Up to date July 1, 2026, 8:38 a.m. ET
Intercourse employees are having a popular culture second.
In Apple TV’s “Margo’s Received Cash Troubles,” which premiered in April, school pupil and newly single mom Margo (Elle Fanning) launches an OnlyFans in a determined try to offer for her baby. On “Most Pleasure Assured,” additionally on Apple TV, a newly divorced mother will get wrapped up in crime with a cam boy (Brandon Flynn). And within the newest season of HBO’s hit “Euphoria,” a central plot level is Cassie’s (Sydney Sweeney) evolving position as an aspiring OnlyFans star, a storyline that has drawn backlash over inaccuracies (for instance, the controversial “child play” isn’t allowed on the platform).
This highlight is not new. Intercourse employees garnered consideration through the 2025 Oscars season − “Anora” gained 5 awards, together with greatest image – and the yr prior, Emma Stone took dwelling greatest actress for her position of Bella Baxter in “Poor Issues,” the movie’s protagonist who spends time working as an escort at a Parisian brothel.
These varied depictions convey up questions of empowerment versus exploitation, autonomy and the way the media shapes our views of intercourse work. So, we spoke to precise intercourse employees to get their ideas.
These current reveals and flicks, they are saying, differs from their lived experiences in just a few massive methods, and most of those portrayals obscure some very concrete points intercourse employees are literally coping with.
“Euphoria” confirmed essentially the most “stereotypical” and “taboo” form of intercourse employee, says “Boy Meets World” actress and OnlyFans creator Maitland Ward.
“It’s insulting to precise OnlyFans creators,” Ward says. “Girls are taking management and constructing manufacturers and making a ton of cash, gaining followers and with the ability to assist themselves and their households. I don’t assume it’s given the credit score that it deserves a lot of the time.”
Intercourse work is actual, structured labor
Through the COVID-19 pandemic particularly, when all the pieces in our lives was compelled on-line, Ward says the concept developed that “you may simply come on OnlyFans and be millionaires in a single day.”
Round that very same time, OnlyFans first began to infiltrate popular culture. In 2020, Cardi B used the platform to advertise her music and launch unique content material, and Unhealthy Bunny’s observe “Te Mudaste,” which mentions OnlyFans, landed on Billboard’s High 100. Even Beyoncé sang “She would possibly begin an OnlyFans” on a Megan Thee Stallion observe.
Some younger girls at the moment are becoming a member of these platforms considering they will flip a fast revenue. However the “straightforward cash” pull is a fantasy, Ward says.
Whereas high-income OnlyFans fashions could make as a lot as $100,000 per 30 days − and even within the thousands and thousands for some celeb accounts − most aren’t rising to that form of success in a single day, or presumably ever.
Moreover “Margo’s Received Cash Troubles,” which reveals the not-so-glamorous, behind-the-scenes struggles of intercourse work, depictions within the media typically pass over the labor of constructing and sustaining a following, managing shoppers and administrative work.
Elizabeth Romanova, a United Kingdom-based escort, says that she understands that TV reveals have to be “dramatic for individuals to look at,” however she warns that some viewers “deal with the present prefer it’s a documentary.”
“I want individuals would take heed to the actual intercourse employees,” she says. “They do not see that there is various kinds of intercourse employees, and that we have now a traditional life day-to-day.”
Romanova says one thing so simple as opening a checking account is usually a problem for intercourse employees.
“I can get my financial institution closed down as a result of I am a intercourse employee, which is basically troublesome as a result of I nonetheless run a enterprise. I’ve to pay my taxes, I am paying my payments,” she says. “Issues like that occuring is basically making life troublesome.”
Intercourse employees steadily ask for recommendation on Reddit and change ideas for organising a checking account to course of their OnlyFans earnings.
It additionally takes quite a lot of effort to provide content material, in line with Ward.
“It is complete choreographed issues. It’s important to be bodily match to do it, after which you need to work on all of your stuff, just like the admin stuff,” she explains. It’s “very laborious and time-consuming” to construct a following. For so long as you are “on set,” chances are you’ll be spending the identical period of time enhancing images, constructing your model and organizing content material.
Intercourse employees need higher representations of their lived experiences
Marla Cruz, who was launched to intercourse work over a decade in the past, had been excited for the discharge of “Anora,” however was disillusioned by the movie, she advised USA TODAY in 2025.
“Anora” follows the whirlwind relationship between a 23-year-old stripper, Ani (Mikey Madison), and her rich client-turned-husband, Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn). Cruz herself has danced at strip golf equipment throughout the nation.
One in every of her largest points with the movie was that it depicted intercourse employees “by the eyes of shoppers and shoppers and never as employees performing labor,” which she calls a “disrespect of our work.” To her, the movie was a “reminder” that the lived experiences of intercourse employees like herself, and the tensions between intercourse employees and shoppers, will “not be portrayed precisely” until intercourse employees are in command of that portrayal from begin to end.
“There are many individuals who will destigmatize the idea that intercourse work is actual work, which it’s,” Cruz beforehand advised USA TODAY. “However simply since you acknowledge that it’s actual work, that doesn’t imply that you simply respect the employee behind it.”
Actual life intercourse work is not all about gimmicks or a thirst for fame like viewers might imagine after watching “Euphoria.” Moderately, Cassie’s character is sort of a caricature of a intercourse employee, Ward argues.
“The very best belongings you considered to painting a intercourse employee is dressing like a child and a canine… that is what you assume represents intercourse employees?” Ward says. “It is like, ‘Let’s put them up there to snigger at them, they’re like a freak present,’ and it is not truthful to the trade or girls.”
Romanova says within the present, Cassie works day and night time, whether or not she’s capturing content material or constructing connections at events.
However “we’re nonetheless individuals. We’ve regular lives.” On her off days, Romanova walks her canine. She pays her payments. Solutions emails. Spends time with household. The identical as anybody else.
Intercourse employees in movie and TV are sparking essential conversations
Even with their flaws, intercourse employees say reveals like “Euphoria” have at the least made intercourse work seen sufficient to open essential conversations.
Ward says strangers, followers and even individuals on the road deal with her like a “secure area” to ask about porn and intercourse work as a result of they acknowledge her from TV, and that curiosity itself is a constructive shift: “They have been advised for thus lengthy, ‘Oh, it is taboo and scary, and you may’t find out about this,’ however the truth that questions at the moment are being requested… I believe that is a very good factor.”
“(Intercourse work) does not should be good. It isn’t all good, but it surely’s not all unhealthy. It is only a regular factor of life,” she says. “If we normalized it, it might shield so many ladies.”
