RedHanded - ShortHand: E-Pimping – Exploitation & Abuse on OnlyFans

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

At first, OnlyFans seemed like a shiny new frontier for safer sex work – a platform that promised unprecedented financial autonomy for its creators. But wherever there’s sex work, there will inevitably be men who try to profit off it…And through the manosphere’s lingo of online hustle culture and misogyny, a new breed of so-called “OnlyFans managers” emerged to claim their piece of the digital-sex-work pie, using the oldest tricks in the exploitation handbook: coercive control, financial bondage and physical violence. Welcome to the dark world of E-Pimping. --Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Since the dawn of time, the business of sex work has attracted weasily woman haters, looking for a profit. Procure as, panderers, pimps, whatever you want to call the go-betweens for haughty Johns and ladies of the night, these delightful creatures have always been there to claim a cut of sex workers' hard-earned money, and coercion and violence are never far away. When Onlyfans arrived in 2016, it promised a new era of sex work. For what felt like the first time, sex workers had total creative and financial control. But it wasn't long for a new breed of money-grubbing middle men to emerge, proving without a doubt that wherever there is money to be made from women's boobies,

there will be men who will do whatever it takes to steal a cut. And it doesn't stop at shady financial dealings. We're talking blackmail threats, and even acts of brutal violence for stepping outside of the rules. Welcome to the horrifying new frontier in digital exploitation. E-pimping. This is the shorthand. When OnlyFans first came out 10 years ago, it was marketed as a subscription platform,

one where popular content creators could sell photos and video content to paying fans. And at first, there was nothing implicitly sexual about it. Do you know who the highest earner on OnlyFans is? No. It's Cardi B. And she doesn't post her boobies or nothing. It's just like behind the scenes stuff. We also have been reached out to buy OnlyFans several times.

They're trying to poach us off Patreon. Oh, I see. That has died down a bit, though. I'm still planning my foot wiki. Don't worry about it. Except I've got this really savage tan line on my feet right now from the summer, and it just looks like my feet are dirty all the time, and there's not much I think about it.

So, yeah, it wasn't really meant to be sexual at first. But during the pandemic, when everyone was sad, lonely and a bit horny, that all changed, and only fans offered a more intimate alternative to old hat pornography. Here, fans could interact with their favorite sexy creators one-on-one through DMs and custom pay-per-view content. The real product being sold on OnlyFans wasn't just smut. It was relationships. Or at least, the simulation of that.

And for many, it totally democratised the industry. OnlyFans creators could operate from the safety of their own. homes and technically didn't have to do anything that they weren't comfortable doing. With porn studios, production companies and pimps eliminated from the equation, creators had unprecedented control over their content and their earnings. They could set their own prices and build their own brands, whatever that looked like, whether it was niche fetish content or digital girlfriend experiences. But as soon as it became clear how much money was flowing on Onlyfans,

a certain male-dominated sphere of the internet decided, that they wanted a slice of pie. And thus, OnlyFans managers, or OFMs were born. Like any other type of talent manager, OFMs offered to help scale up their clients' brands and grow their fan bases in exchange for a fat chunk of commish. And as a business idea, it kind of makes sense. Only fans thrives on access.

The more fans a creator has, the more demanding it is to stay on top of all the personalized interactions that bring in the real earnings. things like sending customized, pay-per-view content and daily messages. So, in addition to growing a creator's fan base through social media, managers help keep the loyal fans all horned up and engaged by selling them pricey, pay-per-view items. That's essentially sexting. OnlyFans management agencies employ chatters to ghostwrite the messages posing as the creator writing to her fans.

And that might sound a bit surreal, but when you consider how an OnlyFans creator with thousands of dedicated subscribers, could actually manage to exchange messages with each fan every day, now you know that they don't. That all sounds fine as a business prospect. Plenty of creators do have legitimate dealings with agencies and make a shit ton of money thanks to them. But not all only fans managers are created equal.

The platform's total lack of regulation on third-party involvement means any old loser can become an only fans manager. And with masculinity influencers peddling how-to guides, codifying exploitation and deception into the OFM business model, the industry is crawling with predators. It's also exactly what happened with porn in the 90s. I've read Jenna Jameson's autobiography years ago, but one of the things that I've always remembered from it is like she draws a diagram of like what a porn star's boyfriend slash

manager, which is what they always become looks like. And it's exactly the same thing. I mean, it's the thing. Anywhere where there's an industry where there's this much money, where there's this much potential for exploitation, predators are going to be drawn like a fucking moth to a flame. And the idea started with the ringleader of online misogyny, Andrew Tate. He made extracting wealth from women or only fans part of his whole

rapy alpha male brand years ago. He started the OG coaching program on how to do it, which he aptly called PhD, Pimping Ho's degree. Tate's program literally taught young men how to recruit women into sexual slavery. That's a quote, by forcing them to create explicit content and then monopolising their earnings. But where Tate was totally clear about his exploitative intentions, most peddlers of the same business model operate behind a pretty thin veneer of legitimacy. For these guys, overt misogyny is exchanged for the lingo of hustle culture.

