Q Toon: OnlyG-RatedFans

When OnlyFans announced last month that it would shut down adults-only content on its app in October, it was in response to its financial backers — it wasn't because of celebrities or self-help gurus chary of associating with porn actors and sex workers.

The reaction by those porn actors and sex workers was swift and loud, and rival apps sprang up to offer them somewhere else to peddle their prurient wares. And in no time, OnlyFans reversed its decision.

Pornography was one of the oldest professions to capitalize on the internet, so it would be practically impossible to root it out of all its possible avenues into everyone's favorite apps any more. Unlike in the physical world, where zoning laws could limit where porn shops could be located, they can pop up anywhere in the virtual e-world. If you are someone who wants to avoid smut completely, you have to bone up on the tricks of the trade.

I've more or less learned how to distinguish between Facebook friend requests from strangers who are interested in my cartoons, and requests from strangers who are — or pretend to be — exhibitionist bimbos and gigolos. At the risk of offending whatever scantily clad buxom blonde from Eritrea who just joined Facebook hours ago, I'd rather she "follow" than "friend" me.

Here at the blog, I suspect that there is porn behind some of the flattering comments to my web posts that lack any indication that their authors ever actually visited my site. There again, they might not all have anything to do with pornography, like the one the other day that included a link that appears to be to a moving company. But who knows? Maybe the movers work in the nude.

For a while a couple years ago, a collection of referring URLs belonging to girlie webcams kept showing up as "referring URLs" in the web statistics for this weblog. It strains credulity to think that there were dozens of guys who, after wanking off to Veronica or Mindy, decided to check out what some middle-aged gay cartoonist had drawn that week, or to catch up on World War I cartoons.

But it takes all kinds out there. Whatever floats your boat.