The 6 Hardest Things About Having an OnlyFans
After doing it for more than a year, it’s still challenging
When you’re a really big fan of something, there’s always going to be a part of you that wishes you could do it yourself.
For me, that was porn.
I filled my hard drive with X-rated scenes. I had a deep appreciation for every cute girl who took off her clothes and posted the photos online. I loved being able to watch people touch and fuck each other.
And I felt this really strong urge to do it too.
I was in my early twenties, with way too much time on my hands, and I had a digital camera I wasn’t using nearly enough.
I daydreamed about it a lot. I thought of poses I wanted to try, shoots I’d set up, and angles I’d experiment with. I seriously considered where I’d post and share the best shots.
I kept getting close to doing it. My camera battery would be charged, my bedroom window would let just the right amount of sunlight in - all I’d have to do was strip and fill my SD card with tits, ass, and pussy.
But I never actually went through with it. Something always held me back.
I got a little too nervous. I felt bad about my body. I started thinking of worst case scenarios, like one of my cousins surfing for porn and finding my nudes.
I eventually worked up the nerve to do it, but it took more than ten years.
And even then, there was a lot of thinking, planning, and fretting over every detail before I actually created an account and started posting my homemade smut.
I worried about new stuff, too.
I had readers and listeners now, and I didn’t want them to start looking at me differently. I didn’t know why they would - I just didn’t want it to happen. I felt like we had a nice little vibe going and I didn’t want to lose that once they could watch me riding my favorite dildos.
I worried about my lighting setup too. Amateur porn isn’t what it used to be. So much of it practically looks like a professional shoot. That’s way more intimidating than the shots girls used to take with cheap webcams.
Mostly, I didn’t want it to flop. I was fine with putting my pussy online. But putting my pussy online and having no one care would’ve really sucked.
Luckily, people did care. Enough people checked out my little porny experiment that I decided to keep it up.
I’ve had an OnlyFans for over a year now, and a lot of the things I worried about haven’t really been a huge problem. It’s been a mostly positive experience.
But there were definitely some challenges - and plenty that I still deal with. For me, these are the toughest ones.
Keeping a Good Work-Sex Balance Is Tough
Monetizing your hobbies is risky. Doing something you love and getting paid for it should be awesome, but it can suck some of the joy out of it.
And that’s sort of what happened when I started masturbating for money.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really good time. Jilling off is never boring. Orgasms are still incredibly satisfying when they’re happening on camera.
But I started to feel kind of guilty about getting myself off recreationally. Like I was hoarding all my fun instead of sharing it with my subscribers.
Basically, I was struggling with my work-sex balance.
At first, I tried to just film most of it. Every time I wanted to play with a new toy, stroke my husband’s cock, or get pounded from behind - I’d make sure I was getting it on video.
And that was actually a lot of fun for a while. I loved the challenge of finding the right angle for everything. I liked the playfulness of performing - and how hot it felt when the pleasure was so intense I couldn’t keep the performance going.
But getting off for the camera isn’t the same as giving myself a little bit of self love in private. Same with fucking my husband when it’s just for the two of us.
It’s all great, super pleasurable, and really fun. But I get something different out of it when the camera’s off. I can masturbate just to feel myself and get lost in all the great sensations. I can let go and be my horniest self without having to worry about how my body looks on screen. The sex feels more intimate. When I push myself to talk dirty, it’s so I can turn my husband on - not because it would make the video better.
When I film everything, I start missing out on all that.
I’m getting better at making room to just fuck and masturbate. I can wake my husband up for a hard fuck without feeling guilty that I can’t post any of it to OnlyFans.
But it’s hard to hit the right balance, and if I’m not careful it can start messing with my off-camera sex life.
The Expectations Are High
I’m a woman who writes about sex online, so I’m used to people expecting stuff from me.
Dudes who slide into my DMs because they think I’m horny for random dick. People leaving rude comments on my articles. Long, rambling emails from guys who want me to reassure them that their dicks aren’t too small.
At this point, I don’t think about it too much. I have a pretty good instinct for which emails to ignore, which comments to block, and who’s hitting me up with an ulterior motive.
But that’s tougher on OnlyFans.
For one thing, it’s behind a paywall. So when I get a weird message, it’s not coming from someone who stumbled on one of my articles and wants to unload their hangups on me. It’s coming from someone who paid ten bucks to get more of me.
But people also have a lot more expectations about what I should be doing on my page.
They expect new content every day. Or they think I’ll be on call all day to exchange dirty messages with them. Some insist I should film things that cater to their very specific kinks.
For the most part, it’s fine. Just about everyone who joins my page is super sweet and respectful.
But when someone’s rude or pushy about it, it can really wear me down. It’s supposed to be a fun, playful space and that kind of negativity spoils the vibe.
There’s no way I can’t post on a daily basis. On the days when I have a lot of anxiety or my self-esteem is low, I’m in no place to reply to messages or get flirty in the comments. And even though I really appreciate suggestions, I’m only going to make the kind of porn I like.
