Meet the 1% of OnlyFans Creators: 'Revolutionary' Reality Show Examines Modern Sex Work

Revealed: Dirty sex money may not be high art, but watching sex workers tell their own stories matters. In her first three days on OnlyFans, she earned A$25,000 (£13,200, US$17,500). She posted her first video on a Friday afternoon, quit her corporate job the following Monday, then began earning US$800,000 a year on the adult content platform. She has licence plates reading YOU WI5H N...

In her first three days on OnlyFans, Mia Bailey earned AUD$25,000 (£13,200, US$17,500). He posted his first video on a Friday afternoon, quit his corporate job the following Monday, then started pulling in $800,000 a year on the adult content platform. He's got license plates that say YOU WI5H and a no-expenses-paid wedding to plan, but there's a growing rift with his family and friends that keeps blowing up in his face.

Welcome to the world of OnlyFans' highest-paid creators - and my new favorite reality TV show.

Stan's Turned On: Dirty Sexy Money (TODSM) launched earlier this year. Much to my dismay, the show doesn't seem to be making much of a splash despite its most intriguing reality premise in years — a look at an industry that, as one cast member put it, everyone thinks they know about, but few really do. It follows a group of Gold Coast-based adult content creators who are represented by an agency and who each earn enough to be in the top 1% of users on the platform.

And what a compelling group they are. There's Mia, who quickly becomes a very seductive villain. April and Amelia Madison are identical twins who must carefully keep their looks as coordinated as possible because their income (about $3 million a year for working two days a week) drops if one of them falls short. It's Ruby Drew and Chloe Mira, who worked at strip clubs before they went online.

To top it all off, Kevin Everly, the founder's agency business expert, makes so much money that her doctor husband quit his job to work for her instead—much to her mother's chagrin. Also signed by the agency is Hailey Summers, Kevin's younger sister, who is frustrated that she can't earn as much as other creators because she doesn't want to have sex on camera and prefers to only do solo content.

Already intrigued? It was me! But a big explosion at the end of the first episode changes the course of the show. Mia spits out the dummy, dramatically quits the agency, and begins hanging out with two different OnlyFans creators, Annie Knight and Lily Phillips. TODSM picks up six months later and follows not only the rift between Mia and her former agency friends, but a larger, longer battle between the agency girls and Annie and Lily, the "stunt girls," as Haley calls them, who are known for their controversial feats of sleeping with hundreds of men a day on camera.

Because this is first and foremost a reality show, there is of course plenty of drama – drinks are spilled and friendships end. But what really sets TODSM apart is its fascinating behind-the-scenes look at modern sex work, from the successes of OnlyFans to the bigger-picture implications of it. We witness Mia's estrangement from her family, who cannot accept her career choice. Annie has a potential stalker and neighbors who want to get her off their street. Single and dreaming of motherhood, Haley looks for love among the men she only sees as a new first date to brag to her friends about. But he also describes the job as something that changed his life for the better in many ways.

TODSM doesn't hold back on industry, but it doesn't moralize either. Having a reality show that honestly allows sex workers to tell their own story is revolutionary. I'd love to see the coming seasons of what life looks like for the other 99% of OnlyFans creators, who are sold on the dream of quick and easy money that's already gone, and according to Blue Rose Talent make an average of $180 a month on an oversaturated platform. But I'm getting ahead of myself, because the show hasn't been renewed for a second season yet.

I'm not claiming that TODSM is great art—just look at that hilariously bad opening credits—but if it's relegated to the long list of one-season wonders of reality TV (vale, Ladies of London reboot), I'll forever wonder what happened to these women after that. In just nine episodes, the cast craves something that an OnlyFans subscription can't buy: their real lives.

Turned On: Dirty Sexy Money is available on Stan and Apple TV in Australia. Not currently available for streaming in the UK or US.