To browse Academia. Launched in and hyped up especially during the Covid pandemic, OnlyFans became a pioneering online platform where content creators interact with their followers in the form of monetizing their privacy and intimacy. Many authors argued that the decline in the studio-based porn industry and the increasing precarization among sex-laborers during Covid times encouraged performers of pornography and adult content to find refuge in online platforms such as Patreon and OnlyFans Hamilton et al.
Yet, the existing literature is still lacking a comprehensive analysis of many aspects related to the digital transformation of intimacy and sexuality via these platforms, a gap which in my thesis I will try to close.
To this aim, in this study, I will try to answer the following research questions: 1 In what ways does OnlyFans change sex work, in terms of its definition, stigmas, and practical aspects?
To this aim, I will first give background information on OnlyFans as a digital platform, focusing on its key features, interface, and the historical trajectory of its success from its initial launch in , through pandemic times, all the way to the present.
In the final part, I will embark on a theoretical discussion where I try to respond to my research questions, engaging with the empirical data that I collected through my research and benefiting from theoretical concepts of scholars across different disciplines. Overall, this study suggests that OnlyFans draws sex work and adult content closer to social media and influencer aesthetic since it is mostly used as a space for individualistic sexual exploration and expression rather than as a place for sex trade between two parties.
