war on porn - Rem Sequence Official

What’s going on with ManyVids? Your guide to the new changes

Alright, this could get very awkward very fast. So let’s just get on with it, shall we?

The Changes to Come

I received an email on Saturday the 19th of March from ManyVids, informing their uploaders of content rule changes. These are not totally unheard of, as clipsites are constantly having to update keywords, categories and allowed content on their sites.

But this was a little unexpected.

This is because the change with ManyVids is something a little bit… odd for a site that hosts porn. As their core business.

The change is that from April 1st, 2022, all profiles pictures, portraits (the really cool pics you will see on the left hand side of a model’s profile when viewing on a PC) and contest entrance images must be Safe For Work. Here is the clause directly from their T0S as of 19th March 2022:

So… just so we are crystal clear. Now on a porn site, where you can purchase XXX content, my profile photo must be safe and acceptable to a public audience. It cannot be sexually explicit. It cannot have full or partial nudity (partial nudity, what even is that?) or depict sex acts. On a clip site. Where you can buy porn. And where you have to click an 18+ acceptance to get in.

Ok. Got it.

The Obvious Question to Ask

The obvious question to ask is why? Why, all of a sudden does my avatar and portrait need to be safe for work on ManyVids? By other platforms standards, this means it can only show my face.

My suspicion is that this is tied in with ManyVids trying to position themselves as a platform for “lifestyle content,” not just porn. When you first enter the site, you are greeted by the following screen:

The official word from ManyVids is that this new landing platform is to give a more tailored experience to their users. But I thought the majority of their users were people looking for porn? Totes confused.

Therefore, I think this is part of a bigger strategy to make the site sustainable into the future. If the war on porn continues to progress as it has so far, the ramifications that this has on adult content on the internet are huge. I don’t have a crystal ball, but going by past actions, I think it will mean that sites promoting adult content as their bread and butter are going to be number one targets for the anti-porn crusaders. ManyVids, having porn as their prime commodity, are going to have to be able to pivot to survive. These changes look to me like baby step pivot points.

So what do these changes mean?

I like visual stuff, so let me show you what these changes will look like.

Here is my ManyVids profile before:

And here is my ManyVids profile now. Clean, sanitized and safe for work:

New avatar, new portrait, same Rem Sequence.

I have moved on from attacking platforms for these kind of changes because I understand that this is an industry with a tonne of moving parts. Check out my piece on the changes to AVNStars to get an idea of what I mean. Instead of attacking platforms, we really need to focus on attacking the root causes of all of this, namely rampant misogyny, whorephobia and sexual conservatism.

But that is a conversation for another time. Till then, if you are a model on ManyVids, for the love of all things holy, change your avatar and your portrait and be careful of the pics you use for contests.

Rem Sequence is an Australian adult content creator, blogger, and internationally published alt model. She has a background in psychology, philosophy and political science and worked in health and sex education, youth work and trauma counselling for almost two decades. Now, she works full time in the adult industry, as well as indulging her passion for arts, writing and music in numerous side projects.

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AVN Stars DeMonestised – What Now?

Have you heard the news?

In case you missed the memo, it was announced on December 1st 2021 that AVN Stars, which has quickly become the subscription based platform of choice for Femdomme and Findomme creators/models, will be removing payable content features on January 1st, 2022.

Although creators will be able to continue to post free content on the social media styled platform, they will not be able to sell any items on their profile. AVN Stars, in my opinion, has the best features and usability of similar platforms, including allowing verified users to sell clips, photosets and audio files, wholly integrated free and paid content in the main feed and paid messaging options.

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This has already triggered an exodus of models from the site, as the pressure to relocate to another suitable platform before the ability to make money from their content on AVN Stars is taken away in a matter of weeks. From watching my Twitter feed since the announcement, the platforms Fansly and LoyalFans seem to be attracting the most new models who are needing to build subscription based services away from AVN Stars.

So what happened?

AVN stated that the decision was made due to banking discrimination, an issue that has put strain on the adult industry since Mastercard and Visa froze card use on Pornhub in December 2020. Under the guise of protecting human trafficking and child sexual abuse victims, the war on porn has targeted a new front in order to gain more control over what adult content can produced and sold on the internet.

