A series of devastating wildfires have burned millions of acres in Australia. Across the continent, an estimated 1 billion animals have been killed, and fire officials say some individual blazes will continue burning for months. As the crisis garnered global attention this past week, a 20-year-old model has gone viral for incentivizing her followers to donate to approved Australian charities — by sending fans explicit photos for every $10 they give, provided they send her confirmation of the donation.
Ward’s viral campaign is an iteration of charity porn, a philanthropic effort that aims to capitalize on people’s horniness for a good cause. Her Twitter post — which is a censored image of Ward alongside a list of charities — attracted more attention than she initially expected.
Ward said on Twitter that she paid a team of people to help filter through messages and verify the thousands of donation receipts she’s received. She has discovered some duped images, and some of her nudes have been publicly leaked, but Ward has received massive online exposure for her fundraising strategy.
Ward is the first influencer that OnlyFans has partnered with for a charitable cause, according to Steve Pym, the platform’s head of marketing, who reached out to her on Twitter.
(Public attention also led Ward’s Instagram to be deactivated over the weekend, as a result of posting sexually suggestive content.)
Ward’s charitable campaign has been praised for its “uniqueness” — a euphemism directed at her NSFW content. Her ingenious idea, which has inspired other sex workers to exchange nudes for genuine donations, isn’t quite new. The porn industry has a demonstrated history of launching charitable campaigns for a variety of causes, and it has the money to fuel it: The industry is worth an estimated $6 billion to $15 billion in yearly revenue.
Pornhub, a popular porn video site, has a page titled “Pornhub Cares” that lists its altruistic efforts dating back to 2012. Its latest campaign, “The Dirtiest Porn Ever,” raised money for ocean waste cleanup, bringing awareness to the harms of single-use plastic. For each view of the uncensored campaign video, which was shot on one of the most polluted beaches in the world, Pornhub said it would donate an unspecified amount to the Ocean Polymers project.
On the internet, there are a handful of smaller pornography sites or organizations created by sex workers that are attempts at a charity porn business, with names like Fuck for Forest, Hump the Bundle, Benevidz, and Come4. Most of these sites, as Fiona Zublin reported for Ozy, appear to be a tough sell. In some cases, donors — from charity porn sites to sex workers — have struggled to find nonprofits willing to accept these gifts.
Perhaps that’s why most charity porn setups quietly fade away (Come4 has since shut down) and few manage to stay lucrative — likely because they aren’t tied to an urgent cause, but rather encourage a monthly subscription. Charitable giving tends to spike when people are confronted with a tragedy they’re unable to contribute to directly, David Karpf, a researcher on digital political advocacy at George Washington University, previously told Vox.
Ward’s individual fundraising success could be a result of multiple factors, including her popularity on Twitter, the timing of her post, and the dire reports on the state of Australia’s wildfires.
Ward told Vox that she plans to start an organization where all proceeds would go to charity, although she won’t answer any logistical questions until she’s ready. On Twitter, she said that she’s searching for girls who want to sell their nudes for a good cause.
kaylenwork@outlook.com — THE NAKED PHILANTHROPIST (@lilearthangelk) January 5, 2020
As users on Twitter like to point out, not all heroes wear capes. Some don’t even wear clothes.
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