Understanding and preparing for the implementation of the Online Safety Act. Info for adult providers.
The online safety act is officially here.

The most recent phase of the new laws that affect adult service providers came into effect at the end of 2024, (the next phase starts in July 2025, more on that later) this phase tackles "illegal content" in which website owners will now be held responsible for hosting illegal content, such as the usual suspects like CSAM, illegal weapons and drugs, fraud etc, but possibly also sex work advertising.
I say "possibly" because while it's definitely there in the bill (I checked, see schedule 7 clauses 27 a & b of the online safety act 2023) how it will be interpreted remains to be seen. I don't think this provision bans sex work advertising generally, it cites illegal content pertaining to sex work advertising as any content that "causes or incites prostitution for financial gain" and "controlling prostitution for financial gain" and that is literally all it has to say about it. As usual when it comes to sex work policy, it's vaguely worded and open to a thousand different interpretations, and doesn't offer any clarity at all to sex workers who wish to try and comply.
So lets explore some of the most obvious potential interpretations of these provisions so we can know what we're dealing with.
Content that "causes or incites prostitution for financial gain"
The basic interpretation of this is that if you do something online that encourages somebody to enter into prostitution and you financially gain from that, you are breaking the law and the content is illegal. Apart from the fact that the term prostitution is in itself quite vague, what are we defining as prostitution in this clause? All forms of sex work including online services? Only in person services? Only services where actual sex takes place? Who the fuck knows! But where it really gets fuzzy is in the financial gaining, is it enough to have financially gained just from the encouraging of someone to enter into prostitution, or do you have to financially gain from that persons actual prostitution activities for it to apply? What's the difference?
With regard to financially gaining just from the encouraging someone into prostitution, think of this in terms of "findom guides", it doesn't necessarily have to be a findom guide, I provide it as an example because I know we're all overly familiar with them. The basic premise being that you write a guide that explains to someone how to get into some form of sex work or how to do it to some degree of success and you then sell that guide for profit. While you can't be sure that your guide encouraged someone who wasn't already doing sex work to get into it, rather than being sold to someone already doing the job that wants to learn more, such a guide could be interpreted by this law as causing or inciting prostitution for financial gain.
Likewise, we've all seen or heard about girls posting tick tock videos talking about why girls should get into sex work, if you do that and also earn any form of influencers income from that app or product sponsorship deals, then you would potentially be falling foul of this law too.
With regards to financially gaining from the actual activity of prostitution of the person you encouraged into the job, this basically amounts to what we understand as "pimping" but it's important to be aware that even without being a pimp we can still fall foul of this.
Think about peer to peer mentoring for fees, if you advertise mentoring services online it could be viewed as inciting people into prostitution, if you're ever investigated for it and can't prove that a person you're mentoring was already involved in sex work before you started to charge them for mentoring, you could be prosecuted for inciting someone into prostitution for financial gain.
I repeat, it is not at all clear if this vaguely worded clause applies to one or both of these scenarios, it will be left entirely to the interpretation of the court to decide it, the first to find themselves in court for this offence will likely establish the precedent for future interpretation, but who the fuck wants to be the first?
While OSA places the focus of liability under this act on the owners of the sites, posters can still be held responsible for knowingly posting what has been deemed by the law as illegal content, just like those on X who got jail time for writing posts encouraging people to set fire to asylum seeker hotels during the riots about the Southport murders.
You could be liable if you're advertising your guide on social media even if the site host is responsible for managing illegal content, likewise you would absolutely be liable if you advertised the guide on your own personal site, both as a host and a poster.
Even if you personally are not "caught" and held liable, at the very least, posting such stuff could mean get you banned from the platform.
It is best to act as though both scenarios are applicable and that you are liable regardless just to be safe, at least until (if) some clear guidance is published, so in the meantime, delete your guides, pull down your social media videos telling girls how great sex work is, and reconsider how you advertise, or if you should at all - peer to peer mentoring. I believe these laws are aimed at pimping, and you're not getting away with a pimping charge lightly.
There are some people that believe this law effectively bans all sex work advertising, but I believe that's just panic, it just doesn't make logical sense to ban all advertising for a business that is legal and taxable, under a bill that is intended to protect young people from online harms and pornography, it makes more sense that these clauses are aimed at those who use online platforms to exploit others for their financial benefit. It's called the Online Safety Act, advertising our legal services doesn't make anyone unsafe.
