Maybe it starts with “Did you hear …” whispers in the breakroom. Or perhaps it escalates as employees huddle over their smartphones, eager to check if the rumors are true — that one of their co-workers has a page on an online adult entertainment platform like OnlyFans. Regardless of how it starts, situations involving an employee’s voluntary online exposure rarely end well and can bring legal exposure for the employer. Besides dealing with the disruptive effect in the workplace, employers and HR professionals risk damage to a company’s reputation and being caught between a rock and a hard place: if you discipline the female employee with the OnlyFans side gig but not the male co-workers who discovered and shared it, you may be accused of engaging in disparate treatment, retaliation, or even of condoning sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. As sites like OnlyFans have exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, one side effect has been the creation of a minefield for employers, HR professionals, and lawyers to navigate.
OnlyFans
So what is OnlyFans? It’s an online content subscription service founded by British entrepreneur Tim Stokely in September 2016, which initially gained some measure of popularity among musicians, YouTubers and fitness influencers who created and offered exclusive, non-sexual content. But as social media policies became increasingly censorious and the faltering economy left many individuals looking for means of supplementing or replacing income, adult entertainment became the calling card for OnlyFans. In exchange for a social media-like interface (complete with direct messaging, pay-per-view, and a “tip” button), OnlyFans creators take a DIY approach to content and pay the platform a 20% commission. In March 2020, OnlyFans had 30 million registered users and 450,000 creators. A year later, those numbers jumped to 120 million registered users and 1 million creators. Last year alone, OnlyFans paid out more than $2 billion to its creators. See, “‘Where Else Can I Make a Month’s Rent in Two Days/’: The Unlikely Stars of OnlyFans,” The Guardian (July 10, 2021).
