Former OnlyFans Model Berry Hanna Kraven Sheds Light on Banking Discrimination Faced by Sex Workers

 

Former OnlyFans model Berry Hanna Kraven writes articles about OF models having a rough time of it in the real world. She's just written a piece about banking discrimination against sex workers, claiming that sex workers are being forced by laws to work for Only Fans. There's a famous YouTube clip where an OF model has a meltdown because she had to find a real job.

Sez Kraven: "Sex workers have told the Financial Times that the UK financial sector is effectively “waging war” on the profession by de-banking those whose line of work, it believes, represents a risk exposure to the City institutions.

"Becky Webster, a former NHS nurse, has had accounts closed or frozen by banks 15 times, and not due to fraudulent activity, but because of her job as a sex worker.

"Sex workers often experience restricted access to their bank accounts, or are prevented from opening one in the first place. According to Decrim Now, the campaign group led by sex workers, “more than 80 per cent of SWU [Sex Workers Union] members have experienced some form of financial discrimination”.

According to Kraven, this is just one aspect of a web of discrimination against sex workers.

"Not only does being locked out of your bank account stop you from paying bills and prevent you from purchasing amenities (and luxuries), it also forces people into precarious situations. By freezing sex worker’s accounts, banks are forcing sex workers to find illegitimate ways to make money fast to keep themselves able to pay bills and feed themselves. Not only is this more dangerous, in a rapidly advancing cashless society it’s also a lot harder to come by."

"What is the alternative road to legitimacy for sex workers? If their accounts are locked or denied when they independently sell their services, other than cash-in-hand work, the only alternative is to use sites like OnlyFans for a legitimate income. Because while banks don’t recognise the sex workers that made OnlyFans’ CEO Leonid Radvinsky his $3billion dollar net worth, they do recognise the site that profits off it.

The existence of OnlyFans, and its huge surge in popularity during the pandemic, has helped legitimize sex work in the eyes of some, and for many allowed a safe platform.

"However, it’s clear with the measures that banks are placing on UK sex workers, that OnlyFans is tightening its grip on the adult entertainment industry.

"The option appears to be to allow the billionaire Radvinsky to take a meaty cut of your profits, or spend your days nervously anticipating a time when you won’t have access to your own money.

"Like I’ve said before, buying and selling sex work is legal in this country, but owning brothels and pimping is not; a loophole that (whether affective or not) prevents individuals from profiting off other peoples sexual services. However, if sex workers are forced into OnlyFans to protect themselves against financial discrimination, isn’t that coercive?

"It’s an exhausting hypocrisy that sex workers deal with regularly, that despite production and profit being the goal of capitalist society, this still comes with moralistic stipulations. No matter how much a sex worker earns or is taxed on their earnings, their legitimacy is still called into question through no fault of their own. And in a recession, financial discrimination is a physically dangerous position to be putting people in.

"Ultimately, sex workers shouldn’t have to demonstrate their legitimacy to their banks, when they are already tax-paying citizens."