Hunter Dalton doesn’t have time for kink shaming. He’s too busy making money, and more importantly, doing what he loves. The insecure engage in gossip and hearsay. Dalton is carefree.

He was also born on OnlyFans. Three years ago, Chance Wheeler decided to open his page, and show himself to the world. 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.

Now, he flaunts it. The creation of Hunter Dalton liberated Wheeler from his mental prison.

“I’ve dealt with anxiety, I’ve dealt with depression,” Wheeler told me on my podcast, The Sports Kiki. “When I’m Hunter Dalton, that’s not a thing. It’s all gone.”

Growing up, the cruel taunts kept Wheeler away from sports. He came close to trying out for the basketball team once, even packing clothes for the day. But at the last moment, he backed out. He didn’t think he would’ve been welcome on the court.

“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.

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. Unsurprisingly, Wilson’s burst of self-assurance coincided with his introduction to other openly LGBTQ kids. For the first time, he didn’t feel alone.

No longer isolated, Wheeler fulfilled his dream of playing varsity sports, successfully trying out for the men’s volleyball team. He became an instant contributor, playing in 19 of his first 21 matches freshman year. At the time, we profiled Wheeler on Outsports. The team featured three openly LGBTQ players.

Being 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.

Hunter Dalton was born.

“I came from a small town, we had two red lights,” Wheeler said. “I actually made it to a college and I never played (volleyball) a day in high school. That was a big accomplishment for me.

“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.

OnlyFans has exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic, now boasting more than 1 million content creators. Since May, its audience has jumped from 30 million users to 85 million users.

Our dire economic climate explains some of OnlyFans’ swelling popularity. There are 10 million fewer jobs in the U.S. compared to one year ago. But Wheeler opened his account before Covid-19, and stopped filming during the early months of quarantine.

For him, OnlyFans represents an escape. It’s a platform where Wheeler can explore his inner-hedonism, without pressure to conform.

“I was very self-conscious for the longest time, and OnlyFans brought me out of that shell a lot,” he said. “It changed my personality, who I am now, and how I view myself. It taught me to grow a lot.”

Wheeler’s journey as an out and proud gay man has not been linear. Before he went off to college, a video leaked of him, and was virtually passed around his hometown. Depression set in, and then anxiety. It took Wheeler years to fully reconnect with the gay community.

OnlyFans exposed him to a more tolerant world.

“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.

Wheeler supports himself on OnlyFans full-time, which is impressive, considering the average creator only earns about $180 per month. His shooting schedule puts him on the road for most of the week, and a single scene can take hours to film.

The work is demanding, but Wheeler loves it. It’s become an integral part of his identity.

“I have kinks, and I love them,” he said. “Like me being sexual, it was just a part of me that I had to accept, and learn. I don’t think nudity is bad. I think it’s a wonderful thing.”

From experience, Wheeler knows that suppression is stifling. Sure, maybe Hunter Dalton doesn’t have to outwardly call himself a “hung bottom” on his bio page.

But as Wheeler has also learned, breakthroughs happen when boundaries are pushed.

“I’ve been told I’m a little reckless,” he said. “I don’t think that I’m reckless. Is that a bad thing, or something I should embrace and enjoy?”

Click here to check out this episode of our Outsports podcast, The Sports Kiki. You can also subscribe to the show on Apple’s Podcast page as well as on Google Podcasts, and wherever you’ll find Outsports podcasts.

You can follow Hunter Dalton here.

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