A few months ago, I noticed a lot of what I thought were female comedian accounts on twitter had a link to a page called onlyfans.

Being technologically inept, I asked a few younger people in a gc what it was and man did it depress me.

Growing up in a relatively liberal family within a progressive environment instilled in me a lot of values about autonomy and self-empowerment so my relationship with understanding sex work and pornography early on came with this lens. Let people do what they want etc.

I still don't necessarily believe it is a morally or ethically wrong job in itself, but - and this is something my liberal upbringing didn't instill in me - every action has consequence.

Pornography and sex work in general doesn't exist in a vacuum.

There are real moral questions to be raised in terms of agency and incentive that cannot be ignored for the sake of liberal ideals.

Since learning what the onlyfans medium was, I recognise endless stories on social media with people who "made it" via online pornography.

Young women who were destitute or working for low wages that could not make ends meet suddenly able to buy an apartment or provide stability and autonomy in previously unstable lives. These stories are seen as successes rather that indicative of extreme moral failure.

As with the GoFundMe campaigns for cancer-ridden children or people left homeless by some disaster not of their making, turning to online sex work is seen as an empowering, individual solution to an existing societal problem.

Instead of modern society where every possible resource exists in abundance providing for those of us most vulnerable, individualistic liberal theory promotes individualistic solutions to its own problems. Sell your body or whatever you can to fix your issues.

I get that people don't follow my account to hear moral preaching, but I am becoming an old guy & I'd like to think that means I've had more time to reflect on things I didn't think about before. I hope this means I've things to share beyond MENA politics that people benefit from