If you haven’t seen the viral TikToks, another clickbait clip from the Reality Check Show has been circulating. This time Rebecca Goodwin, an OnlyFans creator, “stormed” off the podcast visibly distressed. This left the three hosts, apparently absolutely baffled about what they did wrong, calling her “delusional”. There is so much wrong with this episode that I barely know where to begin.
For context, the Reality Check Show is run by all male hosts, who have just been demonetised on YouTube. The bulk of their success, if we can even call it that, comes from inviting OnlyFans creators (usually female) onto the podcast, asking invasive and deliberately inflammatory questions and then posting the heavily edited video with a ridiculous thumbnail. In this case, they invited Rebecca to speak on their podcast, unpaid. She was asked to wear “something slutty” and drove 3.5 hours to Croydon to film with them in their ‘studio’. When I looked into their most popular videos, I noticed that they are all interviews with OF women. I think this power dynamic is deeply disturbing. For decades, the sex industry has been predominately owned by men, yet the product they are profiting from is women’s bodies. OnlyFans has helped sex workers have more financial control over their own content, but how they are treated on male podcasts reproduces this unequal dynamic all over again.
The Reality Check Show is already on thin ice, having been demonetised. In this context, I have to say I was baffled from start to finish watching this latest episode. Among other horrendous comments, they called her “delusional”, “undignified”, talked over her when she was speaking and, when she could get a word in edgeways, pretended to snore. What was lost in the noise of three uneducated men talking over Rebecca, are some important truths she highlighted about the lives of female sex workers. So, I’d like to reiterate them here.
“What does your boyfriend think?”
The men asked her what her boyfriend thinks of her OnlyFans career, and whether she would ever stop if her boyfriend asked her to. Not only is this a boring question, but it is also deeply misogynistic. The underlying assumption here is that her male partner has the right to say about what she does and doesn’t do with her body. They don’t. Full stop. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, whether it’s sex work or an office job. This implicit view that men should have control of women’s bodies was reiterated in a very telling comment that the men said when she left the room. As they tried to determine why she could be offended by their behaviour, one of them chimes in to say that her problem must be that she is just “too used to ‘yes’ men”. This comment captures in essence the agenda of their podcast. Interview women they look down upon, yet are economically beneficial to them, and give them a big metaphorical “no”. Tell them what they’re doing is wrong, immoral and shameful and try to humiliate them to make themselves feel superior.
“What are you contributing to society?”
The most absurd moment came when they tried to claim she contributes nothing to society. Rebecca, who has paid more in tax than they will likely ever make, who has created an affordable housing scheme for low-income families, who donates thousands to charity, who educates women on safe sex work, was being told by three men—who, by the way, are demonetised on Youtube—that she was a waste of space. She handled this comment with grace, and wittily reminded them that she pays over 200k a year in tax, and is working on an affordable housing scheme.
But, that is beside the point. No one has to contribute to society. It’s something we should always encourage, but ‘contributing to society’ can come in many forms. Stay-at-home parents are ‘contributing to society’; capitalism could not run without their unpaid domestic work. And, as she rightly says, simply paying your taxes is the foundation of the social contract.
“You’re earning so much money you’ve forgotten what its like to be down there”
When she revealed that she earns more than 100k a month from OnlyFans and from owning her own porn company, the men patronisingly told her that she had forgotten what it was like “down there”. They said this to a woman who grew up in poverty, was a single mum of two kids and worked minimum wage part-time in a Debenhams cafe.
“What’s going on recently with porn stars having hair?”
This was a question one of the hosts asked Rebecca. Except it wasn’t really a question, it was an aggressive rant about why some sex workers have decided not to shave. Rebecca quite rightly said that it is the woman’s choice as to whether they shave or not, whether you are a sex worker or not. It is reflective of a societal norm, not a reality, that we treat women’s hair as unhygienic or unfeminine. And, although it got immediately shut down by the hosts, she commented that if men demand that all women must be completely shaven because it is “natural”, you are saying that the most desired sexual norm is a woman in her infantilised bodily state, that is of a pre-pubescent child.
Social norms around beauty standards are fluid, historically contingent, and a lot to do with the dominant power structures that govern society such as capitalism and patriarchy. And, if you need an example, until the mid-1900s, it was unconventional for women to shave their armpits and legs until a mass advertising drive began to be used to convince women to buy their shaving products. So, beauty standards fluctuate, and as a woman you will never fit the perfect mould. That mould is a moving target, largely controlled by capitalist and patriarchal marketing to try and make you buy more. Rebecca is quite right then to say that women should do whatever they feel most comfortable doing, and quite frankly it’s no one else’s business.
The issue of “dignity”
When interrogating her about what she contributes to society, their measure of what would be a more appropriate job was something that was more “dignified” than sex work. Here the double standards are blatantly obvious. One of the hosts is themselves an OnlyFans creator. But, of course, it’s a career when a man does it, but immoral and dirty when a woman does it.
Rebecca said that, as a woman who has experienced sexual abuse as a child, sex work makes her feel empowered and like she’s taking back control by profiting off of her body. It reminded me of Lily Phillips’ comment that “men will use your body anyway, so you might as well profit off of it”. Neither comments sit right with me. Many sex workers have a history of sexual abuse, and I think it can be hard to distinguish in these situations whether women are genuinely empowered, or whether their work is part of a damaging trauma response. So, whilst it might be empowering for Rebecca, I would contest that, for everyone, sex work is a healthy way to regain a feeling of bodily autonomy. Either way, the language of “dignity” is not relevant. That’s a moral judgment, not a fact. And more importantly, it’s an opinion no one apart from the woman themselves deserves to have. I’m just sorry that for a woman who has survived so much abuse, she was subjected to bullying by three deeply misogynistic men.
Fundamentally, what shines through in this video is three deeply insecure men with a struggling podcast, getting a kick out of attempting to belittle a woman they think is an easy target. But Rebecca, as she showed, is not an easy target. She is a highly successful woman who held her own and, most importantly, knew when to walk away when she was not shown the basic respect she deserves. As the hosts attempted to humiliate her, she showed us exactly where the shame should lie – with the men whose podcasts are built on tearing women down.
