Imagine sitting in a Jobcentre. You’ve been unemployed for months. Your Work Coach sighs and asks: “Have you thought about OnlyFans?”
This isn’t satire. It’s training material. Jobcentre staff in the UK have been presented with scenarios where OnlyFans is treated as a legitimate form of self-employment. Like dog walking. Like web design. Except it isn’t. It’s sex. It’s using women’s bodies to titillate. And the fact that it was even mentioned in an official training session tells us everything we need to know about how far the state will go when desperation can be monetised (Nordic Model Now).
If something is framed as “legitimate work,” it becomes enforceable. If you turn down a legitimate work opportunity, you can be sanctioned. That is, your benefits can be cancelled for a week, a month, or longer. Refuse to apply for a cleaning job? Sanctions. Refuse to consider OnlyFans? Well, why not sanctions too? The bureaucratic logic is already there. For anyone who says, ‘sex work is work,’ the logic is already irrefutable.
Germany – where the Jobcentre signposts women to brothels
Sound extreme? Germany has already been down this road, after fully legalising prostitution in 2002. There, several women have been told by Jobcentres that they need to take brothel jobs or risk losing benefits (Spiegel). Each case was dismissed as a “mistake.” However, those are just the ones that we know about. And the very fact that it could happen at all shows where the logic leads: when sex work is legal and normalised as just another job, the welfare state eventually treats it like one.
Women do not generally go into prostitution because they have carefully weighed their career options and decided that selling their body is their number one ambition. They do it because they are poor. Homeless. Abused. Vulnerable. Because their choices have already been stripped away.
Listen to the women themselves. “Most of us suffered childhood sexual abuse, domestic abuse, or homelessness. … When you peel back the layers, there is usually a reason this happens,” says survivor Alisa Bernard. Another woman put it bluntly on a forum: “We should be able to choose what we do, but when the choice is between paying rent and doing a job you hate … that’s not freedom”.
Yet “freedom” is the word endlessly deployed by those who want to normalise the trade. Empowerment. Choice. Autonomy. Politicians love these words. They sound progressive. They sound feminist. They also allow governments to pretend that nudging women into OnlyFans is simply helping them realise their entrepreneurial potential. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Department for Work and Pensions loves nothing more than a box to tick. And if sex work is now treated as “legitimate self-employment,” why wouldn’t it end up on the list of options a Work Coach can suggest — or enforce? After all, this is the same department that cuts people’s benefits if they don’t apply for enough cleaning jobs in a week.
OnlyFans and HMRC
Sex work is already legitimate self-employment for the tax office. HMRC insists every penny earned from OnlyFans, camming or escorting is subject to income tax and National Insurance. There’s even been a dedicated “adult entertainment taskforce” to chase unpaid taxes from the industry. And now platforms such as OnlyFans are required to share information about content creators’ earnings with HMRC, so tax revenue from this kind of online work is set to grow.
Globally, OnlyFans’ revenue hit $1.3 billion in 2023. Creators take home around 80% of that. Tens of thousands of UK women are part of this. The most widely cited study suggests there are about 72,800 sex workers in the UK, with 32,000 in London alone. Economists have claimed the trade adds £5.3 billion to the UK economy.
From a Treasury perspective, that is billions in taxable activity, much of it in cash, much of it under-declared. Is it any wonder the state suddenly finds OnlyFans “legitimate”?
Are Universities Grooming Students?
Prostitution and online ‘sex work’ is also being legitimised across many UK universities. Several universities provide guidance to students in the form of ‘sex work’ toolkits and support. With one report estimating that 56,000 UK students have turned to prostitution and online sex work to survive, this can be seen as either sensible harm-reduction or tacit promotion. However, when you look more closely at the toolkits or support pages, it looks more like the promotion of a lifestyle wrapped up in mild concern for well-being. There is advice on health and safety and talk of how to manage boundaries, but there is no attempt to steer those students in alternative directions or make them think twice. It’s just a given: sex work is work and this choice is legitimate. One university is even reported as allowing a strip club to hand out leaflets on campus.
The effect is the same: once universities — like Jobcentres — acknowledge sex work as a legitimate “option,” the stigma fades, and refusal looks less defensible. If your welfare officer or lecturer treats erotic labour as a reasonable fallback, how long before the Jobcentre does too? How long before the line between “support” and “mandate” disappears altogether?
Conclusion
The women themselves, of course, carry the cost. Few escape prostitution or ‘sex work’ without some level of trauma. There is no dignity or empowerment in being forced to sell your body because your housing benefit won’t cover the rent. And there is even less when the state quietly insists that if you don’t, you’re a “shirker.”
Could sex work be mandated? Officially, no. But in practice, the ground is already shifting. The line between encouragement and coercion is wafer thin. Germany shows us how easily it slips. Our own Jobcentres are already rehearsing the script.