Updated
Dec 18, 2020
Selling Nudes On OnlyFans Kept These Families Afloat This Year
Feeling abandoned by the government, struggling mothers have flocked to online sex work to survive the coronavirus pandemic.
By Jesselyn Cook
ILLUSTRATION: ISABELLA CARAPELLA/HUFFPOST; PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES
It was late July, and Rachel, a 30-year-old single mother living in Minnesota, didn’t know what to do. She’d just been laid off from her job at a casino after being furloughed for months due to the pandemic. Her weekly COVID-19 relief benefit from the federal government had expired, and her state unemployment aid barely amounted to a third of what she’d been earning before the crisis, but she still needed to pay her rent and bills.