Pocono Women Turn To Only Fans To Supplement Income

Few things will snuff out the flame that is the American spirit and the American Dream. In a world where people only want to be able to accrue stable housing, income, and quality of living for themselves and their children. The crushing weight of economic inflation and cost of living (to a large extent in the Poconos area post-pandemic) has seen locals turning to eccentric alternative sources of income. Many are turning to selling their possessions on Facebook Marketplace or taking second jobs and putting in 80-hour weeks just to keep up with the increased cost of living. Others (especially young women) are turning to platforms such as Only Fans to supplement their income.

Only fans is a subscription-based multimedia platform introduced in 2016 where users can sell or purchase content based on a subscription or set dollar amount. However, this has transformed from a platform intended to be wholesome and family-friendly to a very rapidly descending rabbit hole of the adult entertainment industry, estimated at an astounding $12 Billon. Only Fans founder, Timothy Stokley, pays out an estimated $200 Million to creators every month. With top creators making 6 figure Dollar amounts and the average user making $180 per month. It is unfathomable why some women in not only the Poconos but nationwide are cashing in on this industry to be able to put a little extra food on the table.

These women are people you may remember from high school, or they can even be your next-door neighbor. With a post-pandemic growth of over 70% since March 2020, Only Fans has 85 million registered users and one million active creators as of Jan 1, 2021. Many women who were left unable to work due to the pandemic and bereft of money, quality of life, and self-pride found a different means to make money. While the lion’s share of restaurants, bars, and other high traffic or high-density businesses closed down, platforms like Only Fans have opened new doors for people who were left to struggle at the mercy of an unseen disaster. Some creators kept Only Fans as their primary source of income even after businesses reopened their doors; Others have used it as a supplemental source of income. This is a symptom, not a problem, of the over-arching endemic of increased housing and living costs. This crisis has devastated the Poconos leaving many unable to keep up with the demand required for a certain quality of living and a peaceful night’s rest without the distressing thoughts of how they will come up with this month’s rent.

One local creator (who shall remain anonymous) is 39 years old Female and a single mother of two. She used to work two jobs to maintain her 2-bedroom apartment. However, during the pandemic was unable to work one of those jobs, and she turned to Only Fans and other sites like it to make ends meet. Sometimes the content was explicit or risque pictures. Other times, it was suggestive videos. When the creator was asked why she began this venture into adult entertainment on the internet, she simply replied, “I’m a single mom with two kids on the brink of losing everything. I had everything to gain and nothing to lose”. Post pandemic (if you can even call it that), she has returned to working two jobs and has since hung up the cape, so to speak, for this line of work. When asked if she would ever return to it, she replied, “Listen, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Rent’s expensive, food’s expensive, and raising kids is expensive. If that means I have to return to the platform, then that is what it is and will be”  Now retired, she still is open to the possibility of returning if that is what needs to be done, but for now, she works two jobs to make ends meet.

Another creator, whose screen name is Red Rose works freelance as a nude model for a site known as Bent-Box. The pictures are predominately tasteful and done more professionally, less erotic, and more exotic. Themes include being a witch during the fever pitch of pumpkin spice lattes and Halloween and range from school girl cosplays to themes of a woman whose coming of age into adulthood and exhibiting through poise/passion and pride body positivity and self-acceptance. For some like Red Rose, it’s not just a means to an end. It’s a lifestyle choice she currently pursues today when the stars align and opportunities present themselves. She went from renting a room to living in her own apartment because of her success on this platform and her day-to-day job. When the creator was asked what brought her to become another cog in the wheel of Adult Entertainment, she replied, “I wanted the average girl, the ones that aren’t 100% confident in their bodies, to accept themselves as beautiful and see the art in what nature has provided (meaning our bodies). Instead of women being shamed for their bodies, this work that I’m a part of is about celebrating what it means to be a woman and how pictures of naked women don’t have to just be erotic but also artistic as well as motivational.” Her profile runs the gamut of cute, sensual, exotic, erotic, and eccentric. She sets her work style apart from the millions of other creators that post what they think others want to see instead of what they need to see.

Writers Thoughts:
It’s incredible that hard times have fallen on everyone and impacted daily life, especially those in Poconos, with many displaced from their homes, families, and former lifestyles. It’s not hard to fathom why that American entrepreneurial moxy lives on. Some people chop wood and sell it on the side others look to places like Only Fans and Bent-Box to survive in this new modern world.

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