Imagine you’re a horny gay guy scrolling through Twitter when you notice that super hot straight dude has finally dropped an OnlyFans link. “You got what you wanted,” he teases.
He doesn’t go into detail, but you know the filthy subscription site is a bonafide porno mecca, so you — newly-paid and boned up — hit the $20 “subscribe” button, expecting at least a nude. Instead, you find a bunch of half-baked shirtless shots reposted from Instagram. Sure, OnlyFans is a gamble — you can’t try before you buy — but the horny devil emoji indicated much, much more, at least in your lust-addled mind.
What gives?
Last August, a frustrated porn buyer logged on to gay forum LPSG — an acronym for “Large Penis Support Group” — to vent about the sea of male influencers hinting at nudes but never delivering the goods. The result is a thread of “OnlyFans / JustForFans Scammers,” which takes aim at false advertising and what he calls the “bait-and-switch” tactic: Charging a hefty subscription fee for short, SFW teasers, and then demanding an extra fee to “unlock” the real filth (which is sent as pay-per-view videos in locked messages, which range from $15 to $200).
It’s hard to truly define a “scam” on a website as vague as OnlyFans, which generally shies away from its unofficial NSFW reputation, but the LPSG thread is full of examples. There are accusations of stolen content, promises of “gay-for-pay” videos — which, after you’ve subscribed, you find out will cost an extra $100 — and, in an affiliated, short-lived Instagram account of “scammers,” a screenshot of a DM from a straight dude, who mocks subscribers for buying his SFW selfies.
Not all of the accused “scammers” are straight — and not all are men — but there are plenty of gay buyers who wind up feeling exploited by guys who tease them with thirst-traps, and then demand hundreds of dollars for little more than a dick pic. OnlyFans creators can obviously post whatever they like, but this so-called “gay-baiting” can sting: It’s the digital porn equivalent of those “what you ordered vs. what you got” memes, served with a ruined boner and a side of disappointment that you’ve just paid someone who doesn’t give a fuck about your feelings.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the accused creators respond to my interview requests, but Mike, a gay subscriber on OnlyFans (and a pseudonym), personally has no issue signing up to straight guys’ feeds — he just adjusts his expectations before he pays. “I think gay subscribers know what to expect from straight guys,” he tells me. “To be honest, that’s very little.” He doesn’t offer a concrete explanation as to why guys keep subbing anyway, but it likely ties into the popularity of “straight” guys in gay porn across the board — there’s something hot about knowing you could never fuck these guys in real life.
In mainstream porn, that’s not such an issue — it’s an industry that openly sells a fantasy. The “straight” guys getting blown are often no more real than the “stepmom” fucking her son, so these conversations in that context don’t really work. Sure, there’s a lot to be said about the combination of “forbidden fruit” temptation, differing pay rates and gay culture’s fetishization of masculinity, all of which keep the “gay for pay” porn industry alive, but railing a guy on-screen doesn’t mean you identify as gay when the camera aren’t rolling.
OnlyFans is different, in the sense that its entire brand is built on the promise of authenticity. It has its “gay for pay” guys, but fans pay to connect with creators on a more intimate level. For gay fans, it makes sense that some might want to know the creators are gay or bisexual — that way, they can engage in a sexual fantasy that might be rooted in some truth. Plenty of guys keep quiet about their sexuality for a while to maintain that illusion, but that’s swiftly shattered when buyers are baited, and replaced instead by a feeling of exploitation.
As a BDSM fan and foot fetishist, Mike has also spotted another trend. “A lot of straight guys have taken up foot domination as an easy cash-grab,” he explains. “It’s low effort and high reward, as opposed to performing in actual partnered porn scenes.” Plenty of these videos tie into kinks around shame and humiliation, which often center straight guys throwing around gay slurs while their subs jack off. It’s an understandably popular fetish linked to other categories like muscle worship and financial domination, but it’s also one that depends on consent and communication, which explains why some gay buyers are skeptical.
