SEX MAKES BILLIONS. WHO PAYS FOR THE RISK?
The financial machinery of desire, the unequal cost of sexually transmitted infections, and the uncomfortable evidence that should change how we invest in prevention
By Roberto Balbino | FINTECH SCB
Research cut-off: 24 October 2026
The business of desire can measure a payment to the cent. Public health often struggles to count the consequences of a sexual encounter at all. Between those two systems lies a revealing economic problem: income is booked by identifiable businesses, while risk moves through households, healthcare budgets and sexual networks that no single balance sheet captures.
Two articles in The Economist provide the starting point. “The new economics of sex work”, published on 19 March 2026, examines a market that economics has too often left to other disciplines. “Sexually transmitted infections are surging in Europe”, published in August, examines a different failure: the resurgence of infections and the weaknesses of prevention and surveillance. Read together, they invite a financial investigation into who captures value, who bears uncertainty and which institutions have an incentive to reduce it. [1, 2]
The connection requires care. Digital adult content, dating services, consensual paid sex and the wider sexual lives of the population are distinct markets and activities. Watching content does not transmit an infection. The financial accounts of a platform cannot establish that it caused an epidemic, and national infection totals cannot be attributed wholesale to sex work. What connects these subjects is the allocation of income, bargaining power, information and health risk. That is a substantial economic story without inventing a causal shortcut.
Start with the money that can actually be audited. Fenix International, the company behind OnlyFans, reported $7.843 billion in gross site volume for its financial year ending in November 2025. Its own revenue was $1.553 billion. Profit before tax was $714.9 million. These are three different quantities: transactions through the platform, the revenue recognised by the intermediary and the profit remaining after its expenses. Calling the first figure “OnlyFans revenue” overstates the company's accounting revenue approximately fivefold. [3]