And influencers promote the business of managing women's sexual content like it's crypto trading or online sports betting. In other words, it's a way to get rich quick. But beneath all of the broified language, their practice is still just as exploitative as their pimping godfathers before them. And so where exactly is the line between innocent brand management and pimping? Between a talent agent and someone like Andrew Tate. Well, it could start out innocently enough. Unlike Tate, most managers that are not agents, by the way, managers and agents are very different things and they take very different cuts.

Most managers aren't as interested in recruiting new women to only fans. Instead, they sink their hooks into creators who are already earning good money. Once they target someone who fits the profile, they will DM her with promises to supercharge her earnings if she works for them. They might even message her through one of their other client's accounts to make themselves seem more legit. Next, they'll send over a contract with, a very prompt turnaround deadline so she doesn't have time to show it to a lawyer.

Because any lawyer worth their salt would see that OFM contracts are riddled with red flags. Hi, I'm Jesse Prey. And I'm Andy Cassette. If you're captivated by true crime stories that delve deep into the complexities of love and betrayal, love murder is your next binge. Each week, we present long-form narrative episodes backed by meticulous research, exploring cases where passion leads to peril. Take, for instance, Blanche Taylor Moore. a seemingly devout preacher's wife who concealed a deadly secret,

leaving a trail of poisoned partners. Or the tragic tale of Chad Shelton and Dwayne Johnson, whose sudden deaths unveiled a web of familial deceit and revenge. These aren't just stories. They're deep dives into the human psyche and the dark side of love. Join us on Love Murder as we uncover the chilling narratives of love gone fatally wrong. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. Firstly, there's the fat commission rate.

Most agencies demand at least 50%. Half of what a creator earns after Onlyfans takes its 20%. Some actually take up to 70%. For many creators, the boost in income that comes from having a manager seems like enough to balance out the high commission. And maybe that would be true, if that's as far as the exploitation went. But the fine print also lists suspiciously vague payment terms and hefty penalty fees for leaving the arrangement.

which is a great recipe for ensnaring someone in financial servitude. In 2021, a number of only fans creators in LA said their agency contracts demanded that they pay six-figure fees if they left. According to a survey by the BBC, more than half of content creators who'd worked with only fans managers said that they were threatened when they tried to leave their agency agreement. These numbers indicate these abuses by only fans managers

aren't statistical outliers, a standard practice. But let's put a pin in that one for now. Most of these contracts also demand that models hand over full access to their account logins and allow them to change the email address attached to it, not to mention stipulations that models must be in constant contact with the agency. They are obliged to reply to messages from their managers within a tight 24 hours. But this is just the first step in the AFM guide to total domination over the women they represent. after they've wrangled their client into an exploitative contract, they get to work on breaking down her boundaries.

Plenty of content creators on OnlyFans make money without ever posting fully new content. Which is what made the platform great for those who wanted to engage in sex work, but also wanted to stay within the limits of what they were comfortable doing. But a staggering 83% of models who have signed with agencies reported being pressured in to create increasingly explicit content. They also often discover that their managers were selling highly explicit content for unapproved sums without the model's consent, or even worse, holding onto the content to use it as blackmail. As part of the BBC's documentary inside the machine, journalists infiltrated a telegram chat involving some 24,000 OnlyFans managers. What they found revealed just how intrinsic deception really is to the OnlyFans management enterprise.

managers exchange tips on how to trick their clients into giving them increasing control over their accounts and their earnings with one manager literally advising another manager to just tell her some bullshit. They also share advice on how to scare clients into paying them and among the tasteful tips exchanged on the forum that included send a fake warning letter from a lawyer show up at her house with a baseball bat

and straight up blackmail threatened to expose her to our family. Behind the closed doors of their group chat, the true colours come out. OnlyFans managers run their business like a crime syndicate, and sometimes their threats of physical violence are not just words. That was a lesson that 29-year-old Welsh OnlyFans creator Rebecca learned the hard way. Rebecca's friend who shared the same OnlyFans manager had been locked out of her account after the agency changed her password details without her knowing. So Rebecca quickly changed her own account.

