In truly fucked news, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of NSW has warned the state’s nurses and midwives against posting content on OnlyFans.
I honestly don’t know where to start.
Per the Sydney Morning Herald, nurses and midwives received an email from the council on Wednesday, headlined: “OnlyFans — Are you breaching the professional standards by subscribing to online content services?”
The email advised nurses and midwives that if they are recognised on OnlyFans or post content of themselves in uniform, then they could be reported to the council for their “conduct”, which could be “deemed by the complainant as unprofessional, or as one said, a distraction for patients”.
“The social media guidance is clear on the obligation of nurses and midwives to maintain professional boundaries, and where relevant the Nursing and Midwifery Board may consider social media use in your private life (even when there is no identifiable link to you as a registered health practitioner) if it raises concerns about your fitness to hold registration,” it continued.
Hmm. A bit to unpack here, don’t you think?
I don’t know what kind of Madonna-whore complex these poor nurses and midwives are being held to whereby doing sex work could be seen as “unprofessional” or a “distraction for patients”. If they’re abiding by their workplace’s social media guidelines and are doing it in their spare time, how does posting on OnlyFans impede on a health worker’s ability to perform their job?
It doesn’t — it’s blatant whorephobia and only further stigmatises sex workers, suggesting that what they do is unethical, shameful and disrespectful; that sex work and providing life-saving medical care are mutually exclusive.
One nurse, who wished to remain anonymous, told the SMH they found the email “very moralising and slut-shaming”.
“I found that having a NSW statutory body attempting to regulate what nurses and midwives do in the spare time with their bodies as fairly moralistic … I think unless they are tearing off their NSW Health scrubs and talking about how they are a nurse, what damage is it doing to the profession?”
We also can’t avoid how discriminatory it is for the council to stop nurses and midwives from using particular social media platforms.
The email provided examples of workplace scenarios which could play out should a worker post content on OnlyFans, including a patient who recognises their health professional from the site and believes their conduct is “below the expected standards of a registered nurse and that [their] behaviour has brought the profession into disrepute”, and a manager giving a junior staffer preferential treatment after seeing them on OnlyFans and “asking for the favour to be returned”.
But these scenarios aren’t unique to someone posting on OnlyFans — harassment and manipulation at the hands of someone in a greater position of power can happen in any industry, and in myriad circumstances.
As NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association assistant general secretary Michael Whaites told the SMH, sexual harassment is sexual harassment —it’s not specific to OnlyFans.
“It’s important to note there is no excuse for sexual harassment, especially within a workplace,” he said.
“Because someone chooses to participate in online platforms like OnlyFans does not excuse this, not from managers or employers, or from customers or patients.”
Has the Nursing and Midwifery Council of NSW failed to understand that some workers turn to OnlyFans and other forms of sex work to supplement their income ‘cos they’re getting paid jack shit? The starting salary for a registered nurse or midwife in NSW is $67,000 — given the cozzie livs and the horrific reality of the state’s rental market, that’s simply not enough.
Would the council clutch their pearls if they caught wind of nurses and midwives delivering food or working as rideshare drivers? Because I’d fkn love to know.
Maybe state and territory governments should pay nurses and midwives — and all essential workers, for that matter — liveable wages in the first place if they don’t want them supplementing their income through OnlyFans.
Or they can just mind their own fucking business and stop policing sex work.
