I remember another famous female fitness photographer who puts their clothed/unclothed bodies in covermodels and sheernudes .. Michael Stycket.. He pay less but gets more money 
I remember Michael - along with folks like Robert Kennedy, Rob Sims, Michael Scott, etc... back when I had the Extreme Bikini Team / Extreme Fitness. I used to go to the Arnold's to take photos and worked with a few competitors over time. I can't speak to the allegations around sex being a requirement, but I also heard this was also a problem in Hollywood with people using sex to get parts (sarcasm). I can't speak to the competition/judging side of the business as all I have is second hand info, but most did not present as victims and if they had, I would have told them to go to the police.
The business was a vicious circle of people chasing dreams, trying to make something of themselves (or money) but getting sucked into the machine that chews people up and spits them out with little to show for it. A full page photo in MuscleMag would get a photographer $50, if you were lucky. Cost to get that could be in the thousands when you included studio time, makeup, etc. Which is why many shoots were low budget. I remember being told that while my images were "good" to get published the girls needed to look like they were going to fuck you - that's where the whole open mouth pose comes from. "The girls need to look like they are having sex or are about to have sex" was what I was told to do, so we did and we got some images published.
Then along came pay sites and girls had a choice, figure out how to run their own site or contract out to someone to do it and get a rev share. The big players made a lot of money shooting these girls for content and in return, they often got a trip (maybe expenses were paid, but not always) and the opportunity to work with someone who might get them published and some promotion. But websites required content, designer and developer, banking access, etc. Producing content could be very expensive. There was a time when you could make money doing topless, then people became desensitized to it (there was too much there for free), so the pressure to do more was always there. Full nudes. Light girl/girl. And so on.
I know more than a few that look back on their experiences with some regret, but the article does read like a hit job on the Manions in particular while avoiding an entire industry that used sex to sell. Does anyone think there would have been any money at all going around without it? Even getting a gig as a booth bunny required you to wear skimpy clothes and be groped all day long with a smile.
Sex has been used as a transactional piece forever. I do not condone anything that was forced or coerced, but more often than not when one doesn't get what they expected the feelings about it change. In most cases, the exchange is done willingly and with some kind of expectation of something in return.