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Platforms and creators have had to perform sophisticated acrobatics in order to continue to be able to stay on the good side of Visa and Mastercard and ensure customers can continue to pay for their content. This has proved to be a mammoth task; all the platforms I use already had age and identity verification of performers in order to operate accounts,and PornHub was pretty much the last bastion of unverified content. But additional methods of verifying that creators are sharing their content willingly and that content rules set by the big banks are being followed, have needed to be designed, tested and rolled out by all platforms who want to keep their businesses running.

Easier said than done

When it comes to models being able to upload a single piece of content (a video, for example), additional swathes of red tape for creators to navigate have been added to adult sites. In my opinion the target is not the eradication of non-consensual and illegal content, but the eradication of porn and the legitimate occupation of online sex work, full stop.

But let’s talk about the impact on sites. The content verification measures differ from site to site, as some platforms cover all imaginable bases (eg having performers upload identity identification documents, attach those documents to each piece of content, having performers agree that each piece of content is in line with ToS, monitoring clip descriptions to ensure banned words are not used, and then a human manually reviews each clip) and others do just enough to make sure they scrape through (removing banned words from tags and descriptions and improving identity verification requirements for multiple performers).

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It is irrelevant if sites choose to have all the bells and whistles of verification and review or the bare minimum to appease the banks, this still takes a lot of work, people, resources and MONEY. And this isn’t a project that can be put off until next financial year; these changes need to happen YESTERDAY, before the banks drop the hammer on the sites and literally paralyze them. Oh, and in the middle of a global pandemic too. Don’t forget that one either.

Looking at a cost-benefit analysis, Tony Rios, the CEO of AVN had to make a difficult decision; invest in verifying mechanisms on the relatively young AVN Stars platform, or drop all payment facilities and focus on the unique things that AVN does that don’t involve being involved with Visa and Mastercard. It is disappointing and frustrating for a lot of people, but it is kind of a no-brainer.

Where to from here?

For a proportion of models, this will mean moving their content to another subscription based site.

For me, however, I have been using ManyVids VIP FanClub (previously known as MV Crush) since I began on the site. I have used it in exactly the same way as I have used AVN Stars, sharing exclusive XXX content, behind the scenes clips and pics and messaging features. So I suggest you follow me over to ManyVids and let’s pick up from where AVN Stars ends.

However, until January 1st 2022, I am selling my clips on AVN Stars for a cheap and nasty price, and including a buy 2, get 1 free deal. So head over and let’s give the site the send off it deserves.

Rem Sequence is an Australian adult content creator, blogger, and internationally published alt model. She has a background in psychology, philosophy and political science and worked in health and sex education, youth work and trauma counselling for almost two decades. Now, she works full time in the adult industry, as well as indulging her passion for arts, writing and music in numerous side projects.

Want to stay up to date with all that is Rem Sequence? Subscribe to my mailing list below…

Know Your Enemy: Why OnlyFans Is Anti Sex Work

In the last month, we have seen some big changes with OnlyFans. Then retractions. Or suspensions. I am not sure what stage we are at with the evolution of this particular subscription based platform.

But I guarantee if you are reading this, you know exactly what I am talking about. Because OnlyFans has become one of the biggest platforms housing adult content and also recently made headlines with their flip-flopping, smoke and mirror games of recent times.

So, why did OnlyFans become so successful, when there are so many other platforms that sex workers and online content creators can join to sell the exact same content? Other platforms have fan club functions, pay to view content, messaging and live show options… so why did OnlyFans emerge to be one of the biggest and most successful platforms for adult content?

Here is my take on it…

Because it isn’t a porn site.

It isn’t a site that publicly proclaims to have adult content. It has never had to.

The Terms Of Service of OnlyFans was worded in such a way that left it open to interpretation on a number of fronts, including its acceptable use policy. And what is the great thing about wording things so broadly and open to interpretation?

It means OnlyFans could have porn on it. Potentially. More than likely, yes.