How do you reasonably prosecute someone for advertising that "causes prostitution" of themselves when to prostitute oneself is perfectly legal? I know these vague and poorly worded clauses leave everything open to the interpretation of a court, but I just can't see such an argument holding up in court. If they are concerned about sex work advertising, they would legislate it specifically. I experienced such laws while working in Queensland, Australia in 2012 and 2013, where it was legal to advertise, but only vaguely, you couldn't explicitly specify services, prices or use pornographic imagery. We've never had any such thing in the UK, before the internet we left business cards in photo boxes for all to see!
While there are components in the currently presiding labour party that are pushing anti sex work ideals like the Nordic Model, that just doesn't appear to be on the governments agenda right now. If/when they get to us, I don't think there'll be any doubt about it, so I don't think this is a genuine concern at the moment, it just doesn't make any sense.
Content that "controls prostitution for financial gain"
First obvious question, how the fuck does online content "control" prostitution for financial gain? This is a clause that really fucking required some proper clarity.
There is one scenario I can think of where this kind of tracks, and that would be where one person uses compromising video or pictures of another as a means to force and coerce them to perform prostitution on their behalf. So for example a kind of revenge porn situation, where a boyfriend posts videos of you sucking his cock on your socials and refuses to remove them until you take clients to hand him your earnings. In this case, as providers we should probably reconsider the practice of posting exposing pictures of our subs to "encourage" them to pimp themselves out for our gain. You know what I'm talking about, getting your sub to suck guys cocks for money to hand over to you, if you advertise your sub doing that for you online, it could spell serious trouble, I really wouldn't do that anymore.
I can also see the potential for this being used right now against those of us who advertise for double sessions or multi Mistress play parties, when working with another person you are in effect using each other to make money, even if that money is your own earnings and not the others, in that particular scenario you couldn't earn it without the other persons participation in prostitution, so your advertising could be viewed as "controlling prostitution for financial gain". Again, whether or not this will be the case will depend entirely on the interpretation decided by the first court that tries it in a similar scenario.
It's worth keeping in mind however, that it's already illegal for us to work together as per UK brothel keeping laws, yet we still do, so we already take a risk, all be it a small risk, because UK police forces have always been quite open about the fact that they are not really interested in what independent workers are doing, as long as they don't become a public "nuisance", they are much more concerned with trafficking victims and focusing their efforts and limited resources there.
It's hard to say if that will remain the focus when it comes to enforcement of online laws about it, especially when those laws have been pushed through on the basis of "protecting the children", it's hard to see cops or even OFCOM making a push to get consenting whores just trying to make a bit of bag when they've got much bigger fish to fry to protect kids online, namely, the alarming amount of Ped0's that are prolific in online spaces.
When it comes to social media advertising about doubles and play parties it may not matter anyway, because regardless of the confusion over personal liability in these 2 clauses there is one definite, unquestionable and serious issue that could affect all UK based sex workers, and that is how the sites we advertise our services on will choose to protect themselves from liability, as prosecution for these offences won't just include big fines, but potentially criminal proceedings too.
How do the social media sites that still allow adult content like X and Bluesky, differentiate between content that is posted by and advertises an independent worker that is legal, versus content that was posted by a pimp to advertise a worker he controls that is illegal? The simple answer is - they can't, and they may well choose to prevent any from of advertising services in updated terms and conditions, or ban us altogether to protect themselves.
There is no sign of any of that just yet, despite these clauses having already come into effect at the end of 2024, but we may not see any difference until the law catches them out on something minor and they finally decide it's just not worth the risk anymore.
These clauses also put question marks over other advertising platforms we use, what does this mean for the future of Adultwork, who make enormous profits from the online advertising of sex workers? Is simply charging for advertising services enough to fall under "control for financial gain? Or do they just have to implement systems that can recognise independent workers over controlled workers? How do they protect themselves from liability so they don't get prosecuted and shut down? Likewise, paid directories have problems too, the most popular Mistress directory in the UK is professionalMistresses, they allow you to be featured for free, but you can also pay to be bumped to the top pf the list in your area and be featured on the front page and on their social media. While ever they charge for those additional services, they could be viewed as controlling prostitution for financial gain. They could choose to stop offering the additional paid for services therefore eliminating the element of financial gain, but will they be motivated to continue running the site if it doesn't earn anymore? They could just choose to shut it down. The future of our online advertising platforms is uncertain under this new legislation, and we have no choice but to wait and see how it plays out while hoping that these services are being informed by a good solicitor.
