The Future of Human Intimacy

Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of On Fantasy early and ad free Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple podcasts So I know we've like talked about this before, but obviously not in a whole lot of detail So you should feel free to disclose as much or as little as you want, obviously Yeah I'm your brother. It could be awkward, but it doesn't have to be. I don't think it's awkward. I've had people from onlynly fans message you, so you can't get more awkward Dude, I cannot believe that I forgot that. Yeah. My sister Annie just turned twenty four makes her almost twenty years younger than me. She was raised by a different mom in a different household, and she has led a very different life for me. Mister Harvard. mister, I got a diploma Can't relate, but it's okay. You're doing great. Dee Over the years, I've mainly heard about Annie's adventures and phone calls like this one She lives in Chicago and I live in New York and we talk fairly regularly, often on Faceetime while I'm walking my dog and she's at work. She's a bartender these days, so she's often telling me about her regulars and sending me photos of the cash she has stacked up at the end of a long night of tips There was a time starting when she was around nineteen years old when Annie was telling me about a different kind of hustle Do you remember that one girl that I lived with, the blondie She was the only fans's creator. She was the first girl you met who was on there? Yeah, because she was the one who Before was like, since you won't do escorting with me, would you do only fans with me? Oh God, yeah. okay, I remember. Yeah now you're remembering At the time, all I knew about Only Fans was that it was a website where regular people, like my little sister apparently, could make money selling naked pictures of themselves. Kning that Annie was on O fans made me apprehensive, to say the least But Annie assured me that it was a safe alternative to real life sex work and that her friend, the blondie, was showing her the ropes and keeping her out of trouble She would be like, oh yeah, so you could post like lingerie photos, this and that And then if people like what they see, they'll message you and then you can send them an album that The only way to unlock it is they have to pay a certain amount. They don't know what's on it. It could be bullshit photos. oldld photos But they have to pay to unlock it and that money is instantly in your account once they've done it And so how much was your friend making Um She was making I think fifteen k a month fifteen K a month M It's a lot of money No. What I remember Annie emphasizing to me back when she first started only fans was that it was as much a marketing job as anything she wasn't an influencer by any means But she did have a couple hundred followers across her Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat where she would post free pictures intended to lure in new subscribers Each account was under the same pseudonym Annie used on O fans peopleople who found her and liked what they saw, could then sign up for a few bucks a month to see her more exclusive content In the early days Having to only show a couple of photos and then making a thousand bucks was great as an eighteen, nineteen year old. I didn't know what to do with myself I really thought I was hot shit. Annie and her roommate, Blondie, would cross promote each other on their pages in order to bring in new subscribers And within a month, Annie said she had one hundred paying customers which sometimes made it hard to keep up with her DMs. It was very hard being like, Oh my god, Jake. Oh fuck, this isn't Jake. B,, backack back. Oh my go. fuck gotta scroll up and see whose name this is Annie told me that during her best month ever, she brought in eighteen thousand dollars t point it was the COVID pandemic, and only fans had exploded in popularity thanks to subscribers who were looking to escape isolation E we're all doing to keep ourselves safe can have an adverse health outcome, which is loneliness and. We're talking so much about all the physical lnesses, but I think a lot of people are worried about their mental health right now. Social interaction now is going to be three things, challenging, creative, and important more than ever before. In April of twenty twenty alone, so the month after lockdown started On fans reported a seventy five percent jump in new subscriber signups Growth wasn't just on the subscriber side. There was also a slew of new creators on the site Anyone stuck at home and unable to work their regular job could now make content with minimal overhead and earn cash fast. This only fans's income it's very real and it's very quick. That first night I made about like thirteen two dollars I'm like, this is insane Pretty soon, Only Fans wasn't just a dirty little secret It was a cultural phenomenon. According to a piece in BuzzFeed, selling yourself online is the hot new trend, quote Everybody is making porn at home now Only Fans reports that seven or eight thousand new women sign up every day Our daughters are selling themselves for food and rent, and Buzzfeed is telling us it's cool The thing is it kind of was cool. Even Beyonce, one of the most famous people in the world, felt moved to name drop onlynly fans in a song. T T when I dance O Dmon time. She might start our only fan B B. Michael B. Jordan went on Jimmy Kimmel and joked that he was making an onlyly fans page for his mustache. Got got the only fans coming only fans are com why not , all types of crazy stuff. going get wild Part of what was amazing about Only Fans's explosive growth was that for more than twenty years, the world of adult entertainment had been starved by the abundance of free online porn with free port available on the internet Is this the porn apocalypse How to compete with