For decades sex work has been relegated to the back of shady bars and obscure camming sites, but in a world of digital convergence and sex positivity, one online platform is bringing sex work into the mainstream. But it comes with a warning, writes Katie Harris.
Winter spends her spare time like most other 20-somethings during the global pandemic- on social media. But unlike her peers, for whom time spent trawling online is regarded as procrastination, Winter is making bank.
And all without leaving the bedroom.
The 22-year-old is now one of over 30 million users on OnlyFans, a website which allows members to monetise their following. It's big, and it's growing. It doesn't actively market itself as a sex work platform, but no one goes to McDonald's for a salad. And erotic content is what dominates the site.
Winter only started creating content on the site when the pandemic hit, but she's already raking in thousands a month for just a couple hours work a day.
"I made US$3500 in the last month from it, so that was really good. My goal was to make US$3000 and I ended up making even more."
On top of OnlyFans, Winter is a fulltime university student and before Covid-19 she was working as a stripper- often earning more in one shift than the average New Zealander does in a week.
Her content, which ranges in explicitness, also includes sex videos with her boyfriend, who's agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
The 26-year-old had never considered working in the sex industry until a few months ago, but after the pair's success, he's now weighing up starting a personal page as well.
"It's to the point now where if one of my friends saw it I don't think I'd really care, I think it would be weird for them to kind of bring it up."
The meteoric rise of the platform, which even Beyoncé referenced in a remix of her viral hit Savage, hasn't come as a surprise to Winter, who says people are hungrier for more ethical porn.
"People want a more personalised experienced. Porn these days is really fake, and you don't relate to the girls in the videos or you don't know much about them. Whereas if you follow someone's OnlyFans you chat with them and get to know the person."
OnlyFans is more than just another camming site, its seamless entry into the millennial lexicon illustrates shifting attitudes towards sex work amongst younger generations- something Winter is hoping to highlight in her university honours project.
"Get That Bread is a project to destigmatise the sex work industry, to help give people more insight into sex workers live through photos and videos- the end goal is to help sex workers have happier and safer lives."
Fellow user Beth Bennett spends hours poring over her social media presence each day- and it shows. The 34-year-old has amassed a Twitter following of more than 120,000 and is rated as one of the country's top online sex performers.
Despite how rife free to view sex is online, Bennett says Onlyfans and sites like it are in demand because they bridge the gap between the viewer and the performer.
"You could jump on Pornhub and watch a video but you can't like message a girl after and say you really enjoyed that and get in contact with her.
"I think there's a lot of people that do sign up that do just want someone to talk to and especially at the moment."
Her feed ranges from seductive photographs to videos of Bennett and her husband having sex, however where she draws the line at is producing custom work, and will only create that content alone.
"He's had workmates find the videos and say I know, I know that's you."
Bennett would not reveal how much she made through her Onlyfans account, but says it was "really good", and was equivalent to what she makes in her primary job, a call girl at the infamous Babestation UK sex talk television show.
A one month subscription to Bennett's page costs $10, however you can get a cheaper subscription if you sign up for longer and with over 1000 followers, she could be making US$10,000 just from subscriptions per month - which doesn't include commissioned work.
"It's going to depend on how much effort you put into it, what your prepared to do on it, sort of how you're going to market yourself everything like that. And obviously if you have a following beforehand as opposed to going in cold and being like someone that's going to build that whole following from just Onlyfans that's going to make it harder I guess."
However, the site is no bullet for the sex work industry, and Bennett cautions that users can't expect to just waltz in from their normal careers and make a killing on the site.
Sex worker Skylar Leigh is also sceptical.
The Wellingtonian is one of New Zealand's most well-known adult performers and she uses OnlyFans to supplement her income from her other sex work.
"I do a lot of different kinds of stuff like photoshoots and things. I do more glamour, Cosplay kind of more fun artsy stuff. But I kind of keep an equal mix of that stuff and more just nudes that I've taken on my phone, I guess more pornographic videos as well."
She's hoping to expand her repertoire to feature intercourse videos, however the 27-year-old says finding a New Zealand bloke who's down to having sex on screen is incredibly hard- despite the constant "I'd love to have sex with a porn star" rhetoric she hears from men.
"It's great if you've got the time and energy to put into it, but it does take a long time to build up a fan base. Like for me, it tells you what sort of top percentage you're in and the highest I've gotten is the top 18 per cent, and I was probably making about $150 to $200 a week.
"There are definitely girls making tonnes and being able to buy a house and do all of these things but they're few and far between."