The " possession of extreme pornographic images".
Another clause, that BDSM content creators need to be aware of, is clause 29 of schedule 7, which cites the "possession of extreme pornographic images" as a priority offence under this "illegal content" phase of the OSA roll out.
Again there is no definition in the bill of what exactly constitutes "extreme" in this context, what I did manage to find was a letter that the sex workers union sent to OFCOM during the consultation period, in which they provide the definition as content which, (based on another law, section 63 b of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 which refers to the act of, rather than content) depicts acts that results, or is likely to result in, serious injury to a persons anus, breasts or genitals.
I also, rather serendipitously, randomly stumbled across a news article today about a man being prosecuted for rape. As well the assault charges, because he was in possession of film evidence of the assaults, he was also charged for possessing "extreme pornographic material".
I'm sure you can already see how this is problematic for BDSM content creators especially when it doesn't define what serious injury is. Is bruising serious injury or does there have to be blood? Is it only injuries that would require medical intervention, or injuries that cause long term harm which none of us are doing anyway? Based on the charges in the article I saw, does it just mean non consensual?
Again - Who. The fuck. Knows?
As it relates to illegal content and OSA, host sites and potentially posters, are now going to be held criminally liable for hosting/posting content that features a wide range of BDSM practices. Off the top of my head I'm thinking all extreme anal / pussy activities, like fisting and giant toys, heavy beatings to breasts and genitals, ball busting, ball trampling/crushing, sharps play, just to name a few.
At the same time, the fact that there was already a 2008 law criminalising acts defined as anything that causes, or risks causing serious injury to the breasts, genitals or anus, suggests that the kind of practices I mentioned perhaps don't come under that law, if it were already illegal to do those things, wouldn't it already be illegal to sell content with those things? In which case the platforms wouldn't have been allowing us to post it all this time.
Again, there's no certainty about how this will play out, but I would definitely consider deleting all clip previews and session sneak peeks from your social media that contain these practices and any others that might catch you out, socials will be trying to cover their ass as much as possible and will go overkill, so having such content may at the very least become a banning offence.
We may also see more restrictions on the content we're allowed to post on our clip and subscription sites if I'm right about those practices and others falling under that clause. It's hard to say how/if they will enforce that when it will all be hidden behind a paywall and age verification, without having OFCOM having a person that reviews the content for each site themselves, but as part of this bill it has been stated that the government will use the courts to instruct payment processors to stop payments for such content as part of their enforcement plan if necessary, and as well we already know, Visa and Mastercard aren't gonna do us any favours, they'll roll over like a dog.
It may be some time before we start to see these roll outs, I don't doubt that some of the sites who's income is entirely dependent on the content we produce will try to see how far they can push the boundaries of this legislation before they comply, if they have to, so something to keep an eye out for.
I strongly suggest that you all start doing some research on how to set up a private subscription based telegram channel for all the banned stuff, even if they don't ban the above mentioned stuff, the current landscape suggests more censorship is to come. I don't know how to do it myself yet, I've been meaning to look into it but haven't had the time, but I will be making figuring that out a priority this year, as should you. For the time being at least, a private subscription channel on Telegram shouldn't be affected by OSA, because it's classified as a private communications app, not a video sharing platform like socials and porn sites, and it's VSP's that OSA is aimed at.
The most frustrating thing about these clauses is that the architects of this bill were warned about all these unintended consequences, and how those consequences could further confuse and endanger sex workers, pushing our work more underground and affecting our income. Those architects held meetings with the sex workers union, were given in depth information about these potentials as well as numerous accounts of real sex workers fears surrounding these laws. There was even a tory MP who advocated for us (if you can believe it!) he understood perfectly those consequences and warned the government about this endangerment. They assured us they would reconsider these clauses and potentially revise them, and yet here they fucking are, without any editing or revising, as vague and uninterpretable as they were from the start, and without any of the clarification that they were informed these clauses desperately needed. Surprise surprise, they completely fucking ignored our very real concerns and placated our representatives with empty promises.
