If you’re a long-time reader of this site, you’ll know that I’m not a fan of ‘influencer culture’.

I wouldn’t pay them any mind at all if they weren’t constantly doing things like disrespecting the places where people died, swimming in toxic lakes (and encouraging others to do the same), and demanding freebies from the travel industry.

All of the above, and everything else that they do, is usually out there for the public to see. What we don’t see is what happens in their DMs.

According to the BBC, some top social media influencers are being propositioned daily by men who want to pay them a lot of money for sex.

“It’s high-end prostitution – it’s just scary to think if they’ve messaged me, they’ve probably sent it to thousands of pretty girls on Instagram,” says Tyne-Lexy Clarson.

Tyne-Lexy Clarson, who starred in season two of Love Island has, at the time of writing, 420 000 followers on Instagram.

She says she was only 19 when she was first propositioned, with an offer of £20 000 for dinner and drinks.

After starring in series two of Love Island, an agency emailed, offering her £50,000 for five nights in Dubai. It contained a non-disclosure agreement, stating that the details of what she would be required to do would remain confidential.

Tyne-Lexy says she refused the offer, but fears that struggling influencers who do not receive luxury items for free would feel pressure to “keep up appearances” and become vulnerable to these kinds of transactions.

Another Love Island contestant and influencer, Rosie Williams, who has at the time of writing 839 000 followers, had a similar experience.

Rosie says it is not an aspect of fame she anticipated: “You’re warned about trolling, you’re warned that your life will change dramatically, but you’re never warned that you could get bought by men.”

And she says it is not spoken about in influencer circles: “We either aren’t in a position where we need to do it so we don’t speak about it, or we’ve done it and we’re too ashamed.”

Some influencers have taken the plunge into sex work. The BBC spoke to a woman, going by the name ‘Isabel’, who gave in to an offer.

“Isabel” said she was first approached on Instagram by a man 10 years older than her, after she had competed in a TV talent show.

“I was initially offered designer handbags. He had a fetish for being financially dominant so he would get a sexual kick out of spending hundreds and hundreds of pounds on bags for me,” she explained.

“I would also struggle to keep my followers engaged online. So I guess that’s why I accepted the offer. “

After 18 months of talking online, they decided to meet. He asked about her finances and she told him she was in debt. He offered to cover her debt and more if she had sex with him.

“Isabel” said she went up to his hotel room and went through with it. “I felt a kind of a mixture of degraded, really annoyed at myself, violated.”

But she insists it is not a form of prostitution: “It is a targeted relationship that progresses over time… Whereas I think prostitution is when you agree a fee with a stranger.

For the record, sex work (as it’s more commonly known these days) can take on a number of forms, from financial domination (where people get a kick out of spending large sums of money on another person who ‘financially dominates’ them) to sugar daddy/ sugar baby relationships, where an older man takes care of a younger woman financially, in exchange for company and/ or sex.

Isabel did not actively seek out sex work online or enter into sex work with the intention of doing sex work in exchange for money. She was, however, exploited.

Heather Brunskell-Evans said: “The women who are involved with this will not want to hear the word prostitution. The reality is that they are selling their bodies for money.

“The groomers are offering the woman everything she needs to be a success at her job as an influencer, but ultimately it’s exploitation, and that woman will have to do things for that money that she doesn’t want to associate herself with, that make her feel shamed.”

It’s not only women. Men have also been approached.

Sexual solicitation is not allowed on the platform, so if you’re being targeted, block and report immediately.

[source:bbc]