Freedman, Ethan
Colgate University
LGBT360A: Queering Relationships
Prof. Adam Thomas
December 7, 2023
Acknowledgements:
In introducing the following work, I would like to acknowledge all those who played a role in the development of this essay – primarily the class of LGBT360A: “Queering Relationships” at Colgate University facilitated by Prof. Adam Thomas. With the help of my Professor and Peers from this course, I was able to gather research, information, and expand conversations related to the subject of parasocial relationships, sex work, and OnlyFans. Moreover, we delved into plenty of related topics and from these settings – I was able to gather my ideas and bring to fruition the following work.
Moreover, I would like to acknowledge that a majority of the resources provided to me hinged on using Colgate University’s facilities. Colgate University is situated on the Oneida Nation’s land, one of the nations of the Haudenosaunee people.
Abstract:
With technology advancing, the capacity for new relationships to exist and grow via different modes and mediums is also growing. While parasocial relationships have existed for a long time, but looked different depending on the context assessed, technology has created an entirely new domain for parasocial relationships to function. Parasocial relationships can often be rooted in and defined by values of consumerism and profit based interactions, something many social media platforms enable. With OnlyFans being a new technological tool that firmly fits into the realm of parasocial relationships and enables the sex work industry, the extent that parasocial relationships come to fruition with sex workers via OnlyFans is assessed abstractly and next to motivations of sex workers to use the platform.
Key words: Parasocial Relationships, OnlyFans, Sex Work, Intimacy, Technology, Relationships
Introduction
Before the rise of the internet, interpersonal bonds and relationships were fostered by the medium of physical presence and contact. While holding physical space to build platonic, romantic, familial, and many other kinds of relationships is something highly coveted today, the rise of the digital age of connectivity has sprung a new leaf. The ability to feel like you know someone through alternative forms of communication was evoked thousands of years prior when writing was created – but Due to the creation, adoption, and proliferation of technology attached to agents eager to find digital spaces to facilitate and grow relationships, technology can play a significant role in establishing and maintaining bonds between individuals.
Whether it is constructing shared spaces via technology to foster meaningful connections in long distance relationships or creating consensual spaces to engage intimately and maintain a connection, technology has expanded the domain in which a connection can exist (Kafaee and Kohut, 2021; Janning et al., 2018). While the new age reveals how plenty of relationships between individuals prosper, digital spaces are also establishing new and unseen relationship dynamics – but long distance can look like many things.
Social media platforms have transformed the way people interact and build relationships with one another. Whether it is the most private and controlled space to share a photo with your closest friends and followers or a place to reach the widest of audiences. From established celebrities to B-list Youtubers, social media is capable of cultivating bonds between individuals no matter the social status of the user or the stigma surrounding their identities and values. While it may have originally been a challenge to get in touch with your favorite luminary, direct messages or comments on social media feeds are capable of cultivating a specific kind of relationship. However, the extent that these bonds can be measured as true interpersonal connections is murky when we attach the notion that social media allows people to curate an image of the self and monetize it.
Parasocial relationships refer to one-sided emotional connections that individuals form with media personalities, celebrities, or influential people – often blurring the lines between real-life interactions and mediated experiences. With social media being a platform of unparalleled value to celebrities and consumers, parasocial relationships can have a direct effect on the implication of endorsement for products as celebrities are increasingly being used to influence the purchase of products. (Chung and Cho, 2017). Moreover, tweens and young adolescents’ usage of Youtube and Social media is a prime example of the potential power that parasocial relationships play in agents' lives (Tolbert and Drogos, 2019).
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, OnlyFans, a subscription-based content sharing platform has emerged as a unique space where celebrities can engage with their fans. If one thinks of any form of content that can digitally be created – that is correct! Someone is capable of creating that content and monetizing it through OnlyFans. The occasional daily vlog, exclusive discounts and promotions for content created prior, custom audios desired by clients, and so much more, OnlyFans can be a platform for education, self help – and pleasure. (Morris, 2020) While pleasure may be viewed as anything that fosters a visceral sense of enjoyment and warmth, selling pleasure is something that creators and content users are firmly aware of being within the domain of OnlyFans platform. This is because OnlyFans is a company like other social media businesses who seek to connect the consumer and the producer. That being said, it is a realm that has changed sex work forever (Bernstein, 2019).
On OnlyFans, sex workers can distribute produced content and engage with their audiences who are seeking aspects of pleasure in a different kind of tangible way (Hamiloton et al., 2022). With the context of isolation during the pandemic and pop culture brought to light conversations surrounding sex work and adult film. While it has not been researched thoroughly yet, to understand what the motivations behind OnlyFans usage is for sex workers and clients might provide insight into whether or not parasocial relationships are recognized. While sex positive values might help agents feel comfortable with moments of vulnerability related to sex, sexuality, and intimacy, disclosures of the self on OnlyFans has not been researched. By sharing and creating explicit content on the platform there is a capacity to generate intimacies – from which parasocial relationships stem (Anderson, 2013;Chung and Cho, 2017; Tolbert and Drogos, 2019). To look at the motivations of sex workers in producing and offering content on OnlyFans might help to reveal whether or not intimate disclosures are an aspect of positive sexuality values at the forefront of their evolutions (Ebersole, 2023; Hamilton et al. 2022; Halvorsen, 2022). In the end, OnlyFans as a facilitator of parasocial relationships with sex workers is discussed next to the ethics and status of sex work in western society.