One can only hope that when those unintended consequences come to pass, they will pay attention and amend the bill as appropriate, though we may have a fight on our hands to make that happen.
PHASE 2; ADULT CONTENT AGE VERIFICATION, COMES INTO AFFECT JULY 2025.
We all knew it was coming, despite a million legitimate reasons not to, not least that it will financially cripple small business, risk user data, and is easily by-passable with the right tools and therefore pointless, but here we fucking are.
PAYED / PREMIUM CONTENT SITES
The one silver lining of UK based age verification, is that unlike US laws that have been implemented recently, is doesn't necessarily require ID to verify your age, a credit card is enough.
What this means for the clip and subscription sites we all sell our content on, is actually only a small change, and that is to not show any content previews or images until a consumer is logged into a profile with a registered card. I Want Clips has already done that, they sent an email out to creators last week informing of the change, other clip stores and subscription sites will quickly follow suit if they haven't already.
So the good news is that at least in the UK, registering a card is not really going to put consumers off, most of them are already doing that anyway to buy clips and subscribe to our fan sites, it's just not a big a deal for us here in the UK, at least regarding the sites where we sell our content, the paywall IS the age verification, and for the most part that already existed, at least in the places we actually rely on for income.
There have been some concerns that our premium platforms have not been taking this seriously. All video sharing platforms that are based in or provide their service to the UK are legally required to notify OFCOM of the services they provide. When the sex workers union contacted a number of the adult platforms we use, asking if they had notified OFCOM as required by the law, for the most part they did not receive any reply. But upon investigation I discovered that this has been the law since at least 2021 and businesses were notified of it much earlier. Video sharing platforms that were started before April 2021 had until April 2021 to register with OFCOM, business that started after that date had to make sure they were registered at least 10 days before launching and going live. So it seems highly unlikely that the premium platforms we use haven't done so ready, OSA wasn't even an official law until 2 years later in 2023 and most of the platforms we use were operating long before 2021, so there's no reason to think they haven't, or that we wouldn't have seen issues arising from non compliance in the last 4 years already.
It also shouldn't be any surprise that the sex workers union didn't receive any reply from the platforms, they are notoriously shit at keeping us informed about legal and policy challenges or the changes they intend to implement to address those challenges, we usually don't find out anything about their intentions until it's already done, and while there's no denying that that is absolutely shit of them when they know their creators rely on them for income, it doesn't mean they aren't taking care of it. It's worth keeping in mind that all of the platforms we rely on for our income are already facing much bigger challenges in the US. Most of the southern states have already implemented age verification laws, laws that were rushed, badly thought out, difficult and costly to implement, and that require actual ID verification, Ohio requires a users ID to be reverified every 20 minutes that they stay on the site. Porn hub has just opted to not show their sites in these states anymore instead of complying, and it could get so much worse now that Trump has taken office, already Oklahoma is trying to enact a total porn ban. ID verification is a much more complicated and costly process, so our platforms have already taken a massive hit in trying to comply with these laws, and even if they do comply, most people aren't going to connect an ID to their porn habits. Whatever the platforms do regarding compliance in the states, they are looking at monumental losses of viewers and money in the biggest consumer base on the planet. They simply cannot afford to lose another enormous consumer base like the UK, especially when the UK has made it so easy for them to implement age verification with many options other than ID on the table.
Even if they aren't saying anything right now, I just cannot believe that they are not already making moves behind the scenes to prepare for OSA, I Want Clips is already fully compliant a whole 7 months before the deadline, so it can't be that fucking hard! I don't know about you, but that gives Me confidence for the rest of them, we're talking about multi million/billion dollar platforms here, they can afford it.
As far as what age verification means for us here in the UK, I think there is a positive to dig out of this situation, it hasn't escaped me that age verification could potentially reduce the instances of content theft and piracy. The reality is, once all the major, trustworthy, reliable porn sites are caught up, all that will be left will be the dark and dingy corners of internet porn, sites which the government will instruct internet service providers to block in our country for non compliance, eventually, gradually, one by one, just as they did with all the torrenting sites for movies and music, until there's nothing left without age verification but the dark web, which just doesn't run fast enough for streaming and downloads, it's like going back to dial up on there. There will always be a subset of skanky broke fuckers who would rather hit the dark web and use anonymity tools and stew in nastiness and CSAM just to avoid paying for their porn, but realistically, the vast majority of ordinary people are not going to want to be anywhere near that, or will even know how to. At the very least, age verification will accustom a broad user base to registering their cards just to even see a preview, and as well we know from the subscription sites, once the card is registered, they will spend.