free The situation was akin to that of the music industry after Napster Stolen content was everywhere, and consumer expectations had shifted to the point where the idea of paying to look at porn seemed utterly irrational And then came only fans At the time of this recording, the platform hosts more than four million creators, mostly women and three hundred million users, mostly men. Pay structure is simple Creators keep eighty percent of what they make, and only fans takes a twenty percent cut In twenty twenty four, the company took in a one point four billion dollars profit O fans convince people to start paying for porn again What was it offering that users couldn't get for free somewhere else When I first got curious about this and asked Annie about it She offered an explanation involving a guy who once paid her eight hundred bucks to make a video of herself wearing a pair of shoes that he had bought her and smshing a bunch of corn dogs with the high heels I promise you your favorite porn star is not about to call your name and step on a corn doog for you. so Like, yes, you can watch porn, but those porn stars that you watch will never know your name, will never speak to you. These only fan girls are paid to acknowledge your existence I had always pictured only fans as a one way street placelace to publish exclusive content that your most motivated fans could pay to look at End of story. Annie told me that I'd been missing the point Most of the money people made on onlyly fans, she said came from more than just being looked at came from maintaining quasi personal relationships with subscribers over weeks or months or even longer A lot of the people were just lonely and sad So they really just genuinely wanted somebody to text them every day, text them good morning in the morning good night at night, send them a couple photos. D didnn't even have to be like naked photos just Cute photos. Thome were literally like me in an oversized hoodie in front of me But not all of them, Annie. You showed me I rem I remember you showed me a couple pretty racy things you posted. Not all of them, but there were a lot of the times they want you in a hoodie. Wanted you in a hoodie, wanted you in a messy bun. They wanted you to not look like they were paying for you, basically What I realized talking to Annie was that only fans wasn't a porn site It was more like a directory of people who, for a price, would participate in an extended fantasy in which the two of you were in a relationship Acording to a study that looked at the transaction histories of more than a million only fan subscribers Messaging drives almost seventy percent of revenue on the platform What Annie and her fellow onlynly fans creators were offering was a distinctly twenty first century rendition of a staple product from the Annals of sex Work the girlfriend experience girlfriend experience if you paid for that, it's like seventy two hours of a fake girlfriend. So she'll call you, she'll text you, she'll faceetime you. She'll send you photos basasically talk to you as if you're a boyfriend for like two days. but not meet up in person. all over the phone I know I sound skeptical here, and I was Then I remembered something I myself had once enjoyed the digital girlfriend experience teenager chatting voraciously with someone I'd never met AL Instant Messenger Her name was Jessica friend of mine from Smmer Camp gave me her screen name and encouraged me to send her a message She was a few years older than me. She had blonde hair, and she was really good at being flirty online I was extremely interested And unlike in my normal life, I found it surprisingly easy to get and keep her attention I wish I could remember the particulars of what we talked about. What I do remember is that we talked every day after school Me hunched over my keyboard, trying to come up with jokes and questions and light provocations all in service of ratcheting up the romantic tension between us. Things escalated when Jessica invited me to her high school prom She lived in Wisconsin, only about an hour and a half from me in Chicago Reachable by Greyhound bus I should have been thrilled But in the end, I chickened out I'm certain I handled it badly, and soon after, we stopped talking looking back I guess it just felt like a bridge too far too intense too real Turned out, I preferred Instant Messenger. The relationship Jessica and I had on AM stuck with me I'll never forget the rush of seeing her screen name pop up how it felt to think about her while walking through the hallways at my school And the experience made me realize that something that happened only online feel just as intoxicating as real life On some level, I can relate to these Only fan subscribers I know the pleasures of stepping into an alternate dimension and being a version of yourself that you don't normally get to be Also I wasn't paying, Jessica And as far as I know, she wasn't just pretending to like me back That's what doesn't compute for me about only fans How are there millions of people out there who are willing to shell out money for someone to pretend to like them You essentially pay for an imaginary friend who exists for all intents and purposes only inside their phones. I'm not here just because I'm some horny old guy looking to have a fantasy orgasm. I'm here because I want to interact with someone. I'm Raza Jeffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who open the file on Benedict Arnold y who betrayed the American Revolution America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire And one of its foremost generals was Benedict Ar He's a smugger turned battlefield hero admired for his aggressive tactics But when a war wound A new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the max Turn spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander in chief, General George Washington. And that plot of making the most infamous traitor in US history Follow the Sy whoo now, wherever you listen to podcasts You can also listen to the full season of the spy who betrayed the American Revolution, early and ad free on Audible. Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Audible has all the stories that'll introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy romantasy series. Become your friend group's sci fi expert on the latest blockbuster book to sccreen adaptation Or find unexpected reveals through the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating. All in one easy app, with plans now starting at eight ninety nine cents, you'll get access to over one million audio books and podcasts, including trending bestsellers Hottest new releases and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audio book every month plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at eightll ninety nine cents. Be fascinated, be fascinating All right person persona is that of a man who probably not be subscribed to only fans This is Rick. notot his real name He's retired, he's Christian, He has grandkids, and he lives at a rural area in the south He agreed to let my producer Sam Lee record a conversation with him last summer as long as we protected his anonymity It was supposed to just be a quick call to get a sense of what he might want to talk about in an interview got right into it And as he made clear to Sam, his only fan story began decades earlier during the Vietnam conflict I was eight years old Tide to the war Things were really kicking up and we were overloaded with soldiers and everybody that had any kind of a building turned it into a rental house grew up near an active army base, and some of the soldiers stationed there lived in a building near his house One day, that building burned down And after the house burned And everybody moved out. noobbody had looked underneath the house except for me. And I found this tackle box toolbox, metal bulled it out openpened it up and lowed the hoold inside with the edges charred, but everything else intact Weerere four books aboutb an inch and a half thick Danish pornography I knew at eight years old things that my dad couldn't even imagine Sam, when I tell you that it was all was in there categorically possible as a sex act that was in those books I mean, I saw Vetero homo B start all At eight years old, I saw everything and it sexually excited me. And From there My appetitite never really 're wedded You might expect an eight year old boy to hide pornography under his bed or in his closet stored his books in a shared family bathroom And then one night, with the whole family sitting around the dining room table, his father, a leader in the local church, asked about them. He said So what you been doing there? in they're jacking off? And I said, Well, yeah In't embarrassed I't I was supposed to be embarrassed about masturbation Right And in our family, things like that were not embarrassing you know Se oututside of marriage was said was a no no, but inside marriage, sex was the most beautiful thing in the world. You know, he'd pat my mom on the butt while she was serving breakfast and reached up and pinch her on the tittdy to say, I need a little of cream for my coffee. And you know, that's the way our family was. We had no taboo about Iimate relations. It was cool and it was good. if it was done properly Rick, however, did not wait until marriage to have sex properly. He told Sam that he lost his virginity at eleven to his best friend's older sister and was sexually active from that point forward And I had a lot of wild experiences ully I was dating a sixteen year old girl when I was seventeen I'm sorry, I was sixteen, she She was fifteen And Her mother had her when she was sixteen. so she was thirty two And the mother was a Day there and sitting at coffee one morning at their house. She says, I know that you're having sex with my daughter and I want you to know I love sex and I want my daughter to love it as much as I do. So I want you to be good. at having sex with my daughter And so she decided that she was going to be my teacher And for three months I was sleeping with both of them unbeknownst to my girlfriend because she wanted to teach me how to make love to a woman and she was a very good teacher Sam's gasp captures my reaction to this pretty well All I could think when I heard it was Damn, people are really living all kinds of lives out there That was very, very capable. And the thing that she made very clear was that You've got to make, you know, Visions in their head that you then bring to reality. You've got to make love to their mind before you ever touch their body those lessons into his adult life as he got married, divorced, married again, and divorced again My ex wife would tell you the first ten years of our marriage were the most amazing ten years of her life or mine in every way, relelationships, sex and the whole nine yards. I should say here, we didn't ask Rick's ex wife. It was just impossible to do without compromising his anonymity Consider this Rick's version. After the divorce, of course, I dated a couple of times, had negative experiences. So fromr the age of forty until now I have been to a great degree ceelbate create some mental issues knowning that you were a very sexual person all your life and we're actually List. as a lover Rick has kids from his first marriage, but they're all grown up now He has lived alone since twenty twenty and has had a bunch of health issues became incapable of doing the activities that I had done all my life yined a lot of we confidence went in the whole So only fans was a a way to I guess a fantasy world have what I had lost and not had for all those years And that's how I came to get involved and communicate with someone there In the fall of twenty