This body works for me 

“Let’s talk about sex, baby!” sang US rap group Salt-N-Pepa in the 1990s. More recently, Showmax reality show This Body Works for Me’s unflinching depiction of the local adult-entertainment industry has kept viewers glued to their screens for two seasons.  

Sex tends to be a taboo topic, but what does it look like in this digital era of subscribers, thirst traps, and hashtags?  

Enter OnlyFans, the subscription service that allows users to monetise adult-entertainment content. But sex work (buying and selling) is illegal in South Africa, so what do OnlyFans’ multiple features mean for local content creators?  

“The adult sex industry in South Africa is very varied and made up of many different forms of work and industries, such as strip clubs, Adult World-type stores, and films. All of these industries are completely legal,” explains attorney Charlene May from the Women’s Legal Centre.    

“It’s buying and paying for sexual intercourse that is the criminal offence, along with living off the proceeds of prostitution. Many of our municipal by-laws also have solicitation as an offence, but it is completely legal for a woman — whether she identifies as a sex worker or not — to post erotic/pornographic images of herself on an online platform such as OnlyFans.”  

Her OnlyFans   

“OnlyFans is not a part-time job — you need to be highly invested,” says adult content creator Terry Treasure as she sits down with SMag for an intimate dive into her life on the platform. “Don’t come into OnlyFans thinking it is a get-rich-quick scheme — you need to hone your niche and decide what content you would like to post. Brand yourself, market yourself, and do all the right work to get your name out there, as with any other business.”  

The tatted bombshell, who was first introduced to the masses on Big Brother Mzansi, started her journey on OnlyFans just before the Covid-19 pandemic. She specialises in “solo content” and recently booked a gig as talent and a consultant on 1Magic drama series Ayeye: Stripped.  

“I am a qualified make-up artist, so I was working on music videos, digital ads, and brand work, but I needed to find another stream of income because of Covid,” she explains. “I was already doing modelling work and posting on my socials, so I thought, ‘What’s the point of posting bikini pics for free on Instagram when I can make a bag out of it?’”  

The platform, which allows creators to post just about anything, is driven by how much you post, how much you get tipped, how many subscribers you have, and how much content you sell from your profile.

“The job is to keep fans coming back on a monthly basis because when they subscribe, they subscribe for 30 days. In order for them to renew their subscription you need to keep them as entertained as possible,” she adds. “It’s all about being honest with your subscribers. If you let them know that you are doing this for a new camera or car, they are willing to put down money and support your wish list.”  

When she first started as an adult content creator her Instagram account had about 60 000 followers, and when she announced on the platform that she would be joining OnlyFans and linked the bio to her page she blew up. “It was a blessing in disguise because I was able to monetise very quickly, before the government brought in tax laws [covering] content creators,” she says.  

“I think the tax law was unfair because YouTubers had been making money without being taxed for the longest of times — until one popular influencer posted that they had made over 500k in less than two months, which triggered an alarm at the government that people are actually making large amounts of money.  

“In the beginning we were getting taxed [abroad] because we had to use a Canadian bank that would charge us before we got paid, so we were getting taxed twice.”   

Although systems have now been put in place that allow creators to get paid directly, the challenge of people stealing and leaking content poses another hurdle.  

“My content has been leaked four times. I just found out this morning that someone was buying custom content from me and then selling it in a WhatsApp group. I can’t do anything about it because they bought the content and what they do with it has nothing to do with me,” she says.  

“I save a lot of the money because I still stay at home and I am not someone who splurges and parties. I don’t drink or smoke so the money goes towards equipment or creating other ways to make the money back.”  

From our conversation, my biggest observation is that she wears her heart on her sleeve — she is honest, funny, authentic, and very creative. She is also blessed to have been raised by an open-minded family, who found out about her career through the reality show.  

“I had to sit my mom down when I got back from the Big Brother House because I had not given her a heads-up. Of course, doing adult-content creation was not her first choice of career for me, but she supported me,” she says.  