account details and blocked her managers from logging in thinking that she would escape her friend's situation. But what followed was so much worse. Rebecca told the BBC how she started receiving phone calls and text messages full of verbal abuse, including threats to come hurt her and her daughter. A few days later, someone threw a brick through her window. She reported this to the police without mentioning the only fans agency, fearful that they would retaliate. And they weren't done with Rebecca just yet. Three weeks later, two masked men broke into her house and physically attacked her. They strangled Rebecca and threw her down the stairs, leaving her alive but badly bruised and

utterly traumatised. Rebecca knew both incidents had to be connected to her only fans manager, and the messages in that OFM Telegram group confirm that managers resort to violent intimidation tactics when models don't do what they say. Rebecca's assailants were never caught. The OFM Group chat also frequently focuses on how to control the model's payments. The only fan's platform uses two-factor authentication around any account changes, including bank details. And supposedly it should flag when the name of the account creator doesn't match the name on the attached bank account,

which should prevent third parties from being able to funnel a creator's earnings directly into their own pockets. So BBC journalists tested how airtight this safeguard really is. A female journalist set up an OnlyFans account in her name with her real bank details and then attempted to switch the bank account to one under her male colleague's name. And OnlyFans didn't do shit. The journalist's account's direct deposits went straight to the man's bank account. So although OnlyFans is good at verifying the account holder, they are useless when it comes to tracking down where the money actually goes.

And since many OnlyFans managers demand access to a model's OnlyFans login from the very start, They really are just a few clicks away from taking total ownership over that woman's earnings. By that point, the OnlyFans model doesn't have a manager. She has an E-Pimp. Aside from its underwhelming payment tracking, where does OnlyFans as a platform fit into all of this? For an app that's supposedly all about giving its users autonomy, there's an awful lot of room for exploitation.

And to that, OnlyFans usually says, no comment. They're well aware of the increasing number of reports on exploitative third-rethroids. parties preying off their users, and still they've made no attempts to ban managers, or at least regulate the way that they engage with users on the platform. According to OnlyFans' terms, the only relevant relationship is between creator and fan. Anyone the creator chooses to employ, i.e. a third party, is irrelevant to the platform. An only fan frames the creator as the sole responsible party for what happens with the account, meaning it's not their problem if your account is lost, stolen or compromised. Any resulting unauthorised payments or withdrawal of funds

also not their problem, because if the creator makes the conscious choice to give a manager her account login, anything that happens afterwards is her fault, according to OnlyFans. Which, for a platform claiming to champion sex workers, OnlyFans shows very little understanding of some of the most basic vulnerabilities that this demographic faces, coercive control, for example. OnlyFans behaves like it's just an innocent vessel rather than an active facilitator of abuse. For the obvious reason, money. Only fans is a business.

It encourages scaling up and maximising profits through ever larger fan bases. And third parties have proven to be a lucrative add-on to the business model with the ability to drastic increase creators' earnings. Which means an even bigger 20% commission for the platform itself.

It's also the only reason that anyone ever gets a manager. No one gets a manager intentionally because they want to lose money. Human rights lawyers say it's only a matter of time before ony fans faces serious claims of negligence by creators and the more e-pimps

keep walking that fine line between agent and human trafficker, the more untenable only fans is no comment position becomes. And it gets worse, because they don't just talk about their models like commodities, they actually buy and sell them like commodities too.

An Interpol investigation this year found up to 28,000 adverts for models in one messaging group associated with only fans management, which revealed that OFMs have actually been trading models amongst themselves for thousands of dollars per person. Men can buy a contract for the model and all of her content as a product. The women obviously have no idea their profiles are being exchanged in encrypted group chats, and that's by design,

because these managers explicitly outline that models must not be told when they're being bought or sold. and it goes without saying that the women up for sale don't get a penny. Treating human beings as commodities is about as foundational to human trafficking and modern slavery as it gets. Onlyfan says its subscription model makes it difficult for people to engage in these forms of abuse, but without any regulations on the way creators are solicited by managers on their platform, sometimes by using OnlyFans' very own marketing materials,

they don't have any real handle on the issue. At the very least, they should know, that one of the biggest risks for this kind of exploitation is third-party control. When there's third-party control at play, no one knows who's actually operating the account and what kind of pressure or coercion or abuse might be taking place offline. It's all so invariably wrapped up in layers of misogyny and slut shaming, even as these men profit of the actions of the women that they manage. The unregulated existence of E-PIMP shows that digital sex workers are becoming just as maligned.

and vulnerable as their in real life counterparts. Only fans were supposed to be a place where they could finally be their own bosses and leave their hypervigilance at the door. But as ever, when there's money to be made and people that want to make money, a slimy new breed of predator. We'll always find their way in.

Let's put them all on Snake Island. All righty. We'll see you on shorthand. And next week, hopefully for something less filled with existential dread. Yes, please. Goodbye. Bye.