Thankfully, it’s not usually an issue. It still bums me out when the occasional jerk slips in, but I’m learning not to let it get to me.
Losing Subscribers Feels More Personal
I know I’m losing followers everywhere on the regular.
Twitter, Instagram, Medium, my newsletter, Patreon - even when they’re growing I know that some people are unfollowing me.
And that’s totally fine. You get used to it. You barely notice it as long as the number keeps going up.
But losing subscribers on OnlyFans feels more personal.
I know it shouldn’t. There are lots of reasons subscribers might turn off their renewal.
They might have satisfied their curiosity. Or they moved on to some other OnlyFans girls they wanted to check out.
Maybe they don’t have much time to look at porn. Or their budget’s getting a bit too tight to pay to get a peek at someone’s pussy.
But it’s so easy to overanalyze every single subscriber who leaves. And it’s even easier to assume it’s because my content is disappointing. That they think I’m not cute enough, that I’m too chubby, that I’m too awkward to be sexy.
When someone leaves, I do my best not to stress over it. But that’s definitely easier said than done.
Shooting Is a Lot of Work
There’s a decent amount of work that goes into making porn.
Prepping the space you’re going to shoot in takes a while. You’ve got to move things around, find the right spot for all the lighting gear, mess with the tripods - and then move everything again when it doesn’t quite come together.
It can take close to an hour before I get around to pressing the record button.
And if I’m shooting anything with multiple angles, I’ve got to shuffle everything a few times while filming too.
Depending on what I’m filming, I also need to get a bunch of footage so I have enough to work with. Making a 15 minute video usually involves filming about an hour of content.
Sometimes I can take a few fun little candid shots. But for the most part, I spend whole days filming because I want to take advantage of having everything set up and ready. I’ll film long videos, short clips, little teases - whatever I can get before my two camera batteries die or my memory card can’t take any more.
Then there’s all the time spent troubleshooting. Maybe I just suck at this stuff, but I keep running into problems with my camera or my mic and I have to figure it all out on the spot.
It’s physically exhausting. It’s time consuming. There’s a lot of mental work that can leave you feeling drained. And because I alternate between giving myself three orgasms in a row and wondering why the camera won’t focus properly, there are all sorts of emotional highs and lows that can get really heavy.
Editing Can Be a Bitch
Outside of some photography workshops, I don’t have any kind of technical background. I’m teaching myself how to do this as I go.
Some things I managed to pick up quickly. But editing isn’t one of them.
There’s some really intuitive and user-friendly editing software out there. But none of them have all the features you need if you want to make good porn. And the programs that do have those features also have a steep learning curve.
So, I have to mess around with the editor until every video’s just right. Most of the time, I have to look up tutorials and slowly figure out how to do every little thing.
Even when I know exactly what I’m doing, it still involves a lot of focused work. Straightforward porn vids that look simple to slap together actually take a lot of fussing to get right.
Maybe after another year or two, I’ll be able to zip through the edits. But I kind of doubt it. I think it’s just one of those precise tasks that’s always going to take a good deal of patience and attention.
You See Yourself Way Too Much
I look at myself way more than any of my subscribers do - even the ones who have been with me from day one.
Because that’s just part of doing it solo. I’m not just in front of the camera - I’m the one keeping tabs on how everything looks. I have to keep an eye on the display to make sure I’m staying in the shot. I have to look at my body from all sorts of angles to find the better ones.
Then I have to watch the raw footage over and over again when I’m editing it - sometimes frame by frame.
That includes everything that ends up on the cutting room floor. The shots and angles I would never want anyone else to see - I still have to stare at them.
That would probably be hard no matter how I’m filming myself. But I’m filming myself undressing. And doing all sorts of things to my body. Not to mention every orgasm face I make.
Like, you probably don’t have a really clear idea of what your asshole looks like. But I’m extremely familiar with mine.
And I’d love to say that I’m just confident and feel great about everything I see, but I don’t. You can’t spend hours on end looking at yourself without feeling insecure about some of the things you see.
I try my best to separate myself from those negative feelings. I tell myself to look at the footage objectively, like I would if it was porn that didn’t have me in it.
When it works, it works. I can go into smut-making mode and feel pretty damn good about myself too.
It doesn’t always, though. Sometimes looking at myself way too much starts to wear down my self-esteem.
With any luck, I’ll manage to get over it. Seeing so much of my body can be hard. But maybe it’s how I’ll learn to love it - and not just from the good angles.
Making Porn Is Always Fun - But It’s Never Easy
I wish I could go back in time and tell 20-year-old me to take the damn nudes.
Because making porn can be a whole lot of fun.
It’s really fucking difficult at times and it can be a heavy workload. But it has some sexy moments, too. It’s creatively challenging. It’s also a great excuse to give yourself a ridiculous amount of orgasms in a single day.
Running an OnlyFans page isn’t easy. But if you manage to keep a good work-sex balance, it can totally be worth it.
If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Peek Into My Nightstand (Masturbating, Master Breading, and Amazing Sex Toys) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!