Tom, a gay content creator (and also a pseudonym), echoes the idea that less is expected of straight guys. “I see a lot of [them] mostly teasing with their dicks or playing with their other straight friends — a prime example is workmen teasing friends to get their dick out on camera,” he explains.
The issue here isn’t so much the content itself as the lack of transparency — the indication that the “teasing” leads to more, which it rarely does — and what he describes as a double standard, which he says puts gay creators at a disadvantage. “There’s no way I can get away with soft-core porn on my channels, because my fans know they can get more out of me,” he continues. “I have to work 10 times as hard to make content; I have to plan, strategize and collaborate to make half of what these straight guys make. It’s a full-time job for me, so it’s painful to see how quickly [some guys] make money on OnlyFans — purely because they’re straight. The irony!”
Of course, it’s unfair to assume that all straight guys hide their sexuality to lure in gay buyers, or that guys are always the main consumer base — plenty of women are horny as fuck and willing to pay for dick pics, too. But for Tom, there’s a lingering concern: “I [worry] that the same guys getting their dick out for us gay men to see are the same ones that will call us out for holding hands with our boyfriends on the street.” He gives no evidence of this happening, but there’s a long cultural history of queerbaiting that naturally puts some gay buyers on edge, or makes them naturally suspicious. These sentiments are sometimes echoed online, too — last year, fellow gay creator Josh Moore called for gay buyers to “stop paying for toxic masculine homophobes! And FYI, all you get are dick prints [seen through clothes].”
But, contrary to Tom’s concerns, examples of blatant homophobia are rare (and when they crop up, they’re usually called out on forums like LPSG). “I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s strictly an epidemic amongst straight guys,” argues CaliCamBoy, a bisexual creator and buyer based in L.A. “A lot of people see OnlyFans and online sex work as a ‘get rich quick’ scheme where anyone can post their dick-print or bubble butt and make it big. It’s possible to gain a large following with nothing but a nice body, but followers will lose interest quickly — it almost feels like a market that rewards innovation.”
He’s even been accused of gay-baiting himself. “To paraphrase some of my social media followers, they won’t believe [I’m bisexual] until they see a penis in my mouth,” he tells me. For now, CaliCamBoy is open about posting nudes and solo content — his subscribers know exactly what they’re getting. “Doubting someone’s sexuality is a risky and offensive venture though,” he adds. “For those who may be closeted, it could cause them doubt or otherwise harm their newly-budding sexuality.”
Creators now have celebrities to contend with as well; despite being built by sex workers, OnlyFans is in the midst of a SFW pivot that calls into question what fans should expect from a subscription fee. At one point, you were basically guaranteed to get porn — but now, you can’t be so sure. Austin Mahone is a recent example — when he joined, he teased his account with an image of him standing behind a near-naked woman, and that’s all. He’s said he’s open to getting naked, but for now, most of the nudity comes from sexy, oiled-up video girls who‚ let’s be real, are unlikely to get a cut of his subscription profits.
Come and see ? https://t.co/NWXtudBn24 pic.twitter.com/lV8vfKALbU
— Austin Mahone (@AustinMahone) October 2, 2020
All of this goes unchecked on OnlyFans, where the rules are pretty much open to interpretation. It’s a horny Wild West full of gay-baiting, endless teasing and business tactics geared toward maximum profit and minimum exposure, so it’s hard to definitively prove any accusations of scamming or exploitation. The real issue is the accusation that straight guys with huge followings are held to lower standards, coasting on dick-prints and thirst traps while lesser-known creators are pushed to the bottom of the pile.
It’s a stretch to argue that gay guys are being outright exploited, but at the same time, it’s also worth stalling that jerk-off session until you’ve done your research. “Search the performer’s name to see what other subs have said about their videos and pictures first,” advises Mike. “See whether they respond to messages, and how the pricing is set up.”
After all, those boned-up, impulsive subscriber fees add up pretty quickly, and you might be left with nothing more than an expensive, SFW photo of some dude’s pixelated nips to show for it.
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Jake Hall
Jake Hall is a freelance journalist, fashion features editor and author. Their debut book 'The Art of Drag' is scheduled for release in May 2020.