twenty three, Rick came across a model named Jenna on Reddit popular place for only fans creators to promote themselves She was the Hitim me of what I've always liked in a woman Pate smallm breasted And this is not meant to be gross or in any way, but she was everything physically that I've always liked. Yeah And She just had a look an innocent, a genuine look about her and it was very interesting. and on her Reddit she had a link to the site where you could actually chat with her, which happened to be Only Fans. My first introduction to Oly Fans. I've heard of it, but had never been there, had no idea what it really consisted of. So I went out joined only fans And then we chatted quite a bit and things went fine. And you know, we just kind of were friendly What did you like about Jenna? like the her personality personality, she's She's kind She's funny We like a lot of the same things. She likes movies. We talk about movies in fact We would have quasi dates where the We would watch the same thing on Netflix. and chat about it. we watch Cute. Yeah. I mean Longest is dating the way people would really do it in real life After some time forming this online relationship and talking to Rick quite a bit Jenna started telling him that she liked him too. She was very complimentary and told me, you know that I was the sweetest guy she'd ever met and she'd never had anybody in her life that was as interested in her as I was. you know and I was loving that. Yeah, made you feel special. Every guy loves to hear that they're You know, making a person feel better. and I'm a giver. That's my nature as much as Rick gave Jenna gave back really seemed like their relationship was deepening And then you know, she started You know, I really, really enjoy talking to you. You're interesting You're not all about the sex You're, you know, and it was coming across as very genuine Very real And I said, you know, I enjoy talking to you too for that same reason I wanted human interaction. I wanted someone that I could talk to and you know, compliment and H have a relationship of sours even though There's a part of your brain that knows that it's not real and that it's fantasy and that they're probably all lies part of us that wants to believe that were desirable and that we have something to offer and that this can be real I don't know exactly who I was imagining when Annie first told me about the men she interacted with on On Fans They were sort of abstract to me, I guess faceless blob of internet guys The thing about Rick was that even though in certain ways, he fit the stereotype. He was lonely. he was sexually frustrated He didn't start off that way. He had arrived at Only Fans by way of his own winding path I understood what it was doing for him It was hard to judge Rick for having this need that only fans filled which in turn made it hard to judge only fans itself. giving women a platform through which they could provide a kind of public service be it one that could make them a lot of money It made me think back to how skeptical I'd been that anyone could possibly want this thing, just because I didn't want it I believe the word for that is Myopic. Also, I hadn't been fully honest with myself W I really so sure that it could never be me? picturing it confront a memory that I had stowed safely in a shame drawer years earlier. According to myredit card statements, it happened in March of twenty twenty one. Her name was Willow I up at my TikTok feed, wearing a bikini Th then I followed her on Instagram where I noticed that she had a mysterious link in her bio I rememberered that it was late and I'd been drinking. I don't know, apparently, I was curious enough about what Willow looked like naked that I spent thirty dollars to gain access to her page I remember feeling like I'd given in something I wasn't proud of And I also remember feeling Anticipation What was he I going to see on the other side of this wall? That's about the time I got the fraud alert from Citibank followed by a concerned email from my accountant, asking if the charge was mine panicked and told her to disregard it that I'd ordered something by mistake. and Also, it was for work Ccel my only fans account Moves on with my life. and until now had never told a single soul Whats funny about that moment in retrospect, is that I didn't even know what I was buying I wasn't trying to strike up an online relationship with Willow put in my credit card information because I thought she was going to talk to me or flirt with me or acknowledge my existence, as Annie said Part of me wonders what would have happened if my accountant hadn't caught me I had been tempted when I realized I could send Willow a message to strike up a conversation Is there a version of me that would have wanted to flirt with her to see where it went In fact that even seems possible comombined with the fact that millions of people are seeking out these relationships, often in secret, and so many others are making a living off of them It makes me think something profound has changed in the world notot just in how people consume porn or bisex but in how men and women relate to each other, period And look, I'm happily married and have been with my wife for fifteen years since before even Tinder was a thing All of which puts me at a remove from whatever shift has happened under my feet or a move that Annie, as a young Genzer does not feel And that my two year old daughter will definitely not feel as a young woman twenty years from now to be all as a father of daughters, but can't help worrying about the sexual and romantic landscape that she'll be growing up in What is lost when relationships that are not only entirely online, but are also nakedly transactional become so normal I realized I wasn't going to understand it alone. I needed to enlist a partner in crime. A woman on the inside who wasn't my little sister embodied only fans's potential to change the lives of creators and subscribers alike I needed someone to hold my hand and bring me into this world that I find both deeply alienating and clearly intriguing racy . You guys found it. C in Youo there. 