Onlyfans – Empowering eller kvinnoförtryck? En kvalitativ studie av ungas attityder till Onlyfans

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to increase the knowledge about youths’ attitudes towards online pornography and commercial sexuality by examining their language use and reasoning concerning Onlyfans – a subscription-based website known for its sexual content. This was performed by individual, semi-structured interviews with youths in Gothenburg between the ages of 18-24. The interviews were then analyzed through a thematic content-analysis with a gender perspective by using the theoretical framework of femininity and masculinity, as well as agency and structure – both theories based on the gender theory. The results showed that there is an ambivalence in the attitudes of Onlyfans as several discourses are integrating and contradicting with each other. Still, Onlyfans is mostly described in a structural perspective criticizing the platform, but with a focus on agency when positive aspects are highlighted. This was also reflected when Onlyfans was compared to “traditional” pornographic websites as they were described as the same types of platforms from a mostly critical, structural perspective. However, there was a shifting focus on agency when described in the aspect of Onlyfans unique concept of user generated content, meaning that it gives the producer control and making Onlyfans thereby better compared to the larger porn industry. Finally, no similarities, nor differences could be identified in the answers by the respondents based on gender because of the low number of male interviewees. However, many were aware of and critical towards the gender structures connected to Onlyfans and the porn industry.