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"We're in hard times right now": Meet the nursing students turning to OnlyFans to get by
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- Title
- These Nursing Students Are Turning To OnlyFans To Get Through The Pandemic
- Word count
- 3110 words
Clearly they have the option of loans open to them, but they just don't want to take on the debt. Now that's a valid choice but it's different to being genuinely trapped between a rock and a hard place.
An equally interesting discussion is what happens to men in the same situation who don't have such options open to them at all. I suppose they just take the loans, demonstrating neatly that this is perhaps less of a Fantinesque trap than it is presented as.
this seems somewhat ignorantly dismissive of the precarity of the situation, student loans can be absolutely crushing and it's also very bad that some people feel forced into accepting them. sex work has historically been a uniquely stigmatized profession and the fact that people who otherwise might not have been willing to accept its risks are now doing so specifically to finance higher education is worth examining.
I suspect that it is the cultural de-stigmatization of sex work rather than current economic climes being uniquely precarious that is driving this trend.
I mean.. student loans get into 'bought a house's territory. I have friends who are better paid than nurses struggling financially because of student loan debt.
At least with a mortgage you can walk away and not be indebted for life. You can't discharge student loan debt.
Note: I know I'm in a very privileged position compared to many of my peers. Making an exasperated joke at how fucked so much of my generation is.
Ayyyyyeeeeee that's me! Rolling in that sweet sweet tech industry money yet never going to be able to afford a house because between myself and my partner we've got $90k in student loans to pay off. Guess I'll never get to leave this industry because doing so would almost certainly tank my financial future :) such a good system. Love that I was forced into it because I was told by every adult in my life I'd be a failure and a burden to my family if I didn't have a college degree. So cool. cool cool cool cool cool.
Samesies. Very privileged, yet still trapped and having minuscule upward mobility. Doesn't feel much like too much of a joke though...
I'm in the top 20% of income earners, and I'm < 6 months unemployment from getting foreclosed on.
#MillenialWealth
I feel you. I am also lucky enough to have the "privilege" of working at a job that I think is fine. I don't like my work, I don't really feel accomplished, I'm not passionate about the field or the tech I'm working with, but my coworkers are great and I don't actively dread waking up for work every day so I feel like I can't complain too much. I don't really have a specific field I'd transition into (because I know its not worth humoring or fantasizing about getting out of Tech) but given where I sit pay-wise in a top 5 most expensive cities in the US any industry shift is going to be a massive pay cut and unless I move cities its going to also require a massive change in lifestyle because its not like very much money makes it into my savings at the end of the month. I have a very nice cushion right now and could probably make it about 8 months of unemployment, but that's only because I have been saving for over a year for a wedding that is indefinitely on hold so in an emergency I could dip into wedding funds.
God forbid me or my partner actually go see a doctor and have to start dealing with US medical bills.
People are losing their main jobs over camming or softcore posts, much less prostitution, and there's been national legislation passed (SESTA/FOSTA) recently that also contributes to a backlash. There's no hard numbers in the piece unless I'm missing them, but I would guess that approval is up maybe 10-15% at most among young people and probably less with other demographics. Gig work in general has significantly increased in the past decade, I think the side-hustle-ability of casual sex work is easily as much of a factor as any small increase in cultural acceptance.
Acceptance on the scale of the entire population might not have gone up by a gigantic amount but people gauge acceptability based on their own social circles and in the groups and communities that these women find themselves in I would imagine sex work is extremely de-stigmatized.
What about someone being a man means that they don't have the same options available to them?
Well sex work for men is trickier since the clients tend to be exclusively other men. So unless you're gay/bi or willing to play for the other team for money - there is basically nothing.
Plus men who have sex with men, have an easier time finding sex partners (although interestingly I've heard from lesbian/bi- friends that finding samesex partners as women is easier than their experiences in hetero-land so maybe its more than just gender at play there) and cam partners - so the value of the service is lower.
I know this is anecdotal but my step-sister is a lesbian and while I don't think this is as much the case for her now, I know when she was in high school her main friend group was basically just other LGBT people. Pretty much everyone in that group just dated each other, it got a little bit messy sometimes.
Yeah. My mothers' social circle was like that. Especially once the whole gay half of the group died of AIDS in the 70's it was all lesbians, and they dated each other a good bit before they settled into pairings as they got older.
Is there any information out there that shows success rates in sex work for men vs women? I think the point he is trying to make is that it is much easier for a woman to be successful in sex work than a man. But that is pure speculation without any concrete information.
It doesn't directly answer the question, but I read this article (also on Buzzfeed News) recently about some male sex workers on OnlyFans: Meet The Male Sex Workers Of OnlyFans. And The Women They Satisfy.