‘It’s not sex,’ Andy Lee declares of what he does to earn a living. He’s showing me a pair of worker boots that he sometimes demands a submissive scene partner to sniff, assuring me they’re not just for show – they really smell. ‘I mean, physically it’s sex, but we’re not attracted to each other. We do stuff together, but we’re friends. Two seconds later, we’ll be talking about pizza.’
Andy, a well-built Irishman in his late 30s, ranks among the top 0.09% of OnlyFans creators. For the uninitiated (or those pretending to be), OnlyFans is a subscription platform that allows savvy exhibitionists to put their content behind a paywall and charge their fans a monthly subscription fee to access it. Not all content is X-rated, but top earners mostly are. It has revolutionised the adult content industry, freeing performers from the mendacious studio bosses who once dictated the sex acts and hoarded the profits. It has also become one of the most profitable companies in the UK – in 2023, the company reported a pre-tax profit of £488 million, a 25% increase on the previous year.
And it’s not just those at the top of the corporation who are reaping the rewards. Creators who know the game make serious money: Andy earns six figures a month. Aside from his brutish charm and north inner city Dublin twang, the foundations of his success are built upon a porn trope as old as the form itself: he’s gay for pay.
A typical video on Andy’s page will usually involve him and up to five or six of his typically working-class pals sitting around his place, perhaps playing a game of soggy biscuit (if you know, you know), or getting oiled up and wrestling naked in a paddling pool. Part of Andy’s appeal trades on the idea that he and his co-stars are just regular blokes trying to earn a quick buck, and seeing how far they are willing to go to make money.
However he set himself apart from the pack four years ago with the launch of what he calls his Porn Star University, a sort of one-stop shop he established to teach the masses about the nuances of his craft. Nestled between the border of Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire is a once-dilapidated studio space that he acquired, now kitted out with various porn sets and facilities. It’s from here that Andy hosts ‘open days’, to which men from all over the world travel to be schooled on the art of filming themselves for the homosexual male gaze. That’s how I find myself one Monday morning, a little bleary-eyed, on a train hurtling towards an appointment with a bonafide impresario of gay-for-pay porn.
Located a short walk from the train station, at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, I can hear the unmistakable sound of straight-lad banter bellowing from the studio’s open door as I approached – a reassuring sign thatI am in the right place.
I pop my head around the door to find the man himself enjoying a cuppa with three of his frequent collaborators. Sadly, it’s not a full-on open day today; instead, the space is being used by Andy and some of his most accomplished alumni to bank some content for their respective accounts. I’m swiftly introduced to Hard Tom, a fellow Irishman who’s travelled back from his home in Brazil to film. Beside him sits a devilishly handsome man who goes by the name of Big Steve, the group’s newest member. He was encouraged to make the jump into the world of adult content creation by his sister, who had watched an Olivia Attwood documentary about OnlyFans. And finally, I shake the hand of Jak White, the resident openly gay member of the gang (or ‘Team Andy’, as they refer to themselves online).
After exchanging niceties, Andy and I start to make our way around the studio. We move through a remarkable variety of sets – a builder’s office, a sex dungeon (complete with swings and harnesses), a mechanic’s garage, a Premier Inn-style bedroom, and a ‘chav’s living room’, based on Andy’s own childhood home. Comprising a leather settee, a coffee table littered with empty cans and McDonald’s takeaway packaging, the set is Andy’s personal favourite because ‘it feels so real’. Around the corner: half a black cab, bisected for filming. The latest addition to his repertoire is a green screen where he and his comrades have been shooting sketch comedy segments for their socials. He showed me one recent clip, filmed with a female co-star, in which they spoof around as the hosts of Good Moaning Britain; he as ‘Piers Clit’ and she as his co-anchor, ‘Susanna Rimmed’.
