LONDON — Adult content creator, model and writer Ariel Anderssen penned a thoughtful, well-argued rebuke of an article by a writer for right-wing British online magazine Areo which had disparaged OnlyFans models, a response which the magazine published yesterday.

Titled “What It’s Really Like to Be an OnlyFans Performer,” Anderssen’s article dismantled the stigmatizing, mocking generalizations made by Areo’s Nick Comilla, who had described OnlyFans content creators as “desperate, terminally underemployed gig economy workers.”

Areo is a British online magazine with an editorial line — and several writers in common — with right-wing intellectual publication Quillette. Areo’s content — for example, Comilla’s anti-sex work tirade — is curated in opposition to what they consider the “mainstream” (i.e. “Leftist” or “progressive”) of British intellectual discourse.

“There are two ways to go about writing an article about a poorly understood, stigmatized minority,” Anderssen’s eloquent reply began. “One is to find some individuals from that group, and listen to what they tell you before drawing conclusions. The other is to guess — and that is what Nick Comilla appears to have done in his recent article for this magazine.”

After mentioning that she was the only sex worker whom Comilla quoted, and mischaracterized, in his article, Anderssen described herself as “the opposite of an economically disenfranchised twenty-something.”

“I am a 44-year-old professional model with almost two decades experience of the business, a turnover approaching £200K per year and a property corporation entirely funded by my modeling income,” she wrote.

Anderssen pointed out that Comilla spent much of his piece “making unsubstantiated claims about how unpleasant our lives are, with no citations to back them up,” and without having reached out to any actual OnlyFans content creators.

OnlyFans Work Is, Indeed, a Job

As to Comilla’s inference that “OnlyFans work is not, in fact, a job,” Anderssen wrote she wishes “he’d tell Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs — my income tax bill last year was enough to pay the entire salary of an NHS nurse.”

But going beyond Comilla’s incredibly ignorant article, Anderssen identified that the real problem is “the widespread social attitude that makes him and many others feel qualified to write about the experiences of sex workers without speaking to any of us. Everyone seems to have an opinion on sex work — which makes sense, given that, at a conservative estimate, 50% of adults have viewed our products and/or interacted with us. But consuming our product isn’t the same as understanding what our job actually involves.”

To read the rest of Anderssen’s eye-opening “What It’s Really Like to Be an OnlyFans Performer,” visit AreoMagazine.com.

For more from Ariel Anderssen, follow her on Twitter.

Apr 22, 2021 3:05 PM PDT

BINGHAM FARMS, Mich. — To commemorate Earth Day, MojoHost has announced some of the “green initiatives” that are being implemented during the ongoing construction of its Michigan Data Center, to launch later this year.

MojoHost founder Brad Mitchell explained that “the entire data center uses cutting-edge technology not just for serving blazing-fast websites but also for contributing to a greener future through cleaner technology.”

“We made as many choices as we could with the environment in mind, despite the costs,” Mitchell added. “Nobody is doing what we are doing on the scale we are doing it.”

Mitchell cited Mojohost’s “significant power ratings advantage.”

According to the company, an average data center runs at a Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) of approximately 1.5 to 2.0 with “good” facilities running around 1.25. The 15,000 square foot MojoHost facility, they explained, runs at a rating of 1.1, which means it takes less energy to cool and maintain the temperatures of its equipment and operations than other facilities.

“Every server cabinet in the facility is chilled to achieve this engineering feat,” said a rep.

More Environmental Decisions

The company conceded that it is not always easy to get entirely free of fossil fuels. The facility has a contract for priority refueling of its four gigantic diesel backup generators (soon to be six), but they hope that they are never used.

“Instead of using batteries that are horrible for the environment, we decided to integrate a flywheel that uses centrifugal force to cause a drum to spin,” described Mitchell. “In the event of power loss, it takes a minute for diesel generators to fire up, and most facilities use massive batteries to do that. At our facility, the flywheel does the trick and it’s pretty amazing.”

Michigan winters were considered when designing the facility, and the outdoor water chillers provide free cooling for the facility when outside temperatures drop below 42F during the cold season.

But, Mitchell added, not every decision going into the facility will have “a huge impact on the planet.”

“My kids and I recycled motherboards from MojoHost’s first racks of servers to create a new logo art piece for the interior of the building,” he said. “It’s a small thing, but it means a lot to have that legacy in the new building, beyond whatever small impact there might be by avoiding the landfill.”

For more information, visit MojoHost.com and follow the company on Twitter.

Apr 22, 2021 2:51 PM PDT

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama House Judiciary Committee held a hearing yesterday on a “copycat bill” of the legislation successfully passed in Utah last month, aiming to force phone and computer manufacturers around the world to install default “porn filters” on devices sold in Alabama.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Chris Sells (R, Greenville) as part of a current effort — coordinated by anti-porn lobby NCOSE (formerly Morality in Media) and other religiously motivated crusading organizations — to pass state-by-state laws making this requirement.

Sells told the committee that, although state laws prohibit children from buying alcohol and cigarettes, “yet we have an iPhone or a mobile device when they’re perhaps 10 years old and all they’ve got to do is punch a couple of buttons and it’s wide-open to every kind of adult thing you can imagine.”

Urging State Intervention for Negligent Parenting

According to a report by local news portal Al.com, Sells said that he was demanding state intervention on behalf of “children whose parents haven’t gone to the trouble to make sure the filter is activated.”

“What I’m finding out is that most parents are not taking the time to download an app or to go into the settings of these phones, and just buy a child a phone and hand it to them,” Sells told the committee.

The committee is expected to vote on the bill next Wednesday. Two people spoke in favor of the bill, while two representatives of the entertainment and wireless industries spoke against it.

Montgomery DA’s Tales of ‘Porn Addicted’ Children

Tim Anderson Jr., director of the Helping Montgomery Families Initiative at the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, testified about a supposed state-wide crisis of “porn addiction,” a definition that is contested by most psychology research.

Anderson described a child with whose case he was “involved with” as “a full-blown addict by the age of 10.”

“He was often unsupervised with over four devices that gave him unlimited access to pornography,” Anderson continued, adding that “the child is 12 and remains addicted.”

Cleo Washington spoke on behalf of AT&T as part of a group of experts that pointed out that the bill was not the best way to protect children from pornography.

“Mandating filter requirements we believe is not the most effective approach, but instead the most effective approach to get control of this is through educational collaboration,” Washington said. “States working with companies and other stakeholders working together to educate consumers about the tools that are available to them, especially in today’s ever evolving world of technology. We also think it’s critical to continue to educate parents.”

The Utah Deadline Looms

The Alabama bill would become the first of the other five state bills that Utah has required before their bill would go into effect in early 2022.

Anti-porn lobbies continue targeting red-state legislatures through religious politicians to obtain that number before the deadline. These are the same legislatures and sponsors behind that 2016-2020 campaign to declare a bogus “public health crisis” around pornography, an initiative that faltered when the COVID-19 pandemic started and the funds were needed for an actual epidemic, and not one made-up by religious lobbyists.

Inset: Alabama State Rep. Chris Sells (Alabama State House)