of course. I suspected one of them was seriously considering doing this. When I followed up with her, she told me she had asked around for advice from acquaintances who were already making money from it. These women started with feet pics but they were doing full-on porn now. A man who handled one of the accounts offered to manage my friend for a cut should she ever want to dip her toes in the industry.

Not long after that, some guy told me he tried to convince his girlfriend to start an account for feet on OnlyFans and some other site dedicated to the fetish, FeetFinder.

"Would you be comfortable with her doing porn?" I explained that feet stuff seemed to be a gateway to porn.

"Well, er, it's her body. Her body, her choice... feminism... She's a doctor. She makes good money and doesn't even work that much, like 20 hours a week," he said as if that explained things.

"So she doesn't need to do this," I said.

He bared his yellow smoker-stained teeth into a sheepish grin. "Yeah, well, it's so I don't have to work."

"A modern-day pimp." I was losing my patience with this guy. "Would you date a porn star?"

"I mean...that would be something I'd discuss with my girlfriend if she ever wanted to do it."

He used to lead guided meditations, cacao ceremonies, sound baths, and the like for the hippie community in the West Coast. With his stringy long hair and crumpled linen shirt, he was missing a prayer bead necklace to still play the part. He had also been a former surfing instructor in various countries around Southeast Asia when he was younger, but now he sported the beer belly of a hedonist in rapid physical decline.

"She wants to get married and have kids," I said. "I doubt a lot of guys would want to do that with a porn star, or even an OnlyFans model."

He paused to mull this over, or maybe he was trying to think of a clever counterargument.

"Most men wouldn't," he admitted. "There would be some who would."

Not him. Otherwise he would have said so. I'm pretty sure his girlfriend dumped him anyway.

Men are the biggest consumers of porn, yet they often shame and degrade women for being sex workers. Unless, of course, they are trying to get a piece of the pie.

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There is a feeding frenzy whenever a beautiful woman earns income from loaning out her body. Whether she's posting feet pics or acting in hardcore porn, the vultures circle. Why should she get to keep all that money and power to herself?

The modeling industry may appear more innocuous in comparison. Wear cute clothes and pose for photos taken in glamorous locations to earn a day rate that surpasses the average person's monthly salary? Most people would jump at the opportunity. Modeling is one of the rare fields where women outearn men by a substantial margin. Let's be clear on why: because the woman's body is both being sold and doing the selling. But whenever a woman uses her body to make a living, she inevitably suffers.

Two model memoirs that underscore this point are My Body by Emily Ratajkowski and How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone by Cameron Russell. While modeling may carry less social stigma than sex work, the industry is just as corrupt due to more gatekeepers who exploit their positions. At least with sex work, women have some idea what they’re getting into. Making online content for OnlyFans and webcamming allows them to work independently, without the need for handlers if they prefer.

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Models are at the mercy of their agencies, casting directors, photographers, designers, editorial boards, fashion and beauty brands/conglomerates, and more. Gaining approval from a long list of people in this extensive network is crucial to keep booking jobs.

Now in their early and late thirties respectively, Ratajowski and Russell have the maturity to reflect on their careers in the modeling industry. From their experiences, I’ve extracted a formula that the industry gatekeepers, particularly older men, use to undermine young models' power and agency to assert control over them.

1) The model has to be young.

Barely out of puberty, insecure, identity undefined, frontal lobe still developing. They are naive to the full power of their beauty, making them easy to exploit.

2) Isolate her.

Adults will feel funny about sexualizing teenagers when their parents are in the room. Keep a closed set so it's easier to convince girls to strike hypersexualized poses since "models have to be ready to do anything” and those who don’t obey will not become top models. 

3) Make her feel disposable.

In addition, if they refuse to do what the photographers want, such as nudity or conveying sexual readiness, countless other models are waiting in the wings to do it. Make the model feel she's easily replaceable to devalue her worth and put her in scarcity mode when it's the industry that needs her body to make money.

4) Make her perform.

Russell writes:

Becoming a supermodel might be all about power. Letting the photographer feel he controls you, that when he tells you to close your eyes, lift your chin, open your lips, that you do it for him. You breathe for him. And when you open your eyes and look into the camera, it’s to look at him. He brings you pleasure.

If you let the person looking through the lens feel that they are not a witness but a creator, that your body is only responding to their direction/to their desires, you let them become the author.

5) Make her seek validation.

On working with a photographer, Ratajkowski writes:

The more indifferent he seemed, the more I wanted to prove myself worthy of his attention. I knew that impressing these photographers was an important part of building a good reputation. Does he think I'm smart? Especially pretty? And after looking at photos of the other models he shot, something switched inside of me then. As I looked at the images, I grew competitive. This guy shoots all these women, but I'm going to show him that I'm the sexiest and smartest of them all. That I am special.

I so desperately craved men's validation that I accepted it when it came wrapped in disrespect.

5) Dangle more money and opportunities in front of her if she still doesn't comply.

