Targeted by a bill under discussion in Parliament that aims to constrain online sex work, X content creators recount their passion for the job.
“I’d like us to stop speaking for us and for Parliament to listen to us”, laments Fabio Stallion. This gay porn content creator is outraged by the vote in committee at the National Assembly, Tuesday, September 22, of Article 25 of a bill “to respond to sexist and sexual violence against women and children”. The object of this article? To bring certain activities on platforms where X-rated content is sold into the definition of pimping, a crime punishable by seven years in prison, risking to upend the creators’ business model. Following the example of a text adopted in Sweden in May 2025, the mechanism also provides a 1,500 euro fine for certain clients. The text still has to be debated and could evolve in a public session, but gay porn actors are already very worried.
The online gay sex workers we spoke to do not feel — and really do not feel — the need to be protected, and even less so from the platforms. “We love what we do”, they unanimously emphasize Fabio Stallion and Tony Silver, a couple. “I chose to make a living from my passion”, confirms Kinkoer. “I decided to leave a job, well paid and qualified, to do X”, adds Maxime Andolini. Before diving into porn, all four were mainly exhibitionists, less interested in pay than in the experience.
“I took a liking to it”
“One day, in 2020, I told my boyfriend that it would be fun to post a photo of my dick on Twitter. He told me to enjoy myself and I took a liking to it. I love knowing that I can give pleasure to people”, recounts Maxime Andolini. As soon as he starts feeding his account, the gay Twitter falls in love with his dick and dreams of one thing: to travel by train with it and lock himself in the toilets where he regularly takes photos of himself. The number of his followers explodes and Maxime can quickly earn pocket money, alongside his work at an architecture firm.
Kinkoer, for his part, entered the trade with fewer intermediate steps. Used to the fetish scene, he meets a renowned actor and the chemistry is immediate. “He invited me to go on stage with him during a fist performance. I loved the experience and especially the community spirit of the fetish family. Contrary to what these parliamentarians who engage in kink-shaming seem to believe, we totally enjoy it and want more!”, he testifies. During our exchange, by phone, he is heading to San Francisco for Folsom, the flagship event of the fetish scene. Kinkoer works both on platforms, during performances in front of a live audience but also in filmed scenes for studios. He values his freelance activity, which gives him flexibility, especially in his busy schedule, which he shares with another activity as a tattoo artist. “I work a lot, but you can’t say I’m in a precarious situation”, he admits.
For our witnesses, entering porn is not a default choice. “I’m tall, I have a PhD in virology; if I had wanted to pursue a more conventional career, I had the means to do so”, notes Tony Silver before drawing an uncompromising conclusion: “I used to be a cashier at Carrefour, it was much worse. It’s very physical, you endure customers’ disrespectful remarks, you have to scrub disgusting things…”, he lists. On the contrary, “in private videos, I never had to do things I didn’t like”. Obviously, a job is a job, and not everything is always exhilarating. “I’m asked to make videos of my feet, which I don’t do spontaneously. It takes more time, because I try to make them interesting even though that’s not what attracts me most”, points out Fabio Stallion. And since extra work implies extra income, the private videos are more lucrative.
Being an actor means being the head of a company
“Filming accounts for 1% of the working time”, calculates Maxime Andolini. Between URSSAF, editing, consent forms, social media marketing and representation within the community, being an actor in X is above all… running a company, an image, finances. The creators also fear that their collaborators could be targeted by the law — something the current drafting, still under discussion, does not explicitly state. “When I film my boyfriend during a scene, does that make me a pimp?, asks Tony Silver. “And in that case, why wouldn’t URSSAF be considered a pimp as well?”, butts in Fabio with a touch of irony.
One of the remaining arguments used to defend Article 25 is that “the virtual world today is a jungle; we have nothing to ensure that these young women and men can be protected”, argues the co-author of the text, Isabelle Rauch (Horizons). Yet most platforms obviously have safeguards in place, even if they are not all treated on equal terms. On OnlyFans, the most visited, “every person who appears in a video must have declared consent in the app”, reports Fabio Stallion. “It’s very controlled, even if the person doesn’t show their face, even if you only see a hand, it is necessary for that person to fill out a form. And the identity is verified by artificial intelligence, with 3D face recognition, as when signing a contract with a notary”.
Platforms regulate
Thus, OnlyFans is rather cautious regarding kinks. “If ever you have a drop of urine in your video, because you want to do urolige, the upload fails”, notes Maxime Andolini. The same goes for outdoor shoots, considered a public indecency. On these two points, each platform applies its own rules. “JustForFans is better than OnlyFans for kink and requires tagging the participants in the videos”, explains Kinkoer.
Fabio and Tony have a proposal to make to the parliamentarians. “What hinders us in life is the stigma we face and which society should be able to work on”, they emphasize. For instance, the couple has already had trouble opening a professional bank account. “When handing us our bank card, the branch manager backtracked, saying we should specify the nature of our activity”, recounts Tony, somewhat disappointed. If he feels he has not been heard much by Parliament, he will nevertheless follow the debates of this law, which begin in the chamber on October 1.