So, what is a no-go area for her on OnlyFans? “Collaborating,” she replies.   

“I like being by myself and that is just for my own moral compass. I think if God blesses me with a child I’ll have less explaining to do — unlike if I were collaborating with multiple men,” she adds.

His OnlyFans 

Although true LGBTQ+ representation has been seen in recent Hollywood productions such as Pose, Red, White & Royal Blue, and Heartstopper, locally, we still have a long way to go. Someone who is fighting that good fight is adult content creator, actor, and writer Reggie Rasodi.   

“If the media industry in South Africa does not showcase me and what I stand for, I will create that visibility myself, which is what I am doing,” says Rasodi, who is also known under his adult entertainment alter ego Marlon67. “I do all that I do to show the world that I am multifaceted. Yes, I can make sex look great, but my work is to create an awareness because as a Black community we are not as sexually liberated or as sex positive as we should be. My work is to redefine black social norms from a sexual standpoint in order to break stereotypes and contribute positively to movements like not harming Black gay people, the trans community, individuals with kinks, or sexually active and sexually aware individuals. I want the world to know that Black people have sex and are allowed to enjoy it too.”  

Rasodi left the corporate world and a popular radio show because he did not want to be boxed in. He started out in the adult entertainment industry as a stripper, hosting a number of VIP clients. At the same time, he garnered online success for his web series DL Thug Passion, a story about a group of gay men living in a heteronormative world and forced to act straight.  

“I wrote a lot of sex scenes — each chapter had two sex scenes — so I thought, ‘How can I give the people more of what they want during Covid and also benefit from it?’” he says. “That is when I decided to create visuals where I re-enact all the sex scenes on OnlyFans.”  

The creator now has a solid following.  

“Unlike many adult content creators in Africa, I show my face and I am not afraid to express being an adult content creator, although I am more than that,” he says.  

The actor has featured in two Ferguson Films productions (Unmarried and Rockville). He is top of the OnlyFans charts in Portugal and hopes South Africa will catch up one day.  

“A lot of South Africans think we choose sex work or adult content creation as a last resort,” he laughs. “I have many options, skills, and places where I can go work. I do this because I want to — and to help change the narrative around adult entertainment. Do you know, as a queer society we still don’t have our own strip clubs? All strip clubs cater to heterosexuality, except for a gay night here and there. Gay people are not fetishes.”

The IT graduate, who majored in information sciences, business management and informatics at the University of Pretoria, was headhunted by three companies before graduating and has spoken on panels in parliament, at universities, and in documentaries to help decriminalise sex work.  

“On OnlyFans I executively produce the content myself, meaning I book the Airbnb, videographer, and talent. I am a chakras hun as well so I meditate, go to the greeneries, and rejuvenate myself. I have to make sure I am spiritually and physically ready to shoot,” he explains.   

The physical readiness also includes taking PrEp (a pre-exposure prophylaxis) daily and visiting his GP every two months, as he collaborates with other content creators and does studio work for international production houses.  

“Before working with anyone I always make sure I meet with them to see if our energies connect because I need to enjoy what I am doing in order to perform to my maximum on camera. Then we discuss sexual health,” he says. “I have a whole database because everyone wants to collaborate and sometimes you find fake content creators who just want to have sex with me, not realising that this is work.”  

With the SA Revenue Service now broadening its reach to content creators, including adult-content creators on OnlyFans, many are up in arms. But Rasodi is in two minds about it.  

“I believe it is for the greater good if they eventually decriminalise sex work, as other sex workers who do not have the same privileges as I do, like healthcare, will be afforded that, but it is also a bit messed up because they only want to tax us because they see that there is money being made,” he believes.  

Adds May, “The legislative framework does not speak to the term ‘sex work’ because, of course, it fails to recognise it as work. We would argue that it is work, but I believe that it is very much dependent on the individual and whether, on a site such as OnlyFans, they deem their activities to be sex work.”