You're Not Real Until You Shag Men You Don't Like for Free

An ex-Fetlife caretaker once listed the most surprising aspects of his employment. He recalled the many men who reported women for ignoring their unsolicited messages. They assumed the profiles were “not real” purely on that basis. Worse yet, they thought women’s memberships should be revoked if they weren’t pulling their weight by shagging Fetlife’s wanton masses.

Since Only Fans took over the front page, those men have been out in full force declaring that there are no “real” women on Fetlife. I’ve never been able to work out how they define real. Do they mean we’re bots? Or is it more sinister? Does a disinterest in shagging you make us “not real”? Are all sex workers “not real” because they won’t have sex with you for free? Are Only Fans users “not real” because they’re here to cater to their own goals instead of yours?

This, folks, is the male gaze in all its glory. These men are incapable of grocking the fact that not all women are interested in their bodies—so incapable that they believe the even more incredible explanation that we are not “real.”

Yes, Virginia, there are REAL women on Fetlife. We have cells and skin, and we have our own reasons for being here. Some of us have jobs that are foreign to you. Some of us are already partnered. Some of us are only here for platonic encounters. Some of us <gasp> don’t want to fuck you. That doesn’t make us frauds.

The Not Real Brigade visits my profile often. I grew curious about why they weren’t getting any responses to their DMs, so I started visiting their feeds. Without exception, they all engaged with sex workers and Only Fans users exclusively...

... all while bemoaning the idea of sex workers and Only Fans users.

Rather than taking a stroll through the amateur parts of the kink scene, they drew toward everything they resented about the site. It’s like beating yourself over the head while screaming, “STOP BEATING ME!!!!”

I’m no shrink, but I’m mighty suspicious about the psychology of this behaviour. The Not Real Brigade wants virgins provided they’re hypersexual and appear in a lot of gang bang clips. It wants women who are as available as sex workers, but who give it out free of charge to men they aren’t attracted to. The NRB’s rationality has vanished in a pile of fleshlights, and its lack of sexual success is THE WIMMENZ fault <scream>.

We’re real, NRB. We just aren’t the paper doll slut-virgins in your fantasies.