All those shitty little porn blogs that host our stolen content for free will eventually be shut down or blocked here, and probably other countries too the way things are going.
Now that I think about it, there is another use for that clause about content that controls prostitution for financial gain, all those guys posting on social media about their telegram channels full of our stolen content which they sell cheaper, could also be interpreted as breaking that law, no point having the channel if you can't advertise it, and you should make it a point to report those accounts to social media apps and be sure to state that the post is in contravention of this clause which the site is legally liable for. Even those that give it away won't get away scot free, it's worth keeping in mind that revenge porn laws have also been included in OSA too, so posting and distributing intimate content of a person without their express permission is an offence which results in imprisonment, so while they never took us seriously on the copyright breaches of our content, they sure as fuck will have to take us seriously on the revenge porn laws, otherwise their whole "protecting women and girls" shtick goes right down the toilet and you know we will publicly call them out and hold them to account on it.
It may take a while, but the ultimate aim of these bills to "clean up" the internet will materialise, and most consumers will be forced to pay for what they want and consume their porn legally. Once the kinks (lol) are figured out, this shit could actually work in our favour.
It won't work in our favour if they start insisting on ID instead of credit cards, that will put users right off, so keep an eye on that, and educate your consumer base about overcoming internet censorship, I have another blog on that too which I'll link later.
SOCIAL MEDIA Without a doubt, social media sites ARE going to bear the brunt of this legislation, enforcement will come down hard, as we all know, there's more CSAM on social media than anywhere else on the internet, and it's the effect of social media on kids that started this whole discussion of online child protection in the first place.
We already know that adult content is banned on most social media anyway, no biggy, that really only leaves X and Bluesky where a huge portion of the adult community (including myself) have migrated to in order to avoid the suppression and fascism of X.
With regards to these sites, it's really easy to address the age verification issue, only premium paid accounts with registered cards will be able to post and view adult content, (it get's more complicated with in person service advertising because of the above clauses, but generally dealing with porn should be easy.). Bluesky have already been talking about how they intend to roll out a premium service like X, and I don't doubt they'll be working on making that happen asap with this deadline in place. They could choose not to host adult content at all anymore, but it seems unlikely they'll waste an opportunity to get an enormous global community as guaranteed paying users instead.
With X though, as easy as it would be to implement this change, we're talking about the fucking muskrat, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he basically told the UK government and their OSA to fuck. right. off. You can see it right?
It's hard to say whether he actually would, I don't doubt for a minute that that's what the "free speech absolutist" would like to do, but at the same time, he's sure been spending a lot of time trying to influence UK politics recently, and that will become extremely difficult to do if X gets blocked in the UK for non compliance, so he's got a decision to make on whether to ban us, make us pay, or let the UK block his site to our whole country.
The one positive is that X has already accustomed people to paying for social media. I'm sure a lot of guys will pay for a premium service to still access adult content, there will be a lot that wont though so we may see a drop in following, and I think that will be much truer for X than Bluesky, because there are tons of people who just refuse to continue lining the pockets of the richest man on earth to fuel a fascist propaganda machine as a matter of principle. Personally when it comes to X, I think the writing has been on the wall for a very long time.
Since SESTA/FOSTA in 2018, it's become an increasingly hostile environment, and not just because of the constant shadow banning and suppression of our accounts and content, but also because of the pervasive right wing attitudes that are spreading like wildfire there and are exposing us to ever more misogyny, hatred and rape threats without any recourse or safety systems. They ignore our reports of actual crimes committed against us (because rape threats and hate speech ARE a crime in the UK) and you can't even properly block people anymore.
To believe that X and Ketamine Karen have any concern about the future or safety of sex workers on that app is absolutely laughable. He carrot dangled allowing us to monetise our accounts on there to keep us present and engaged after his take over, and it never materialised, we pay for the blue tick and it makes no difference to shadow banning and suppression, to believe that sex work has a future on X is already a huge mistake, and it is most definitely not going to get any better with OSA. There is, as mentioned earlier, the very real possibility that they just ban adult content altogether to avoid any liability.