'is I, Queen Mortuana of the Night Realm, AKA Kate McKinnon. And her raaven minion Jojo, AK Emily Lynn. If you do not download and binge my show, heads will roll air apparent on audible, I will cut off your head. Oh no. Maybe just tell them about the guest stars like Richard Kind, Care Coon, Jimmy Fallon at all. Virt They were in it. And if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head, and then put the tongue in the head hole. Ah, you tried. Listen now exclusively on Audible and dont the audible after today are off with your head. Okay Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Audible has all the stories that'll introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a Sucy romantasy series. Become your friend group's sci fi expert on the latest blockbuster book to screen adaptation Or find unexpected reveals through the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated, so you can be just as fascinating. All in one easy app, with plans now starting at eightll ninety nine cents, you'll get access to over one million audio books and podcasts, including trending bestestsellers the hottest new releases and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audio book every month Plus exclusive podcasts. pllans now start at eight ninety nine cents. Be fascinated, be fascinating All right, we'll see it. Okay. All right. okay. let's see this dashboard. Okay, so dashboard A few weeks after deciding to investigate the Only Fans phenomenon, I was put in touch with a creator named Gracie Kanan. So my handle is professional girlfriend, which my friends all found funny because I've like been in relationships. nonstop since I was eighteen. So I was like, I might as well use this skill skill. Yeah, tootally. Like I remember people's birthdays and like if they're taking French and stuff and I was like, let's monetize my love. Let's do that U Gracy wears many hats In addition to being a professional girlfriend on O fans, She works a corporate day job and is also a stand upp comedian I work from home now, I'm on onlyly fans and In case you guys don't know what it only fans is ask your husband, Hey I think. You know, people ask me too, ist degrading doing sex work for money? like sexual acts for money? I'm like, no, no degr be doing it for free. Oh. When I was in my twenties, like I bked a man, a grown man in his bunk bed, okay? And then I biked home In winter, okay? How was a net negative, not a sense completely proer Sam and I met Gracie at her Brooklyn apartment on a sunny spring day last year She settled into her living room, and Gracie pulled out her laptop I wanted to see under the hood as it were. to get a glimpse at how subscribers were interacting with creators like Gracie on Only Fans. So you can see it like I have some that are like, Hey Gracie, I'm well, blah, blah, blah. And then we just have some like business things where it's like, yes, of course, doggy reverse would be great. And it's very, you know, like I've been good, those pictures are sexy, blah, blah blah. So this is kind of like an older guy and they like to leave tips and do a lot of like exclamation points, which I find very cute. L hot stuff, sexy. And I'm like, I love you, Randy. You just click something that says add notes. Oh yeah, add notes so You know, you have a lot of subscribers, you especially might have like multiple Brians or something. I have like eighteen Brians and sometimes like I'll give them nicknames. So it's like but Brian, like foot Brian, you know? And And absolutely put in the notes. Yeah, yeah yeah. Is there a user who you've taken notes on that you'd be willing to show me the notes All right, this is u this is one yeah, this is someone likes busush Like the band? No That is a keeper. Oh, I'm gonna corrupt you guys. Yes. You used to live in second guess is the president. Repuban loves but. Yeah. One or two. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, be like so it's like, you know Sipping a stove topop espresso Gracie had made me. There was a part of me that was surprised I was talking to a sex worker The old fart in my head was like Wait a second, she has a college degree and a full time job Why is she doing this And it turned out, the answer was she had a college degree and a full time job two three years after I graduated. I think my loans were like eight thousand eight hundred a month at that time It was like Twice as much as my rent Gracie wanted to be a comedian But in order to pay for her life and service those student loans She had to spend most of her time working a desk job and hustling on the side. It was like, I wantan to do comedy. I know that at some point I will need to really focus on it and walk away from my full time job. and I knew that as long as I had eighteen hundred dollars a month I just couldn't do that. When she was about four years out of college, Gracie checked the balance on one of her loans And despite having made tens of thousands of dollars in payments already She saw that her balance had gone up I remember like I printed it out, I went to Union Square on my lunch break. and I looked at it and it felt like It felt like at the beginning of a disaster movie where the geologist like prints it out it's like, No, this is so much worse than we thought. And I was like It was just like everything crumbled down. It was really bad. I felt like I was like, this is a fucking this is This is never happen. It felt like my life in that moment. It felt like my life was over. I was like There's no way I'm going to be able to live this secret life that I want of comedy and traveling and All this stuff