With technology having expanded the domain that connections can come to fruition, parasocial relationships are now capable of being facilitated online via many mediums. OnlyFans is a new content platform that has altered the way sex work can function. OnlyFans as a platform for sharing explicit content is something to dissect as intimacies generated through the platform might be enough to highlight emotional relationships that are being built via these interactions. While the situations being created out of OnlyFans may be enough to build understanding on how there is an attempt to foster parasocial relationships by trying to create emotion, looking at the motives of sex workers in sharing content reveals production and profit as a huge part of why they use OnlyFans – and a fundamental aspect of parasocial relationships.
While Redundant: Technology has Changed the Way We Can Connect
I am positive that by this point – we have all heard this take before; however, focusing on technology and long distance relationships provides tangible language and perspective on how technology platforms might generally facilitate connections. In Janning et al. (2018) a survey of over two hundred people ranging from 18 - 70 years old revealed the forms of communication that were most meaningful to them. In addressing this topic, they were able to find some of the reasons associated with communication modes and come to an understanding of what might be the most meaningful mode of communication overall. Findings revealed that individuals in long distance relationships have different modes of constructing shared space depending on the geographical location, thoughtfulness, intimacy, and ease related to the project of communicating (Janning et al., 2018). Paper formats were methods that allowed agents to tap into their romantic and meaningful shared discourse as writers felt like they could express their feelings in content that reflected their attempt to compensate for not putting effort into communicating (Janning et al., 2018). In other words, delay and inefficiency in receiving a thoughtful message was no less special to the agents partaking in creating space to communicate. Digital formats wonderfully made room for easy seamless communication formats where agents have the freedom to communicate virtually whenever (Janning et al., 2018). There is a feeling of shared intimate space that can be created via digital formats like text and message, but visual and audio formats allow for real creation of intimacy or at least the closest mimicry of it (Janning et al., 2018).
Modes of communication for facilitating close relationships have existed for a while and technology is making meaningful connections come to fruition by fostering spaces to share intimacy, communicate, and build a relationship; however, Kafaee and Kohut (2021) expand on this notion (Janning et al., 2018). Looking at the very little amounts of research on the context of adult relationships and sexting behaviors for long distance couples, Kafaee and Kohut (2021) orient with the notion that sexually suggestive digital forms of communication may be prominent in long distance relationships. Challenges of long distance relationships are unique but long distance relationships were found to be vulnerable to sexual boredom and sexting in general related to higher perceived relationship satisfaction, investment, and lower quality of alternative, based on the investment model used (Kafaee and Kohut, 2021). Individuals in long distance relationships who engage in sexting felt more connected intimately and had higher levels of satisfaction in their relationships than those who did not texting – yielding sexting might constitute relationship investment.
Parasocial Relationships: A Product of Relationship Medium Advancement
While they have existed for quite some time with prime examples being Micheal Jackson, The Beatles, Kanye West, and other general influencers over the last few centuries, parasocial relationships represent a perceived relationship. What is meant by perceived relationship is that there has existed a feeling where we think we know someone, and we actually lack a true understanding of them. This could be due to characterization, media personalities, or natural desires to split our personalities between relationships to foster as many different connections as patterns. That being said, technology has also drastically changed the way a parasocial relationship can come to fruition.
Chung and Cho (2017) highlight that a fundamental aspect of parasocial relationships is self disclosure mediating celebrity endorsement. Consumers are a necessity in parasocial interactions with celebrities through social media and Chung and Cho (2017) set out to develop an understanding of interactions between consumers and celebrity endorsers to deconstruct the underlying mechanisms of social media interactions that enable parasocial relationships. Looking at brand credibility, trustworthiness, and purchase intentions of four hundred Korean Wave music fans in Singapore revealed social media exchanges with celebrities have profound impacts on celebrity endorsement (Chung and Cho, 2017) Technology affords an interactive level attached to immediacy for intimate connections and communication styles to connect, and celebrities who are responsive and conversational on social media might lead audiences to feel as if they are members of their closest peers (Chung and Cho, 2017). This was especially the case when celebrities and influencers met audiences with moments of self disclosure, oppression, and vulnerability, as celebrities who did not disclose personal details were often viewed as inauthentic (Chung and Cho, 2017). Open, self disclosing, intimate, understanding, positively affective celebrities grew the largest following numbers and consumers in deep parasocial relationships with celebrities are more likely to endorse them or ignore negative information (Chung and Cho, 2017).