As well as being able to connect with the sex workers after viewing posts, Leigh also says people are becoming more conscious with their porn use.
"Most of the porn that you see on the tube sites is either advertisements for other porn sites or it's pirated, and I think there's a lot of people waking up to the fact that these are real people they're seeing and these videos aren't necessarily consensual in the way they're being posted."
Nothing's ever really free.
OnlyFans were unable to comment on the use of their site by sex workers, however in a Twitter post last week it said had over 450,000 content producers and had paid out more than US$700,000,000 to the creators.
Sex therapist and research and training lead for The Light Project Jo Robertson says right now there is a huge obsession with developing fame from content creation and posting sexy photos as opposed to other tangible skills.
"It creates what I call a bridge, so when you're already seeing a lot of sexual content on social media it's very normalised so it's very easy to cross over to the camming sites.
"There's been a real push in the last, I would say two to three years, for porn essentially to break the fourth wall and what that means is to be able to see how the scene is being created or to know the performers."
Twenty years ago we were in a "golden age" of porn, says Robertson, however now in an on-demand era, traditional sex performers are getting paid significantly less than their predecessors and having to do more intense scenes.
Whether it comes from camming sites, social media or Pornhub, Robertson says a large amount of sex content has problematic themes, and 46 per cent of porn now portrays incestual links.
"So easy, early and frequent access to porn is a worry for any young person."
She says perceived realism is one the biggest determinants of negative porn impacts, so if a "real" performer online is acting like problematic sexual acts are playful or arousing, then the young person is more likely to adopt that messaging in their own relationships.
"An Onlyfans site is attempting to sell a 'genuine experience' or a personal connection, most adults can see through this advertising recognising the person might be 'performing' to increase their revenue etc, but a young person might not be so quick to identify that."
Compared to traditional porn, she says OnlyFans does give users more autonomy over what they produce, however she cautions that some subscribers may feel entitled to more access to the performer, which is really concerning for sex workers.
"They don't have to do scenes they don't want to or that cross their personal boundaries, they don't have to do things that might be stigmatised in mainstream culture."
Robertson says trends in mainstream media like reality television and documentary style shows have influenced the porn industry, which is driving the demand for homemade content.
You wouldn't have to be blessed with the power of clairvoyance to have foreseen a boom in online porn use over the lockdown, but Robertson says the same will also have been the case for digital sex workers.
Conventional porn sites tend to categorise pornography into types like lesbian or threesome etc, which she says can create stigma around certain acts. But with OnlyFans Robertson says because you follow a user, not a certain act, it's helping shift attitudes around differing sexual desires.
One subscriber, who the Herald has chosen not to name, says he didn't mind paying for porn because for the price of a coffee, he was able to watch a months worth of intimate images from a stranger.
"It's more believable and it's real people rather than watching films on popular forums, you know what it's like, because it's more real."
He says the site has been prevalent in the gay scene for a few years, but only recently has the rest of society cottoned on to how good it is.
Piracy is a constant scourge on the online sex industry, but with few logical solutions, many online sex workers have accepted that almost all of the content could be stolen and repurposed.
Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker says there are a lot of piracy issues in the adult content space, which he says is problematic for those who rely on it for an income.
"One of the issues is people who strike trouble on sites like this don't want to reach out to the authorities for help."
He says they've received a handful of complaints from subscribers to online sex work services who say they didn't get the product they expected once they paid, which he says has been the case sometimes with OnlyFans.
Although countless industries have been ravaged by Covid-19, sex workers are particularly susceptible due to their reliance on physical contact. On top of this, many are cautious about accepting Government aid because they don't want to be associated with the sector or are nervous because they haven't been compliant with taxes.
The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective president Dame Catherine Healy says sex workers have been hugely effected by Covid-19 and many are turning to camming to make ends meet.
Sex work often comes with risks, but Healy says the site helps workers diversify income streams and they have a lower chance of physical violence if they are working online.
"I imagine people can take advantage of any image no matter how long it's online for so you've just got to be aware of that."
Problems can also arise when travelling as she says some countries aren't as accepting of the profession and new technology could make hiding online sex work impossible.
Off the heels of a nationwide lockdown and an economy buckling at the knees, online sex work appears to be one industry flourishing amid the gloom and OnlyFans performer Winter isn't planning on logging off any time soon.
"I think after this pandemic, online sex work will just keep growing. Some people may quit but I'm not going to. I've got big goals, like, I want to buy a house, so much of my income from online sex work will go on to that."
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