Coming For Amateur Adult Content Creators Once Again

Not that there should be any surprise that a group of conservative activists, backed by an equally conservative blog site, would seek to all but destroy the career of an elected official they found was an OnlyFans model. In the climate of Indiana politics, as well as the climate in lots of people’s heads, having any kind of adult content account bars one from any safe and sane service or keeps one from being morally responsible.

Etna Troy Township Trustee Elaine Western’s moonlighting was first exposed on the local Real News Michiana, in April. Although Western claimed “I do a bunch of other ‘work’ things. So real life comes first. I love to chat and get to know you and learn about new kinks. I’m here to have fun, boost up my confidence, & feel good about myself plus make a little (sic) extra money for me,” the RNM outed the lady’s off-work work. They also added the unsubstantiated rumor, and surely an act that could get her fired, that Western had taken some of the NSFW pictures she was selling at her work. Following this report, as of this month, a signed petition for the lady’s firing has been sent to the Whitley County GOP for consideration.

Elaine Western’s trials and tribulations are nothing new.

Teachers, nurses, and actors…oh my

With the gig economy growing even pre-pandemic, and then COVID drawing many to look for work without leaving the house, plenty of folks, of all ages, all genders, all ethnicities, and from all over took to establishing a creator's account. But plenty of amateur adult content creators have been lambasted, and in some cases, have lost their full-time jobs because of their posting for money.

Well-known celebrities also have come under moralistic fire.

When an actress of note, like Soprano’s cast member, Drea de Matteo takes to OnlyFans, the mainstream notices. As she says here of her setting up her page and giving fans peaks into bikini pics and the like saved her “from financial ruin." de Matteo sees this next step in her public journey as “A new version of me, I’m kind of proud of and I don’t feel that I need to apologize for.”

Still, there were lots of comments over de Matteo’s next step, as there are often, when someone who was once seen working in the ‘legitimate’ acting world, takes matters into their own hands posting salacious materials.

Well known or not, the self-appointed pornography police are looking out.

The law

The questions for someone like Elaine Western is… can she be indeed fired for operating an OnlyFans page? Where does the law end and the subjective big brush of morality slip in? And should adult site content creators suffer under both?

This breakdown from a year ago reveals that lawsuits have been filed against teachers, nurses, judges, and police, over this issue, with definition of the law murky at best. Considerations are challenges come by a case-by-case basis. They can include:

• The question over if postings are lawfully pornographic.
• Whether posting NSFW pictures on a site set behind a paywall violates the rules of employee conduct listed in one's job description
• If a worker is still responsible to their job for actions they engage in ‘off-hours.’
• If the posting of NFSW pictures and video causes damage to one's employer.

As Conor Friedersdorf said here in The Atlantic “Instead of our value-diverse, negatively polarized nation of more than 333,000,000 souls constantly contesting which off-the-clock behaviors are bad enough to justify termination, wouldn’t it be simpler to agree that, at least if no laws are broken, one is judged at work only for what one does at work?”

It seems many people feel many different ways about that question.