A new Netflix documentary about the online porn industry is highlighting the power struggle between adult performers and the websites that host their content, versus anti-porn activists.
And one adult performer is claiming that executives at financial institutions have a bigger say in what’s allowed on platforms like OnlyFans than the public realizes.
Siri Dahl, a 34-year-old adult film star, explained in Money Shot: The Pornhub Story, how anti-porn activists made it more difficult for her to earn a living on platforms.
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“The financial institutions have a really oppressive amount of power over the porn industry, to a degree that most consumers of porn do not realise,” Dahl said.
Last August, Mastercard and Visa suspended payment processing for Pornhub after an online campaign pushed Pornhub’s parent company, MindGeek, to ban all uploaded content from unverified users.
After the companies stopped processing payments, Dahl moved over to OnlyFans where she says most of her work comes from these days.
However, she points out that she still faces oppression from companies on OnlyFans.
Dahl claims there is a “long laundry list of terminology you cannot use” on the platform.
And while some of it makes sense, like words that would imply somebody is unable to consent to a sexual interaction- like being drunk, asleep, or drugged, other words are less sensical.
“A lot of it is very queer-phobic,” Dahl explained. “Like fisting. I cannot put the word ‘fisting’ on OnlyFans. ‘Pegging’ is not allowed.”
“Just because some [bank] executive ... has a fear of things in his butt,” the adult entertainment star added.
The new Netflix documentary highlights how sex workers are affected by vague legislation that is meant to protect children and non-consensual content.
The film’s director, Suzanne Hillinger, told The Guardian, “the story is really complicated.”
“It’s really hard when there are people doing good work to try to curb trafficking and nonconsensual material from ending up on the internet. But there are also a lot of people doing it for other reasons, and that all kind of gets conflated, and there’s not a lot of conversation that has nuance to understand what those motives are,” she said.
What was most important to Hillinger was being able to tell the story through the eyes of the sex workers, to understand how those nuances come into play.
Money Shot: The Pornhub Story is available to view on Netflix now.
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