I strongly advice against putting all your social media eggs into the X basket.
I know there are many big name sex workers that are resisting exploring other platforms, and I get it, why the fuck would you want to start all over again on Bluesky when you've got a 100k following on X and so despite the suppression you still do OK, but it would be a mistake to think you will always do OK there.
I have been a sex worker since before the use of internet and the invention of social media and smart phones, I started when we left business cards in phone boxes, I have lived experience of the evolution and collapse of various platforms that sex workers have relied on over the least 2 decades, and I assure you, that X bubble isn't going to burst, it's already been slowly deflating for a good long while, and you need to shore up your online presence against that. Start building a following on other platforms that still allow adult content like Bluesky, even if you don't invest a lot of time into it just yet and still rely on X for your income. That said, I also can't deny the possibility that Bluesky decide to ban us all too, it will really depend on just how much pressure this new legislation puts on social media sites, none of them will care enough about us to resist that pressure and protect us.
Accept this is as fact. There is a real probability of us not being allowed to remain on any social media site at all.
I know that prospect seems incredibly scary, and no doubt there will be tons of small creators and providers that just can't pull in the work without it, but there was a time before social media where sex workers existed and thrived on the internet without it, and that was without even having a plethora of clip stores and fan sites too.
I've said it before on my social media and I know a lot of people view it as a very controversial thing to say, and I agree with that to some extent, we are talking about women with few options in a declining male dominated economy and much more survival sex work than there ever was, but the fact remains, from the moment that social media took off, the overall income of sex workers has decreased year after year. I know there are a tiny percentage who struck it lucky on social media and made themselves into millionaires, but they are a tiny percentage, it was just luck, it doesn't happen unless you're skinny and white or look like an Instagram model, and it doesn't change the fact that for the other 99% our earnings have been decreasing because of the market saturation caused by exposure of the industry on social media.
Just as in a lot of creative industries, seeing it on social media made people believe they could do it, but social media also glamorised this job, and hid all the danger, stigma and discrimination that goes with it. So many girls entered and are still entering without the first clue of the many dangers, pitfalls and fights for survival that await them. Many would never have entered if they had known. Many are now trapped into it regardless.
Personally, I think social media has done a great disservice to unwitting women everywhere and the service part of the adult industry in general, and that is particularly true when it comes to kink providers. This is a complex and technical job that requires refined and competent skills, a strong sense of ethics, and a deep understanding of sexual psychology, anatomy and risk assessment, we are not just sex workers, we are caretakers, we don't just provide pleasure, we hold the mental stability, safety and the lives of our subs in our hands, and many if not all of those very important and necessary features of being a responsible professional Dominatrix are being lost in the influx of online Dommes who think all they need is a pretty face, a middle finger and a crop to be good at this job.
This lack of skill and competence makes it difficult to earn in this industry, not everybody can do it especially if you aren't willing to learn, and that has resulted in a race to the bottom, with inexperienced girls doing the most insane shit on film for social media just to drum up the followers through outrage engagement, which nobody can deny, reflects poorly on our industry as a whole and is an open invitation for more oversight and regulation. On top of that, they have continually contributed to the devaluation of our work and content by constantly trying to outdo more skilled competitors with obscenely low pricing. It has changed the client landscape for kink, it has sent ripples through the market, creating a lower standard of client with a higher sense of entitlement.
Do you know how much I earned as a Dominatrix when I started in 2002? It was £150 an hour, over 22 years later and that's still about the basic rate anywhere in the UK outside London. People balked when I raised my rate to £170 at the start of the cost of living crisis, and I can't raise it anymore than that, because that is the standard that has been set and that is what clients expect, and with the addition of all these new unskilled workers, if I tried to raise it anymore my client pool would go where the service is poorer but cheaper, just to not "feel" ripped off.
The loss of social media would finally put an end to this pervasive sense of high quality service for rock bottom prices, not to mention all the scammers and impersonators who are stealing our income. Only providers who take the responsibility seriously will survive and it would prevent further exposure of the industry to people who are just not suited to it, it would aid in desaturating the market and raising the income of all workers. Veteran sex workers like myself often discuss the days of the "veil of the velvet curtain", we weren't public facing or mainstream, we operated in the shadows, the general public while aware of our existence was rarely ever exposed to us, and while we had less rights it was easier to work because everybody left us alone. Out of sight, out of mind.