For a big European beauty campaign worth a million dollars, Russell does a test shoot for the client so they can see if they like her. After the shoot, she wonders if everything that happened was sexual harassment. 

How is it that after so many years I’m still letting anyone tell me I must prove how willing I am by showing the crew my tits? How is it I join the art director in his disgusting fantasy and suppress my confident resourceful self for a self that is barely a self, that barely speaks, that nods, that is genuinely embarrassed to be caught up, but not for reasons he believes? Of everything, pleasing him is what will make me win. And of everything, pleasing him is what will slowly erode any version of a self I have outside this moment. When I let his hand slide across my skin, when I arch my back and bite my finger for him, I am creating physical, material, accountable decisions.

This pushing of boundaries evokes the dynamics found in sex work. If she gets comfortable making money with feet pics, is she going to turn down ten times the cash if a fan wants a pic of their asshole? If she is already doing mainstream porn, well, does she know the real money is in the hardcore violent stuff? At the start of her career, she may feel in control, but as things progress, she might find herself in a situation where she barely recognizes who she's become and what she's doing. This could contribute to the alarming suicide rates among adult actresses.  

Ratajkowski writes:

In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was—how limited any woman's power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.

6) Repeat to chip away their self-worth until they are a shell of a person. 

Ratajkowski:

...I dissociate when my body is being observed....Dissociating makes everything easier.

Russell:

When you spend time calibrating for the mood and comfort of those around you, it’s like a radio that’s always on. When it turns off, emptiness.

These top models also grapple with disdain for the industry and self-disgust for accepting jobs they find morally conflicting.

Russell:

I am being paid to be disposable, to sell clothes that are disposable, to sell something I have no right to sell, to be someone I dislike, to be uncomfortable, until I can no longer see my whole self because I also see what they see and give it willingly. What higher value do I have? No other job would pay the day rate I’m making now.

Ratajkowski:

I was getting paid by a corporation owned by some billionaire (who made his fortune how, exactly?) and posting images that encouraged the world to see my body as my primary value. It's my fault.

Ratajowksi is particularly aware of how much she justifies using her body to get ahead:

Model or influencer or actor or not, all women know what it's like to use their sexuality for security in some capacity.

But to aspiring models, she warns:

...I'm not sure it's worth it—not the money or the attention.

We are not even scratching the surface of all the sexual harassment, assault, and rape that happens within the industry. Ratajkowski and Russell both share personal experiences in their books. As one of the leaders of the #MeToo movement for the fashion industry, Russell also includes disturbing accounts from other models near the end of her memoir.

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Both models continue to work in the industry. I imagine it must not be easy to completely walk away from the money, as well as the attention that gives them the platform for their activism and business endeavors.

A woman with her own money is empowering. If she wants to do it, appearance-focused employment can be empowering only if she has an exit plan. Make the money and get out. Have bigger dreams than just being a body for someone else's agenda. Cardi B often shares how she used her stripping money to finance her rap career such as paying for studio time, music videos, and other expenses before she broke into mainstream success. Fund that education, learn to invest, start that business.

Ratajowksi had dreams of working in the art world. Russell wanted to be the president of the United States. They saw modeling as a way to pay for their education and bills, but they got stuck in the industry until modeling became who they were. Only by writing their books did they finally get to showcase they had minds, personalities, and all the stuff that makes them fully realized people. Intelligent women suffer when they are in professions that require them to shut off their brains.

Unfortunately, many girls and women will still try to make quick cash with their bodies without considering the consequences. They will learn the hard way that easy money doesn't come for free.

A successful OnlyFans model, in the 9:42 mark of this video, warns girls how lonely it can get:

You might even have friends who are encouraging you to do it right now, but later on down the road when they get into a serious relationship or married or start having kids, they aren't going to want a girl who does porn around their family... I just want you guys to be aware of how lonely of a job this truly is because you will lose friends and family... as far as guy friend groups go, you're not going to be called by your name anymore. You're going to be the girl who does OF, and that might sound really cool at first, like 'she's bad,' but a year or two, and that wears off pretty quick. As far as your self-respect having a price, it does pay good, but a few more years, and you're going to want your self-respect back. It is just a shortcut that takes more than it gives...

Women's power—their bodies, their essence—gets diluted when they try to sell it. Beauty is meant to inspire, not to exploit nor be exploited. She may eventually feel like a victim working in those industries, but guess what? Men also claim to feel manipulated. Even if he is the one doing the harassing. He feels weak to women's seductive beauty, to their charms, to the power of their bodies. He blames her for making money by taking advantage of lonely men's desperation to interact with women. This creates a dynamic where both men and women perceive each other as predators while feeling victimized themselves. None of this helps anyone.

Other women are also angry at their peers who profit from their bodies. They don't want the next generation of girls to do the same. Access to something invaluable shouldn't be given to the undeserving.

Some of them know the secret. Isn't it silly for women to seek power through other people when every woman is already the embodiment of power?

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