Olympic gold medalist Matthew Mitcham defends athletes on OnlyFans: 'We've more than earned a side hustle'

Mitcham approaches things from a place of realism, expanding on the abysmal pay that even athletes at the top of their game may be paid. "The harsh truth of sport is that a small percentage of athletes make it big," writes Mitcham. He expands, "Those people might be rewarded with lots of juicy sponsorships, but we’re talking about only the most beautiful and charismatic of Olympic champions. A lot of brilliant performers get left behind. Jack Laugher, another Olympic diver with an OnlyFans whom Mitcham is specifically defending, reportedly only makes "£28,000 from Team GB, which is not a lot for a sportsperson of his standing."

He does have an entrepreneurial spirit about his new business venture. Mitcham speaks to just what it takes to perform at the highest level, writing, "I’ve invested a lot of time and effort in my body. If people want to see it, I’d be stupid to give it away for free. Yes, some might ask 'Why give it away at all?' But my answer to that would be 'my body, my choice' and just like any project you’ve worked hard on, it’s natural to be proud and want to show it to people.

You would think, given the way that he speaks of his use of the platform, that Mitcham was one of the many people using the site for sex work, pornography, and the like — but he makes it very clear that he has no full frontal nudity on the site. He understands that we live in a sex negative culture, saying, "The world can be very prudish. It feels like people like to shame athletes who show off their bodies, even though there’s usually no full-frontal nudity involved," but seems to miss the larger point of why he and other athletes catch flack for posting on OnlyFans specifically.

Mitcham is under no obligation to expose any part of his body — not any part, for any reason, for any amount of money or for free. He is right to assert that it is "my body, my choice." His personal stance on whether or not he would justify being nude is his to hold. But using the argument that he and his Olympic peers shouldn't be receiving so much negative feedback because they're not even fully nude or doing anything sexual anyways cheapens his argument for bodily autonomy and sells out those with less social capital to leverage.

Not even two paragraphs below Mitcham's declaration of "my body, my choice," he writes this, "I thought hard before I got involved with OnlyFans, and I approached it with an abundance of caution. I still haven’t shown any full-frontal nudity on my page. When it comes to nudity, my personal philosophy around it is 'If I can defend this as artistic rather than obscene then I will share it.' Because when it crosses the line into pornography, that’s when people can start taking issue, and it would almost certainly start to impact my mainstream opportunities."

It isn't when "it crosses the line into pornography" that people begin to have an issue. It seems to me that Mitcham is failing to connect that people are taking issue right now because he is posting pictures to a website that is popular with sex workers. If someone says that they have an OnlyFans, the assumption is that they are posting pornography but what Mitcham is doing is more akin to boudoir modelling than it is pornography. He understands why openly doing porn might start to impact his mainstream prospects, yet still contributes to the very stigma against pornography that would cause that negative impact.

Mitcham, Laugher, and the like shouldn't be attacked for showing their bodies on their own terms. I agree with him when he says, "There’s no logical reason why sharing tailored content with a specific group of supportive, liberal fans should affect an athlete’s ability to appeal to the mainstream." I hope as Mitcham continues in his ventures that he finds room to defend others with this same fervor- artistic, obscene, or otherwise.