and then something just kicked in. And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to accept that. One day in twenty seventeen, Gracie was talking to another comedian she knew who worked as a dancer at a strip club And Gracie asked her how much she made I was like, I just need to add like how much could you possibly make a night? Thinking you wouldd be like three hundred and she I was like, Mmm, it's usually like a grand And it was like I It would be financially irresponsible for me to not become a stripper. If people just like leaving money on the end table, leaving money in the G string Applying to a few ads on Craigslist, Gracie ended up getting hired at what's called a lap dance club No stripper poles, no dancing on stage, just girls walking around flirting and eventually inviting guys to a private room It sounded like the strip club equivalent of the girlfriend experience Tell me about the first night My first night, I remember actually enjoying talking to these people. And I was like, this is great. I'm like potentially making money to flirt. Hell yeah. And then I remember in that night There was someone I gave a dance to And I don't remember his face, but I remember his facial expression. was that like he looked up at me and he looked like completely different than when we were talking at the bar. He's like a finance bro Kind of quppy, blah blah blah, and then we were dancing He looked like helpless. Like he looked like forlorn. Like he was I don't know, like a puppy or something. And I was like, like there was this moment where I was like, who, whoa. And I add a lot of those moments The first night that I danced And then I just kept having more moments as I kept dancing where I felt like increasingly more powerful in a way that almost made me kind of uncomfortable I was already curious about these men when they started coming in for dances because I was seeing kind of behind the curtain of what they were like in their regular lives and then When I transitioned only fans a few years later and really understood the chatting and really started forming actual relationships with these people, I was like, oh This is a whole new level of intimacy. like This person is at home, I'm at home We're chatting almost like I would with a friend or someone I'm dating And that gave me like a whole new curiosity and a whole new voyeurism and a all new access to these people in a way that I just could never have gone at the club Gracy's experience at the club and on O fans madeakes her sound more like Wendy with the Lost Boys than Jo and Hustlers It surprised me. L this is not what I thought people were doing As we talked more, it became clear that Gracie's subscribers on Only Fans had genuinely affected her, not just her bank account She really took these guys seriously. she wanted to help them. what I find myself wondering is like Wh are these people and what are they getting from me that they cannot get from anywhere else? And does that indicate anything about emotional isolation, like in the time that we live in Gracie told me about one subscriber who had recently sent her a message saying, Wow, you're so gorgeous. You're making my night unhinghinge depressing No one compares to you. I thought this was telling. inststead of being like, you're right, no one compares to me. now buy this video for a hundred bucks Gracie responded to him with some sincere advice. And I go, Ha, it's a beautiful night out, even though I don't know exactly where you are. Ditch the app, put on a casual but sexy shirt and go make eyes at a stranger at a bar, IRL. Wow. And he goes, only because you inspired me to do it. I was going to head out tomorrow night, but I'm going out tonight as well. Thanks for the motivation And then forty five minutes later, he sends me a fifteen dollars tip under a post to unlock something. So he's at the bar on only fans Or just about or just about to leave. Maybe he didn't go out. I need to We were laughing here. but in a way, this got to one of Gracie's big questions about onlyn fans maail subscribers, or was it stunting them? I often ask myself is only fans? for subscribers training wheels or an emotional crutch I want this person to feel confident. I would rather build up their confidence, they spend money and talk to me for as long as they do, and then they go out in the world. Let them fly the nest when they no longer. Yeah, tootally It sounded to me like Gracie wanted to be something more than a professional girlfriend to her subscribers She wanted to be their white knight. I'm going to do it. I'm going to save men Why didn't you want to save men so much Great question. I feel like because there's this masculine isolation that's so ingrained in our culture. and you know, if men are using sexual encounters, whether that's virtual or in real life to replace a lot of actual emotional vulnerability and just what that would look like. how society would look differently if Men were actually more vulnerable just in their everyday life So it's really about saving the world The idea of saving the world by chatting with horny guys online seemed ambitious. On the other hand, Gracie was just one of millions of creators not only fans Maybe in aggregate, they could move the needle. On the other other hand, I had a feeling not everyone shared Gracie's altruistic approach to the job Regardless, if permission was to save men and through this podcast understand whether only fans presented a viable way to do that, My mission was to just figure out what the hell's going on As a journalist, and yes, as a girl dad Also just as a guy on the internet. Here's the discovery I want to make It seems clear to me like given the fact that there are three and a half million or three million people on here, and untold numbers of you like subscribers They're like all this is happening all around me all the time. and