Young Men Use OnlyFans for More than Just Porn

How the pay-per-view site is becoming an emotional support system

A growing number of young men are turning to OnlyFans not for sexual content, but emotional connection.

OnlyFans, a subscription site for adult content, is extraordinarily popular. According to financial filings, it had more than 377 million users at the end of 2024 and more than 4 million creators on the platform. Not all users are paying, but many are—transactions through the site topped $7.2 billion. By some estimates, 80 percent of the users of OnlyFans are men, while 70 percent of the content creators are women, roughly what we’d expect for a traditional porn site. What sets OnlyFans apart, however, is how it allows users to subscribe to certain creators’ content and communicate directly with the creators.

A recent report found that nearly 80 percent of the messages by the biggest spenders on OnlyFans aren’t sexual in nature. They’re about everyday topics: pets, food, daily routines, and more. Asking for nudity is rare; users mostly want companionship. Many are married but don’t feel like their marriages provide the emotional intimacy they craved. They’re generally respectful to the models, unlike the language many manosphere influencers use, thanking them for listening.

These findings reflect OnlyFans’s role as an intersection between social media connection-building and pornography. Because the platform is linked to individual creator personalities, it’s ripe for parasocial relationships. For men struggling with loneliness, the chatting feature becomes an easy, temporary solution.

In the latest Young Men Research Project (YMRP) poll, 18 percent of the ~1,000 respondents reported looking at pornography on a paid subscription service like OnlyFans a few times per week or more. Seven percent of respondents reported using OnlyFans (or a similar service) multiple times daily.

Compared to men who did not frequently use OnlyFans, those who used it a few times a week or more were more likely to have gone through a recent breakup (within the past six months) and were more likely to categorize “being sexually active” as one of the top three qualities defining masculinity. Nearly a third (32 percent) also said they were “glad more men are focused on being masculine these days,” compared to just a fifth of men who didn’t frequently use the service.

This survey data reflects an interesting ideological mix. Men who used OnlyFans craved emotional and physical intimacy, but simultaneously embraced a traditional definition of masculinity—one that rejects vulnerability. The most frequent users of OnlyFans also tended to be more politically conservative.

Men who use OnlyFans regularly also have complicated feelings about relationships. In the YMRP survey, about two-thirds of men who frequently used OnlyFans or similar services agreed with statements indicating dissatisfaction with romantic relationships. These included the ideas that it was “too difficult to meet potential romantic partners these days” (67 percent), and that women had “too many expectations” for men in relationships (70 percent), as well as relationships being too much of a time and financial commitment (64 percent).

As perceptions of real-life relationships sour, the idea of a pay-per-view dynamic, where every interaction can be controlled, appears comforting. OnlyFans offers exactly that.

This sense of intimacy and emotional connection is often fake.

OnlyFans has the allure of pornography without the depersonalization, blurring the lines between what is and isn’t real on the platform. A Reuters investigation found that while many subscribers, usually men, believed they were cultivating real relationships with actual models, their private messages were actually being managed by agencies that outsourced the conversations to “chatters” across the world. These chatters had access to the subscribers’ secrets, embarrassing admissions about their fantasies, intimate photos and videos, and other details they believed were kept private. For a modest fee, chatters would impersonate dozens of OnlyFans models to help generate more revenue, all while men believed they were forming emotional bonds.

Increasingly, many chatters are no longer human. Using AI bots, many agencies have now optimized the “male loneliness epidemic.” These bots can be trained to collect surface-level information about subscribers and slowly increase flirtation until they tip more money, assuming the tone and scripts of the model they impersonate. Men are not told they are speaking to AI, and as a result, their substitute for human connection ends up being anything but.

Meanwhile, the most misogynistic corners of the manosphere see OnlyFans as a target and something to exploit.

Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes portray OnlyFans models as “tainted,” regularly berating them on the Fresh&Fit podcast—one of the 50 most listened-to shows among young men, according to Edison Podcast Metrics. Andrew Tate has openly bragged about making money off 75 women in a webcam business. Tate believes that women who have slept with more than 3 men are “vile,” while also allegedly forcing women to perform on OnlyFans pages he controlled.

Judged solely by these influencers and incel forums, men’s views of OnlyFans creators appear to combine sexual degradation with commercialization. But as recent reports (YMRP polling data or investigations by several news outlets) suggest, the attitudes of most men toward OnlyFans is much more complicated.

Clearly, many opinions and interactions on OnlyFans remain rooted in misogyny—whether via manosphere influencers insulting models, or members of the incel community consuming content they publicly denounce. Yet, research suggests that the platform goes beyond a purely transactional sexual site and is offering young men some sense of emotional connection as well (even if superficial). Some have argued that OnlyFans is actually empowering for women creators (although that is also debated). In a way, it is becoming a place and topic where views about masculinity, feminism, and modern relationships are being actively debated and fought over. Between its social network appeal and its solidifying position as a source of both platonic and romantic connection for lonely young men, OnlyFans signifies many of the trends we are seeing impact this generation.