With such an influx of ideologic youth into sex work, who are ignorant to the stigma and discrimination that sex work brings, comes an insistence of entitlement to rights we have never been granted and possibly never will be in our lifetimes. While this youthful idealistic view is admirable, it causes people to behave in ways that assume they already have those rights, and in turn that invites scrutiny, criticism, regulation and oppression.
Society doesn't like sex workers, fuck, society doesn't even like women, they haven't since the dawn of time, and defiantly throwing our lifestyles in the face of the general public just makes them want to crack down on us even more, that's exactly what has been happening, we're all aware of the general disdain for "OnlyFans girls", and they use all kinds of false narratives to keep us down, we can't even say we've had a bad day at work anymore without them using it as fuel for the fire they try to burn us down with.
The veteran service providers are longing for the return of the veil of the velvet curtain, that curtain was fucking lucrative!
That's the cold and uncomfortable truth when it comes to the service part of the industry (and there are many of us that prefer the service element over the constant content churning) we never made more money than when all we had to advertise was our own personal websites and people couldn't "see" us unless they looked for us, and we never had more peace in our jobs than when we kept our mouths shut and didn't rub our entitlement to rights in peoples faces.
I hate to fucking say it, I really do, I truly appreciate how fucking awful that is and I wish like everyone that it wasn't so, but I'm a realist, a pragmatist, and facts remain facts, even if people don't like them or want to believe them.
This is the material reality of the sex worker, however ugly it may be, and you can only achieve longevity in this job if you acknowledge and work with that reality rather than living in denial of it.
PERSONAL WEBSITES
So with that said, my next piece of advice is to make sure you have a personal website. I know that they have massively gone out of favour since we all have social media and fan sites anyway, they seem an unnecessary investment these days, and I'm perfectly aware that while ever we still have social media, a website on it's own is not enough. If you're not active on socials when your competitors are, you just cease to exist and disappear into obscurity, but if you are an in person service based provider and not just a content creator, having your own personal site will save you if it ever comes to none of us being on social media anymore, because you're just not allowed to talk about in person services on content based adult platforms.
We did just fine with only websites back in the day, and it resulted in a better quality of client, because they had to make an effort to find you, they were forced to do their research, properly read our information, inform themselves and follow our booking protocols, you always knew that the client that found you had actually done their homework and were taking the process seriously. There was no endless scrolling of free content, a thousand different workers at their finger tips, the ability to lazily clog up your inbox with "u avail" just to call you a fat slag when you say no, there were no guys trying to tap you up for free sext chat, and there were infinitely less time wasters. How does that saying go?
"What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly."
I promise you, if we all get kicked off social media, you'll do just fine as long as you have your own website, you'll get better clients and I genuinely believe we'll make much more money as we did before socials.
There are some things to be aware of when it comes to a personal service providers website under the new OSA guidelines however.
Under the guidelines, pornographic content that requires age verification is cited as video, photo and audio but NOT text. This means that a website advertising written descriptions of your services is still perfectly legal and not subject to age verification, as well as literary erotica.
It does mean however, that as of July this year, it will no longer be legal for your website to feature without age verification - any images of nudity, yours or your subs, wearing strap-ons or holding / using sex toys, session photos and videos, clip store previews, erotic audio files, or literally anything photo, video or audio based that can be classed as "created / published with the intent to cause sexual arousal."
Of course, this feels like a very difficult line to tow when we're talking about fetishes in which a mere photo of a mundane object could sexually arouse someone, but remember that we're looking at this through the lens of child protection, so while you know you're bare feet are going to give some guy a stiffy, the average child wouldn't, and that's the important distinction. It can't be obviously sexual.
To be on the safe side you should also take a careful look at anything on your site that while not "pornographic" is still very sexually suggestive. Photos in lingerie for example, arty and alluring should be fine, on all fours with legs spread and your fingers in your mouth or pants, probably not fine.
A good idea is to think of it in terms of a Twitter/X profile pic which is subject to similar rules, you can be sexy but not sexual, it should be kinda PG15.
