OnlyFans has etched itself into pop culture. Partly a meme and partly a refuge for girls who want a shot at easy money without leaving the house or having to deal with pushy strip club customers.
That combination has propelled OnlyFans to become the top destination for women who want to dip their toes into the world of sex work.
However, as with all disruptive technologies and cultural shifts, there are winners and losers.
One industry that may be hurting from OnlyFans is the strip club industry. Strip clubs have already been hit with economic headwinds. Inflation has made the days of cheap lapdances a relic of the past.
That has put a dent in their customer base who aren’t willing to pay such high prices when other alternatives like escorts are about the same price.
But OnlyFans is a new problem for strip clubs and I’ll explain why below.
OnlyFans Is a Relatively Safe Way To Enter The Sex Industry
Before the internet and before OnlyFans, if a girl wanted to dip her toes into the sex industry, she would generally stumble into a local strip club.
If she was cute and the club was hiring, she was generally working within 24 hours.
Maybe she hated it and never came back or maybe she loved it. But in most cases, that’s how girls entered the sex industry.
Yes, a few girls would pack their bags and try the porn industry instead of stripping. But relatively speaking, the girls walking into a local strip club for the first time far outweighed the number of girls catching a bus to California to become porn stars.
But then OnlyFans came along. Now, all those fresh-faced young girls who would normally try their hand at a strip club just download the OnlyFans app and start posting photos.
If they enjoy it and start making money, they stick with OnlyFans. If not, they close their account and go do something else for a living realizing that sex work isn’t for them.
But that’s the problem for strip clubs. A lot of the girls that would normally be walking through their door are no longer doing so. Those girls are now testing the waters via OnlyFans.
The bottom line is that there are fewer new strippers today and OnlyFans is partly to blame.
My Conversation With A Strip Club Owner About OnlyFans
Living here in Vegas, I know a few owners and managers at local strip clubs. That’s what gave me the idea for this article.
I was told on several occasions that the amount of girls they get looking to start and the quality of the girls has diminished ever since OnlyFans went mainstream.
I even had one manager tell me they seem to get the OnlyFans rejects or the girls who simply aren’t organized enough to maintain their OnlyFans accounts or follow the app’s rules.
The problem, according to the manager I spoke to, is that if a girl is too disorganized to manage their OnlyFans, they’re generally not a good strip club dancer and will eventually stop showing up or cause too much trouble for the owner.
Some Girls Strip & Do OnlyFans
As I’m sure many of my readers already know, plenty of strippers and sex workers also have their own OnlyFans accounts. They’ve probably asked you to subscribe at least once.
So yes, some girls can do both. However, it’s those first-timer girls that helped keep strip clubs as a popular destination and worth the money.
On a weekly basis, you could stop into your local strip club in any decent-sized city and see a few new girls during each visit. Part of the fun and allure was not knowing who you see each visit.
As a strip club veteran myself, the number of new girls you see at any club has dropped substantially. I’m even talking about Vegas which has a huge population of girls and sex workers passing through.
But even here in Vegas, you can go to clubs several times and see the same girls month after month with only a few new girls sprinkled in.
According to the managers I’ve spoken to, OnlyFans is partially to blame.
Of course, lap dances starting at $100 per song aren’t exactly helping either. But that’s another story.
Are Strip Clubs Dead In The OnlyFans Era
In short, no. Strip clubs will likely always be around, especially in Vegas. However, they are in a tough spot right now.
Inflation has made a trip to the local strip club a tough sell compared to simply finding a girl via a website or waiting for a casino girl to approach you at the bar.
Plus, the clubs simply don’t have as many fresh-faced girls anymore. That’s not to say you still can’t find a gem here and there. But it’s getting harder to find on a regular basis. Combine that with the higher costs and you can quickly drop thousands of dollars before coming across the right girl.
Honestly, I’m not sure what the solution is. I assume OnlyFans will go out of style eventually just like every fad eventually does. Perhaps when that happens girls will be attracted to the relative anonymity of strip clubs where your actions aren’t uploaded to the internet forever.
Will the fall of OnlyFans create a stripper renaissance? Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking from a nostalgic strip club veteran.
As for me, I’ll keep going to strip clubs. Even if it’s more expensive, a real girl in your lap beats an OnlyFans subscription any day of the week.
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