The Edition: Porn Britannia, Xi’s absence & no more lonely hearts?

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

OnlyFans is giving the Treasury what it wants – but should we be concerned?

‘OnlyFans,’ writes Louise Perry, ‘is the most profitable content subscription service in the world.’ Yet ‘the vast majority of its content creators make very little from it’. So why are around 4 per cent of young British women selling their wares on the site? ‘Imitating Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips – currently locked in a competition to have sex with the most men in a day – isn’t pleasant.’ OnlyFans gives women ‘the sexual attention and money of hundreds and even thousands of men’. The result is ‘a cascade of depravity’ that Perry wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

In business terms, however, OnlyFans is a ‘staggering success’, according to economics editor Michael Simmons. ‘Britain’s sex industry brings in far more to the economy than politicians are comfortable admitting’; OnlyFans might just be Britain’s most profitable tech start-up. ‘If we are going to wage a moral war on porn,’ Simmons argues, ‘we should at least be honest about what we’re sacrificing.’ Louise and Michael joined the podcast to discuss further (1:21).

Next: could Xi Jinping’s time be up?

Historian Francis Pike writes about the unusual absence of China’s President Xi. China-watchers have detected some subtle differences from the norm in Chinese media, from fewer official references to Xi to changes in routine politburo meetings. So, could Xi Jinping be forced to step down? And if so, who is on manoeuvres and why?

Francis joined the podcast alongside former diplomat Kerry Brown, professor of China Studies at King’s College London (22:31).

And finally: is the era of the lonely hearts ad coming to an end?

Tony Whitehead provides his notes on lonely hearts columns this week, writing about how, 330 years after they first appeared in print in Britain, they may soon disappear. Francesca Beauman – who literally wrote the book on the subject, Shapely Ankle Preferr’d – and Mark Mason join the podcast to provide their favourite examples, from the serious to the humorous (35:13).

Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:32.5	no-obligation call to discuss your situation. And remember, investment involves risk.
0:50.6	Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, where each week we shared a little light on the thought process behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed.
0:55.6	I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor.
0:57.6	And I'm Laura Prendergars, the Spectator's Executive Editor.
1:00.9	On this week's podcast, we ask,
1:03.3	should we celebrate or be concerned by the success of the British company only fans?
1:09.0	Is President Xi Jinping being frozen out, and is the era of
1:13.6	the Lonely Hearts ad coming to an end?
1:20.6	In her cover piece for the magazine this week, Louise Perry writes about The Curse of Onlyfans,
1:26.6	a website where subscribers pay monthly
1:29.4	fees to creators in return for images, videos and online interaction, the vast majority of which
1:35.6	is pornographic. With 84% of these creator accounts run by women, mainly aged between 18 and 35,
1:46.4	Louise is concerned that only fans could have terrible consequences for the women creating content, for the men consuming it, and for society
1:52.2	at large. To give a slightly different side of the argument, the spectator's economics editor,
1:57.6	Michael Simmons, also writes in this week's magazine about Onlyfans, but he argues
2:02.3	that it should be seen for what it is in economic terms, which is one of the greatest British
2:06.8	business success stories of recent times, with revenues of almost $5 billion in 2023. So, is only
2:13.7	fan's success cause for celebration or cause to be concerned?
2:20.5	Louise and Michael joined me earlier to discuss.
	...

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