‘Jesus made no comment at all about women who used their sexuality as a means of making a living. In fact, any condemnation the Bible makes of prostitution is reserved for the men who buy sex, not for the women who sell it,’ says Sally Hope.
Recently I wrote about my concerns with OnlyFans star Bonnie Blue. It’s the nature of Bonnie’s content that worries me though, not the fact she’s selling access to her body. OnlyFans has 2.1 million content creators, 70% of whom are women, and whilst some people are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, the average creator earns only $151 a month. If as Christians we take a puritanical attitude to women who sell images of themselves online, if we condemn them, call them sinful, or otherwise look down on them, then we fail to follow the example of Jesus.
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Women have always done what they have needed to do in order to survive in a patriarchal world. For many, this has meant using their sexuality. The Bible is full of stories of strong female survivors who use both their brains and their bodies to their own advantage.
Four such women can be found in Jesus ancestry (Matt 1:2-6) : Tamar, who posed as a prostitute to trick her father-in-law into impregnating her (Gen 38) ; Rahab, the prostitute who betrayed her own nation to help the Israelites (Joshua 2); Ruth, the illegal immigrant who seduced a wealthy man (Ruth 3:1-13) and Bathsheba, who married the King who raped her and murdered her husband (2 Samuel 11) .
At no point in the Bible are any of these women called sinful or condemned for their actions.
At no point in the Bible are any of these women called sinful or condemned for their actions. In fact they are women who are considered valiant, brave and clever; their resourcefulness led to them surviving injustice, war, widowhood, poverty and sexual violence.
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No wonder then that their descendant, Jesus, respected women who similarly found ways to survive an unjust world. When a “sinful” woman anointed him with oil and was criticised by his disciples Jesus defended her then held her up as an example (Matthew 26:6-13/ Mark 14:3-9/ John 12:1-8). When he met the woman at the well, living with a man who was not her husband, he offered no criticism of her living arrangements, but did choose her as the first person to tell that he was the Messiah; she went on to become the first evangelist. (John 4:4-42)
Jesus made no comment at all about women who used their sexuality as a means of making a living. In fact, any condemnation the Bible makes of prostitution is reserved for the men who buy sex, not for the women who sell it.
Of course, women today are not in the desperate position that women in biblical times often found themselves in.
Of course, women today are not in the desperate position that women in biblical times often found themselves in. However, we still experience disadvantages in comparison to men. Women are disproportionately affected by poverty, with 22% of women having a persistent low income and women still earning 23% less than men. The glass ceiling still exists, with women holding less than 9% of the roles in the FTSE 100 and making up only 11% of the world’s ultra wealthy individuals.
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Some women who sell their pictures on OnlyFans are doing so to pay off debts or cover the costs of their education, others simply hope to get rich. Whatever their motivations, they are products of a society that determines success largely in financial terms and then puts multiple barriers in the way of women achieving that. Would Jesus blame those women for using their sexuality to do what they feel they need to do in order to achieve the same standard of living as their male counterparts? Or would he instead criticise the men that buy access to their bodies and the society that creates the inequality they’re responding to in the first place?
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