What's grey about Only Fans and webcamming
I was "playing with grey" in order to help make a simple distinction between what (broadly speaking) are the three ways in which independent, ordinary girls working for themselves can make money from sex in the 2020's.
There is straightforward prostitution via, primarily, Adult Work. There are the Sugar Daddy sites, whose female members range from a few girls who are pretty close to being prostitutes, with a coating of sugar to provide a veneer of respectability; via those who are genuinely looking for a relationship of sorts, with a generous financial element; to those who are in fact offering only "online". Finally, Only Fans and webcamming are, in effect, pornography – although on very rare occasions a girl may dip her toe in the waters of the real world.
Thirty years ago (in effect, before my time), things were very different. In those days a 20-ish girl who wanted to make money from her looks and her body had to have a certain amount of initiative, What were the options? Parlours, I suppose, small ads, hanging around on street corners in a short leather skirt. Equally, making money from pornography would not have been something that an "ordinary" girl would have the drive and the know-how to seek out.
With the arrival of the internet, options were suddenly available for ordinary girls with average or below-average initiative. In the early days, this seemed mainly to involve prostitution via Adult Work. As web-camming proliferated and sugar daddy sites grew in popularity, however, 20-ish girls began to trickle away from the prostitution model; and in due course that trickle became a flood.
The result is that, to all intents and purposes – and I exaggerate somewhat – most 20-ish girls wouldn't be seen dead on Adult Work. Fifteen years ago, that wasn't the case.
Meanwhile, the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union has meant that Romanian girls in their late teens and early twenties no longer turn up on these shores. Almost all the Romanians now on my patch are in their late twenties. In addition, there is far less "movement" than there used to be. Ten years ago, the young Romanians were moved around the country on a regular basis. The older Romanians of today seem largely to stay in one location.
These changes are strikingly reflected in what was revealed by my "age survey" of recent arrivals on AW in my area.
My reflections are generalisations, and there will doubtless be those who disagree or find fault with my analysis. But I offer it for what it's worth.