The Terms of Service never said “pornography is not allowed on here.” The content rules just said creators could not post content that could be regarded as “obscene.” Obscenity laws, which have the same type of shaky foundation, are pieces of legislation which are seen as extremely dangerous by those committed to freedom of speech. Because my obscene is different from your obscene, which is different again from what a legislature making decisions on our behalf deems is obscene.

Therefore, the terms of service on OnlyFans did not explicitly say “no porn”: but they didn’t say “yes porn” either. And this is good (in one way) because it created a loophole where users could upload sexually explicit content for sale, at a time when so many other mainstream platforms are imposing heavy censorship on users. This was also a good strategy for the people in charge of running the platform, because the promise of porn on a mainstream platform is enough to draw a ready and willing audience to it.

Let me draw your attention to the word “mainstream.” I have used it multiple times already, and that is for a very specific reason. Because this is absolutely at the crux of why I believe OnlyFans is so problematic for sex work as a whole.

This is part of a global war on porn which is gripping the internet, the number one host of this content.

As I said, mainstream platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are getting more risk averse to what kinds of content they are allowing on their platforms. This is because of pressures from anti-porn groups masquerading as human trafficking and child protection advocates. This is part of a global war on porn which is gripping the internet, the number one host of this content.

The stigma that sex work and those in the adult industry already face has been amplified by the escalation of activities of these groups. Being a producer/star of porn, doing live sex shows, stripping and providing full service already comes with a big pile of baggage which can have multiple effects on a person’s life; from getting a “vanilla” job, accessing banking, contact with law enforcement, navigating health systems and maintaining housing. Not to mention the risk of physical harms coming from a wide range of people who have an issue with “hoes”.

Then comes along a “mainstream” site that EVERYONE knows hosts porn. The amount of times I have heard the site mentioned by “civilians” (people who don’t work in the industry) is astonishing; they would never dare to say they know about PornHub or that they know someone with content on a clipsite.

A site which has grown due to hosting explicit content… has also grown due to the whorephobic nature of society as a whole.

I believe that OnlyFans has been embraced by the mainstream, who fundamentally hate sex workers because it is NOT a porn site.

Just think about that for a minute…

A site which has grown due to hosting explicit content has also grown due to the whorephobic nature of society as a whole.

Most of the adult performers I know have content on OnlyFans. And PornHub. And Clips4Sale and ManyVids just to name a few. And they have the same kind of content on all of these sites.

But it has become more acceptable to say “Subscribe to my OnlyFans” as opposed to “Watch my PornHub channel.” It is ok for bored housewives to snicker about putting some “cheeky nudes” on OnlyFans to make some extra cash, but professional performers continue to get hatemail, death threats and threatened to be doxxed (have their legal identities made public). Sex workers continue to be the butt of jokes, the murder victims in TV dramas and have their aesthestic stolen for monetary gain.

OnlyFans has ground my gears for many years because I have felt there is something fundamentally off about the whole thing. Check out my Instagram highlights for years worth of material collected. And it was only when they did their recent backflip that I realised what it was that was the real issue.

Sex workers continue to be the butt of jokes, the murder victims in TV dramas and have their aesthetic stolen for monetary gain.

So how do we fix it? By realising, as sex workers, that OnlyFans is one of our enemies because it continues to stigmatise us whilst also profitting from us. If we take our business to a platform that openly acknowledges the work we do, and provides necessary protections for us and advocates on our behalf, this is a good start. And guess what? By putting the same amount of fervor into getting OnlyFans subscriptions into selling content on actual pornsite, we will all be rewarded.

And this is only the start. This is the ideological foundation that I have a problem with. Wait till I start talking about the building blocks of the site, how it works psychologically on creators and users, and money issues that then trickle down. Could get a bit scary, a bit fast.

Till next time…

Rem Sequence is an Australian adult content creator, blogger, and internationally published alt model. She has a background in psychology, philosophy and political science and worked in health and sex education, youth work and trauma counselling for almost two decades. Now, she works full time in the adult industry, as well as indulging her passion for arts, writing and music in numerous side projects.

Want to stay up to date with all that is Rem Sequence? Subscribe to my mailing list below…