Ana Redondo warns that 'OnlyFans' and "sugar daddies" open new avenues towards prostitution

The Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, has placed 'OnlyFans' and the phenomenon of so-called "sugar daddies" among the new recruitment channels that can lead young women towards sexual exploitation and prostitution.

During the inauguration of the course 'Digital Violence against Women', held in San Lorenzo de El Escorial as part of the Summer Courses of the Complutense University, Redondo warned that the prostitution business is rapidly adapting to digital environments.

The minister maintains that platforms for selling sexual content and relationships marked by payments, gifts, or economic dependence can act as a first gateway to the pornographic business and end up transferring women to traditional forms of prostitution.

"The Government will not stop until it abolishes prostitution, the slavery of the 21st century," Redondo affirmed during a speech also focused on pornography, online harassment, and new expressions of sexist violence.

'OnlyFans' and "sugar daddies" under the spotlight of Equality

Redondo explained that recruitment no longer occurs solely through clubs, advertisements, or organized networks. Internet allows activities that can hide situations of pressure, exploitation, or dependence to be presented as personal relationships, economic opportunities, or entrepreneurship formulas.

The minister specifically pointed to 'OnlyFans', where users pay to access photographs and videos published by their creators, and to the "sugar daddies" model, generally older men who offer money or gifts to young women in exchange for relationships.

According to her approach, these formulas "recruit women to feed the pornography business and end up with them in traditional prostitution." The warning is directed at the dynamics of exploitation that can develop on these platforms, without automatically equating all publication of sexual content with a situation of trafficking.

The digital environment has also expanded the reach of pimps, intermediaries, and buyers, who can directly contact young women, control their activity, and obtain economic benefits without needing to maintain a visible physical structure.

The first macro-study prepared by the Ministry of Equality on prostitution and sexual exploitation estimated that 114,576 women were in a situation of prostitution in Spain in 2023. The analysis, based on more than 650,000 ads published online, placed 92,496 of them at some level of risk of trafficking and around 9,000 at very high risk.

Pornography as a sexual school for young people

The minister has also warned of the growing weight of pornography in the construction of affective and sexual relationships among adolescents and young people. Redondo cited a study by Fad Juventud and stated that close to 30% of those under 30 have an addictive relationship with this content.

The report 'Youth and pornography in the digital age', prepared by the Reina Sofía Center of Fad Juventud, concludes that pornographic consumption influences the way in which a part of the young population conceives sex, gender relations and certain practices. The study calls for affective-sexual education throughout all formative stages to prevent pornography from becoming the main source of learning.

Redondo described much of the consumed content as "violent pornography that degrades women and distorts the perception of sexual relationships". During her speech, she recalled the testimony of a young man who confessed to her that he no longer conceived sex without violence and that he needed to grab his partner by the neck to get aroused.

The minister believes that these accounts show the impact that continuous exposure to images where domination, humiliation or the absence of consent appear normalized can have.

Violence that acts 24 hours a day

The intervention also addressed the harassment, discredit, and threats that women receive online. Redondo rejected that these aggressions be considered less serious because they occur behind a screen.

"Online violence is not a second-class or lesser violence. It is of the same nature as the rest of sexist violence, it is exercised globally and does not cease, it is 365 days, 24 hours", she pointed out.

The head of Equality has cited as an example the violence suffered by women with a public presence, including politicians and journalists, whose messages receive attacks related to their sex, their physical appearance, or their private life.

Redondo has cited analyst Sarah Santaolalla as a woman who suffers violence "for being one and for not being afraid". She has also warned that the reach of networks allows a harassment campaign to continue for days and be reproduced from thousands of accounts.

The course inaugurated by the minister is part of the summer program of the Complutense University and brings together specialists to study the relationship between sexist violence, social networks, pornography, and new technologies.

Abolition remains pending a comprehensive law

The Government maintains abolition as a political horizon, although Spain still lacks a comprehensive law that jointly regulates the prosecution of pimping, the sanction of demand, and social, labor, and housing alternatives for women who want to leave prostitution.

The initiatives presented in recent years have encountered difficulties in gathering a parliamentary majority. The Ministry of Equality is also working on a law against trafficking, conceived as another central piece to strengthen the protection of victims and prosecute exploitation networks.

Redondo has insisted that the response must include prevention, sexual education, social protection, and measures against new forms of digital pimping. The future regulation will have to address precisely the role of platforms and those who obtain economic benefits from content or the sexual exploitation of other people.