It would also be a good idea to update the warning text that any service provider should have on the very first landing page, warning users about the adult nature of your site and giving visitors the option to enter or leave. (You probably found this blog post through a direct link which I posted somewhere that would have bypassed that page, but if you just type www.dominajemma.co.uk into the URL bar, you'll see what I mean.)
You should update your warning text to say something along the lines of "While this website does not contain any pornographic images, videos or audio, it remains of an adult nature and is not suitable for minors".
If you've looked at my warning page you'll also notice that I've provided links to sites that offer parental controls, so nobody can say I'm not trying my best to be honest about my site is and how to avoid it or protect children from it.
You should also be using your site to encourage ALL of your visitors to follow you for free on your fan platforms and sign up to your mailing lists. Our future on social media and in public online spaces is uncertain, make sure your clients know where to still find you if you disappear off socials. Make sure they know that there is a possibility of that, it's not enough to say "please sign up to whatever", they have to be aware that if they don't, there's a very good chance you could just disappear from their platforms of choice one day.
For those of you that own and run your own content membership sites rather than operating through multi million dollar fan sites, I'm unclear as to whether just accepting payment for content is enough as long as you aren't showing previews without members being logged in and registering a card, or if registering cards still have to be verified through an age verification company. The online information isn't very clear and I doubt it's reliable enough to protect you from liability, so if you are having to implement age verification yourself for any reason, make sure you consult with a proper solicitor.
I'm also a aware of a site called clip cube that provide the facility to set up your own independent fan subscription site, I'm not clear on how much involvement clip cube has once you site has been set up, if payments are still processed through them or what. But if you have an independent subscription site set up through clip cube or similar, you should contact them and ask them to outline both yours and their responsibilities under this new legislation.
These are the key points to be aware of as far as the Online Safety Bill pertains to our industry right now, and for the most part, it's not that bad. The advertising in person services on social media might prove to be tricky, but it also might not depending on how those clauses are interpreted so that's something to keep your eye on.
I don't like to recommend complying in advance, laws are only as good as they are enforceable, but I would recommend being overly cautious on socials, as they will be held accountable the most and will act to defend themselves the most, with everything else see how it plays out but pay attention to potential changes of TOC's on your advertising and content platforms so you don't get caught out.
You'll have to clean up the visual and audio content on your personal websites a bit (I've got a hell of a lot of work to do on that front!) but I honestly don't believe there are restrictions on advertising your business on your own site generally.
UK Age verification isn't going to have an enormous impact on your online sales in the short term, but that illegal content clause may catch BDSM providers out on platforms that will be held liable for you posting it, so expect potential changes on the acceptable content lists.
I might reconsider the not complying in advance if you're on Onlyfans, we all know those fuckers are sneaky and love to quietly ban content categories then close your account for having it even though it was posted when it wasn't banned, I definitely don't recommend trusting those fuckers. That is of course assuming the kind of content I talked about wasn't already banned on Onlyfans, I wouldn't know anymore, I gave up on those digital pimps time ago.
What I will say is that it would be foolish to believe that this is the end of it, censorship always leads to more censorship. It could be the case that after a couple of years of full implementation they start to notice loopholes the bill hasn't properly covered and they'll amend to close them. Our government could go on as the US democrats have done, and instead of standing up to the onslaught of fascism, kowtow to it instead, As a centrist government rather than a properly left government, Labour already seem only interested in improving things as long as they can maintain the status quo, and are ignoring the monumental shift from what we've been doing that our society requires to really improve and prevent this backslide into fascism.
There is always the possibility that the government could realise that OSA is completely pointless and hasn't achieved anything and move to scrap it instead, but I doubt it.
So in the meantime I will continue to advocate for proper internet comprehension, including how to use the tools that are available to overcome all kinds of censorship like age verification and still accessing websites that have been blocked in your country. I really recommend that sex workers are at the forefront of spreading this education, for ourselves and our consumers, as we are the people most affected by it and stand to lose the most too. This remains the absolute best way that we can protect ourselves from further and increasing censorship. If you haven't already, I suggest having a read of another one of my blogs about keeping the internet censorship free, and posting similar content on your own sites and blogs in a bid to continually educate our consumers and prepare them for every eventuality, this knowledge is the best tool we have in our arsenal right now for maintaining our online presence.
Read it here:
Thank you all for reading, and good luck with your website clean ups, it's gonna suuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Domina Jemma xxx
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