Digital sex work?: Creating and selling explicit content in OnlyFans

Abstract

Recently, we have seen relatively unknown platforms, like OnlyFans, rise to popularity among producers and consumers of sexual(ised) digital content. This seems to be especially so in the case of young adults who were affected by a sudden disappearance of entry-level jobs in hospitality, retail and associated functions, or diminished university experiences compared to expectations, due to the COVID-19 crisis. Although there is an increasing amount written on young people, sexuality and the media, research on both young adults and their experiences with sexuality online and online sex workers is still lacking, and more so in the case of the use of patronage platforms to sell sexual(ised) content. Focusing on younger women producers, this chapter illustrates their challenges within patriarchal societies and the way in which sex work is heavily gendered. By relying on Thematic Analysis of 20 interviews of Italian emerging adults, our analysis focuses on the self-definition of our participants as sex workers. It examines how OnlyFans creators articulate their professional self through the production of contents, marketing practices and customer relations to understand if and how it is possible to speak about deplatformed sex, and to understand that negotiating the identity of ‘sex worker’ is less about the specific material conditions of those doing content production, and more about the hallmarks of what a ‘job’ is. keywords: sex work ; OnlyFans ; porn ; content producer ; platform labor