“Like me being sexual, it was just a part of me that I had to accept, and learn. “I have kinks, and I love them,” he said. It’s become an integral part of his identity. The work is demanding, but Wheeler loves it. His shooting schedule puts him on the road for most of the week, and a single scene can take hours to film. Wheeler supports himself on OnlyFans full-time, which is impressive, considering the average creator only earns about $180 per month. “When you go to cities, the gay community there is so much different than where Roanoke is, and what I thought the gay community was,” he said. OnlyFans exposed him to a more tolerant world.
It took Wheeler years to fully reconnect with the gay community. Before he went off to college, a video leaked of him, and was virtually passed around his hometown. Wheeler’s journey as an out and proud gay man has not been linear. “It changed my personality, who I am now, and how I view myself. “I was very self-conscious for the longest time, and OnlyFans brought me out of that shell a lot,” he said. It’s a platform where Wheeler can explore his inner-hedonism, without pressure to conform. But Wheeler opened his account before Covid-19, and stopped filming during the early months of quarantine.įor him, OnlyFans represents an escape. There are 10 million fewer jobs in the U.S. Our dire economic climate explains some of OnlyFans’ swelling popularity. Since May, its audience has jumped from 30 million users to 85 million users. OnlyFans has exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic, now boasting more than 1 million content creators. “When I started OnlyFans, I looked back and said, ‘OK, if I can do that, why can’t I do OnlyFans?’ It gave me that self-confidence that somewhere along the line I lost.” Wheeler makes his living full-time on OnlyFans. “I actually made it to a college and I never played (volleyball) a day in high school. “I came from a small town, we had two red lights,” Wheeler said. The team featured three openly LGBTQ players.īeing in that kind of open environment showed Wheeler it was possible to imagine, and his athletic success supplied him with the gusto to chase his dream. At the time, we profiled Wheeler on Outsports. He became an instant contributor, playing in 19 of his first 21 matches freshman year. No longer isolated, Wheeler fulfilled his dream of playing varsity sports, successfully trying out for the men’s volleyball team. For the first time, he didn’t feel alone. Unsurprisingly, Wilson’s burst of self-assurance coincided with his introduction to other openly LGBTQ kids. Wheeler started to find his confidence on the campus of Wilson College, a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania about 30 miles northwest of Gettysburg - right up against the Maryland border. “I didn’t feel like I was going to be fully accepted on the team as a player just because I was gay,” he told the Roanoke Times in 2017. He didn’t think he would’ve been welcome on the court. He came close to trying out for the basketball team once, even packing clothes for the day. Growing up, the cruel taunts kept Wheeler away from sports. “When I’m Hunter Dalton, that’s not a thing. “I’ve dealt with anxiety, I’ve dealt with depression,” Wheeler told me on my podcast, The Sports Kiki. The creation of Hunter Dalton liberated Wheeler from his mental prison. As a teenager in rural Virginia, Wheeler minimized his sexuality, as a way to stave off the endless harassment from his school’s male athletes. Three years ago, Chance Wheeler decided to open his page, and show himself to the world. The insecure engage in gossip and hearsay. He’s too busy making money, and more importantly, doing what he loves. Hunter Dalton doesn’t have time for kink shaming.