Not the oldest profession, the oldest oppression.
As a Work Coach in a busy Jobcentre, I can confirm it is characteristic of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and, by extension Jobcentres, to promise a lot and deliver little. Rarely is this more evident than when it comes to identifying and supporting young people at risk of sexual exploitation.
While homelessness, mental health, domestic abuse and substance misuse are very much on the DWP’s radar, albeit only in its capacity to signpost to other services, sexual exploitation is rarely, if ever mentioned. While these other issues are subject to dedicated staff training days, allocated a Special Person of Interest and drive partnership working with other organisations, issues connected to sexual exploitation are routinely ignored. From this one might reasonably conclude that the DWP does not regard sexual exploitation to be either relevant or important to its operation.
OnlyFans is seen as a bit of a joke and no big deal, partly because, unlike Pornhub, the name allows us to gloss over the true nature of the site’s content. In the Jobcentre, as in life, there is profound lack of understanding of what these sites truly entail, the dynamics involved in making money from them, who drives the profits and who pays the price. For clarity, OnlyFans is a site of primarily pornographic content. Not exclusively but, as its doomed 2021 attempt to shut down sexualised content demonstrated, it is young naked female bodies that keep the site profitable.
The first time I heard OnlyFans mentioned in my capacity as a Work Coach was when a colleague, who clearly thought he was doing the decent thing, declared on the office floor, which from 9-5pm is a public space, that he could not continue to work with a particular claimant because he knew her from OnlyFans. I believe this is the shape of things to come.
The second time was a few months later, during a three-day online training session on how to deliver self-employment guidance to claimants running their own businesses. Inexplicably, the (middle-aged, female) trainer highlighted training scenarios using OnlyFans, rather than, say, a book-keeping or catering business, and this seemed to unleash a steady stream of puerile comments from participants throughout the training that went entirely unchallenged by the facilitators. Additionally, colleagues relayed experiences of OnlyFans content creators offering Work Coaches free access to sexualised content and one instance of a Work Coach contacting a claimant on OnlyFans after obtaining their details through an appointment at the Jobcentre. It is a sackable offence for Work Coaches to use information gleaned from confidential databases for personal use, although this Work Coach remains in post.
During this training session, one of the facilitators alluded to the fact she’d been in trouble for encouraging OnlyFans engagement, while her co-facilitator confirmed that the DWP regards OnlyFans as a legitimate source of self-employed income that can and should be taxed. Therefore, not only does an OnlyFans creator have to pay subscriptions for her own potential exploitation, and possibly fees to a third party acting as a pimp or procurer, she is then required to pay tax on her income for no discernible benefits. That’s a lot of people making money from a so-called employment situation that can’t and won’t protect creators from exploitation that occurs within it.
Exploitation is key to the OnlyFans business model, and while it is by no means the only site of its kind, nor even the worst of them, it is the name everyone knows. Even if people don’t fully grasp the concept, everyone now has heard of OnlyFans. Yet, there remains a pervasive and collective disinterest about how women become prostituted, the concept of informed consent and coercion and, in this circumstance, how the commodification of women’s bodies is not a good starting place for professional employment support.
What is most outrageous is the fact that the DWP regards prostitution as a legitimate career path. In society, the narrative being pushed is that OnlyFans is sexy, fun and empowering. In the DWP, the narrative is that it’s authentic self-employment. The DWP has obviously been captured by the Sex Work is Work mantra – a mindless platitude which seeks to divert any scrutiny of the sex trade and absolve it of any responsibility for the way women are forced and coerced into existing within it. This is the inevitable outcome of decades of governmental policy which prioritises the wants and expectations of men over the safety and dignity of women, always to the diminishment of female autonomy and women’s rights.
