Should We Shame People Out of OnlyFans?

Responding to Matt Walsh and admonishing the sinner

Today, we’re talking about Matt Walsh.

To be frank¹: I do not particularly enjoy spending time talking about Matt Walsh.

If you’re unfamiliar, Matt Walsh is a Catholic podcaster/YouTuber/writer/Internet Guy, the way I am a Catholic writer/Internet Girl. Except his audience is approximately 156 times the size of mine, I find the smell of cigar smoke disgusting, and his particular brand of gleeful clickbait has made him bajillions of dollars.

I do so love a good Substack response, but I have steadfastly avoided engaging with Matt Walsh for many years because I have a pretty strict rule about only engaging with people I believe are operating in good faith. I have no reason to believe Matt Fradd, for his many faults, isn’t operating in good faith—in fact, I see much evidence to the contrary. Ditto Carrie Gress. Ditto Harrison Butker, whose teammates have nothing to say against him and whose infamous speech, while frustrating and predictable, held plenty of truth.

I think Matt Walsh is typically a smarmy internet troll whose main goals are fame, fortune, and Triggering the Libs, which I just view as a very odd way to spend your one precious life. He’s Timothy Gordon; Candace Owens; Steven Crowder—a slightly-off-key performer of Pat Buchanan karaoke with too much money at his disposal.

All of that being said: sometimes the bear gets poked. And his latest piece for the Daily Wire had me so up in arms that I couldn’t help but make myself a raspberry latte and break it down for you all. *cracks knuckles*

So, what did he write?

Matt’s piece, entitled This is How We Stop the Festering Disease Called OnlyFans, is fairly short².

He describes what he believes is the antidote to the poison that is online porn—shame the hell out of the women creating it. His writing style is snarkier than mine³, which is fine, and he proceeds to give absolutely no indication that he thinks women on Only Fans are anything but “predatory degenerate[s]”, “hookers”, and “pathetic.” He does not give an ounce of sympathy for them: in fact, he states that “I have to admit I don’t [feel sympathy].” He writes that the only true way to eliminate pornography will be to do what we did with cigarettes (although he thinks the dangers of smoking are overblown)—cast those engaged in prostitution to “the edge of society”. He says that many against prostitution have “largely lost the wherewithal and appropriate sense of moral indignation to treat shameful things as shameful. Which is why the conversation around OnlyFans so often centers on how much pity we should have for the prostitutes, and how hard their lives must be, and the deep sadness you can see in their poor little puppy dog eyes.”