Laura Roscioli is a sex writer based in Melbourne. Her fortnightly column on Fashion Journal is here to make sex (and the conversations around it) more accessible and open-minded. She believes that the best learnings come from lived experience, and she’s here to share hers — and other people’s — with you. You can follow Laura on Instagram at @lauraroscioli.
Tasha Paige is an insanely successful adult content creator, ranking in the top 0.09 percent of all OnlyFans creators. She has a healthy 129K following on Instagram and she’s outspoken about her rights, opinions and choices.
When Tasha first met her ex, she was thrilled to have met someone who accepted the work she did. He even encouraged her to make content and wanted to help her grow her fame. But when that actually happened, things started to go south.
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Tasha: As you can imagine, being an OnlyFans creator can easily lend itself to judgement. Some people get jealous, for others it challenges their idea of monogamy… it’s not for everyone. So when I met this energetic, charismatic guy who was “totally okay with it” – truthfully, I was overjoyed.
We bonded over growing up in a small town. We found out that we were both from there after we began dating and had endless conversations about why we left, what we miss and how the place impacted us growing up. His best friend was also dating my sister, at the time, which felt like this beautiful serendipity – like a new family structure we were all stepping into together. At first, he made me feel happy and understood.
He moved in with me and made it his mission to help me make content. He was unemployed at the time, so he put his energy into helping me grow my OnlyFans accounts. I was super grateful. It was so nice to have a supportive partner, when so many of the creators I knew in the space struggled to find someone who was open and encouraging.
Although it was always the plan for him to get a job and for our income streams to be separate, he’d always have a reason why he hadn’t returned to work. He couldn’t find the right workplace or role, his mental health was super bad, he’d sent out emails and received no response… and it was hard to argue with. I felt like he was super defensive about it and tbh, that should’ve been the first red flag. Reflection is a bitch.
But there was a part of me that understood his struggle. Neither of us grew up with financial privilege and we each had things we were trying to do differently to our parents. When we met, I’d only just been able to break out of the week-to-week struggle. My OnlyFans account was becoming more and more successful, which made me the most financially independent I’d been in my whole life. It was more than I’d ever imagined.
Slowly, our differing financial situations began to weigh on him. I’d come home to him on the couch where I’d left him, playing games and drinking. He’d stay inside all day, refuse to do chores around the house or sometimes refuse to interact with me at all. He became distant about my work, refused to help me set up and film like he’d done in the past and it started to be obvious to me that he was holding some type of grudge about my work and the money it made me.
That’s when things started to go south. I felt that he wasn’t respecting me or the work I did. On top of that, he wasn’t chipping in financially, which just heightened those feelings of disrespect. Couldn’t he see that I was working my ass off (literally), to support us both? I felt motivated by the work and encouraged by my fans, which felt like a total contrast of his increasingly toxic attitude towards me.
Even still, I continued to support us both. At first, I’d pay for food, rent and our general living costs. Whether we were going out for dinner or he needed a new pair of shoes, it was always on me. I didn’t mind in the beginning, when I felt that he was open to helping me and supportive of my work.
Somehow overnight, it manifested into him controlling my finances. I wasn’t allowed to spend money on myself. If I needed a new outfit for work, he said no. He’d call me selfish, self-indulgent and spoiled. Then in the same breath, he’d pressure me to buy him whatever he wanted: a new game, drinks, Ubers to and from places he was hanging out with his friends.
He’d guilt me if I pushed back, saying things like “you earn more money than you know what to do with” and accuse me of being selfish and not caring about him. If he ever found out I’d bought something for myself, he’d pressure me into buying him something at the same time. It was as though we were in this financial tug of war, where he wanted to feel as though he had as much financial control as I did. Except instead of earning his own money, he manipulated mine.
A few months into the relationship, I found myself in a totally passive position. I was paying him a weekly salary, covering both our living expenses, his car insurance and his car repayments. He’d become aggressive whenever I paid anyone else anything — like assistants or staff I’d hire to help me with my content, especially if he deemed them to be getting more than him.
It was as though he felt I financially owed him for the sacrifices he was making by being with me. Perhaps he felt that I needed to pay for his financial shame? For being ‘the man’ but not being the breadwinner?
I don’t know how I got so far into it. At first I empathised and understood. I think there was even a part of me that felt bad for him, or at least knew that it could be tough to accept that your girlfriend earns more than you. It’s a well-known challenge for many cis men. But he just took it way too far.
It made me feel like I couldn’t be my full self. I felt trapped and judged for my work and my pay check. This was something I’d worked so hard for, that I should’ve felt happy about. Instead, I just felt this overwhelming heaviness. I’d never doubted myself in the past, but I found myself feeling small and insignificant in the relationship, in my work and in life in general.
I couldn’t give up on OnlyFans, because I was the only one making money in the relationship. I was the reason we could afford to pay for rent and bills. I tried to push him into returning to work. I thought that maybe if he brought in some finances, I could pull back a bit on OnlyFans and he’d feel more in charge. But he wouldn’t look for work.
I didn’t need him to be wealthy – it’s not a quality I look for in a relationship. But I do want a partner that can look after himself and me, if or when required. My ex didn’t have any ambition to do either, which made me less attracted to him over time. Such a big part of being sexually attracted to someone is respecting them, and I’d started to lose respect for him. He didn’t respect me, or himself. So in hindsight, there was no alternative.
One night, he started an argument with me in front of my friends. He accused me of only giving 50 per cent in the relationship, when he was giving 100. My guttural response was: ‘how dare you!’ After I’ve funded your life, looked after your mental health, fulfilled the traditional female role at home as well as the typically masculine role of financial support. I’d paid him over $60K throughout our relationship, excluding living expenses and clothes. $60,000 for simply being with me.
I brought that figure up to him and he clapped back, saying he didn’t want to “have this conversation”. He then packed up his things and left.
It was a super painful experience, to feel belittled by someone due to their own insecurities. Women have had to fight so hard for financial independence, that seeing a man struggle with this power dynamic in real time was hard to witness and exist within.
But I’m glad I went through it. Now I’m super aware if a man is confident in what he can offer, if he can look after himself both financially and emotionally. Those weren’t factors for me, before. I also never realised how important it is to be in a relationship with someone that knows how to care for themselves, because that will directly relate to how they care for you.
Sometimes I feel pangs of anger with myself for not realising how much he was taking from me sooner. But it goes to show how much I’m willing to support the right person, the person that I love. I love my generosity and I love my power.
You can follow Tasha here.
This article My boyfriend only let me do OnlyFans if I paid him appeared first on Fashion Journal.
2025-03-12 09:12:00
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