Other types of online content creator are also starting to present themselves as self-employed at the Jobcentre and I think it’s concerning when any teenager, male or female, says they are being paid for live online reactions by anonymous donors. However, these claimants are playing video games to an audience and seem just about in control of their situation in a way those engaged with sexualised content are not. Not least because they are performing fully clothed – for the time being, at least. It came as no surprise to hear from one such claimant that she and her friends are being propositioned to play games in various states of undress and to display sexualised behaviours or positions for greater sums of money. Sometimes requests for nudity are made without an offer of payment because this is, apparently, what audiences expect women to do for them.
Gaming engagement occurs mainly on YouTube and TikTok because gaming content is well-established on those sites and these young people are using long-standing accounts they’ve had since they were children. It’s different with OnlyFans creators. They have all, so far, been very young women and the unprofessional behaviour they face from Work Coaches, specifically due to their association with explicit sites, poses a challenge not faced by other content creators.
It is worth mentioning that Work Coaches have a considerable amount of personal jurisdiction with how they respond to claimants. They can choose to nominate claimants for sanctions (reduced payments), suspend or close claims and determine how often a claimant must engage with the Jobcentre. Surely it is the case that if the performance of sex acts on OnlyFans becomes a legitimate self-employment venture, it is only a matter of time before this type of engagement is considered fair game for other job seekers.
Work Coaches are encouraged to suggest jobs to claimants on their case load and even mandate them to apply for certain jobs if the claimant is considered able to do the job to a basic standard. If a Work Coach mandates a claimant to apply for a job and the claimant fails to do so, it is very much within the Work Coach’s purview to nominate that claimant for a sanction on their monthly benefit payment. This sanction is very often a reduction to zero, meaning that the claimant is left with no money to cover essential expenses for the month. So, what becomes of the woman who struggles to find a job but won’t accept sexual exploitation as an alternative? Her benefit will be reduced and she’ll be edged further into poverty. What if she encounters a vindictive Work Coach who seeks to make an example of her for not providing him with ongoing free content? Likely the same.
Scenarios such as these are not implausible and claimants are already routinely sanctioned for not applying for jobs suggested by Work Coaches. If the exploitation that occurs on OnlyFans is given state legitimacy then what is stopping a directive mandating claimants to register themselves on the site and declare themselves ‘self-employed sex-workers’? Following on from this logic, the government would then, presumably, work in partnership with pimps and exploiters (under a different guise, of course) to create PAYE opportunities, which would ultimately reduce unemployment statistics.
This approach is supportive of a culture that breeds misogyny, excuses male sexual violence, creates confusion in young people about appropriate and respectful behaviour and paves the road for the exploitation of minors. It is concerning, as an employee of the DWP, that the difficult job of Work Coach will be made even more so with the advent of having to navigate these issues.
The contentious, overly-complicated, punitive Universal Credit system was devised by wealthy, detached figureheads who know nothing about unemployment, homelessness or economic vulnerability. As a result, it is extremely difficult, as a frontline worker, to support vulnerable people through the system successfully. Now, with the legitimising of prostitution, we are having to accept an endorsement of sexual exploitation by a government which seeks to serve the interests of the sex industry rather than protect those forced or coerced into it.
Ultimately, this is about the further habitualisation and normalisation of the sex trade. It’s been happening for a long time in front of our eyes and it’s relentless. It also relies on the relative ignorance of the general populace about what the sex industry entails in order to grow in cultural and economic dominance. I don’t believe the state should be a censor and I don’t believe in banning things. I also don’t trust governments of any colour to protect females from targeted male violence or shield children and young people from sexual exploitation.
Right now, in the DWP, sexual exploitation is being reframed as an employment issue. People should know about this and we should fight against it.
The author of this piece is employed as a Work Coach in a Jobcentre in England and has chosen to remain anonymous.
So, Jobcentre is really Pimpcenter.
Hello, I am a news reporter at The Sun and would love to cover this story and shed more light. Please feel free to contact me on: nawal.abdisamad1@thesun.co.uk
I’m appalled, how long until you’re asked to make an OnlyFans, and how are those work coaches still employed after admitting to using personal information to access OnlyFans of claimants????