The nature of the consumers is drastically different now as social media has enabled celebrity interactions to become more complex, dynamic, and accessible – thus more parasocial relationships being fostered (Chung and Cho, 2017). Capitalizing off of relationships is nothing new, but the extent that it has been recognized in the present often goes ignored. Tolbert and Drogos’ (2019) work reflects the necessity to look at parasocial relationships attached to tech advancement when considering closely children between the ages of nine and twelve wishfully identifying with Youtubers. With over two billion users a month, Youtube has become a choice example for exploring parasocial relationships due to the foundations in the lives of children the platform has laid. While the general amount of time spent on Youtube correlated to adolescents being more enthusiastic about their favorite content creators, girls were more likely to identify with feminine media personalities while boys enjoyed watching male personalities (Tolbert and Drogos, 2019). Gender schema theory predicted a difference in gender stereotypes may be leading to wishful identification in tandem with the time spent consuming a Youtubers content (Chung and Cho, 2017). In other words, parasocial relationships at this age were more likely to be fostered in situations of gender affirmation – however, this sample could have also been a heteronormative sample of adolescents. That being said, negative relationships with celebrities were correlated to body image and lack of aggressive content depending on female versus male audiences (Chung and Cho, 2017). That being said, children were devoted to following their favorite content creators across platforms, purchasing their merchandise. With parasocial relationships being one-sided symbiotic relationships between consumers and producers, tweens watching more youtube content to become familiar with their favorite self-disclosed and intimate media personalities emphasizes the true potential technology has in composing parasocial relationships.
OnlyFans and Opportunities for Sex Work
While it has not been firmly attached to the discourse around parasocial relationships, OnlyFans is a content platform that is dedicated to providing producers with a way of getting their content across more audiences attached to paywall acquisition mechanics. Founded by Timothy Stokely and currently monetizing off of 30 million registered users and 450 thousand content creators, OnlyFans has found a niche in society during and after the pandemic (Morris, 2020). As a “subscription site that enables content creators to monetize their influence,” many celebrities flock to upload articles, photos, videos, and more so that they can take eighty percent of the profit, and relegate twenty to OnlyFans. The incentive to make more money is high as the platform “takes content piracy very seriously” and helps creators monetize off of each individual piece of content the produce Morris, 2020.
That being said, OnlyFans has shifted the conversation around sex work tremendously due to the massive amounts of users it generates and the transactional dynamics of the platform (Hamilton et al., 2022; Bernstein, 2019). Putting X-rated entertainment “in the hands of its entertainers,” OnlyFans has become the “paywall of porn” acting as a reminder to pay for the content you consume. Sex workers join with the notion that the more explicit and higher the quantity of content they commit to sharing – the more money they will make (Bernstein, 2019). After the eruption of the porn industry in the early 2000’s, people living in the “margins of society” were given jobs by companies like Vivid and Wicked entertainment (Bernstein, 2019). However, porn production companies fell with the dominance of the internet and tube pornographic companies like Mindgeek’s Pornhub (Bernstein, 2019). With the internet robbing sex workers of their content, creators yearned for direct ways of monetizing themselves and found a home on the OnlyFans. While you can get porn for free, sex workers argue clients want the opportunity to get to know somebody they have seen before in publicized settings like social media or magazines (Bernstein, 2019).
Attached to this notion, Hamilton et al. (2022) provides more context for why content creators have moved to OnlyFans. While typical motivations for gig work, work that can be done for hire and upon hiring, is relevant to the reasons sex workers joined OnlyFans, boundary abilities, privacy, content archives, and the pandemic were large reasons for users of the platforms (Hamilton et al., 2022). With notable celebrities joining the platform as a mode of monetizing during the pandemic without risking in person contact, stigma around the subject of sex work was reduced (Hamilton et al., 2022). People were not only having conversations about sex work at dinner tables or with friends, but finding the language and or safety to possibly engage with it via OnlyFans – drastically raising the visibility of the platform. That being said, motivations for joining the platform largely centered around money, flexibility, accessibility, privacy, protection, and autonomy, highlighting creators engaged in sexual expression when they felt they had garnered the parameters to safely curate, leverage, and display sexual content. With academic research still minimal in this topic, OnlyFans has become a standin for heteronormative, amateur, and gonzo adult content from both male and female sex workers and a systematic review of literature and interviews of creators approved by the IRB reveals a lot (Hamilton et al., 2022). Hamilton et al. (2022) emphasize that a large number of adults create and share explicit content with each other via many mediums and OnlyFans offers a new way to do just this, with the attachment of endorsement possibilities and monetization.
Sex Work Via OnlyFans and Parasocial relationships
Janning et al. (2018) and Kaffaee and Kohut (2021) generated a firm argument for the reflection that being intimate within digital spaces has the capacity to foster healthy relationships – which means it could have the ability to incite parasocial relationships too. That necessitated a conversation around parasocial relationships, revealing the stark principle of monetization and capitalism that is inherently tied to the function of parasocial interactions (Chung and Cho, 2017; Tolbert and Drogos, 2019). With this in mind, OnlyFans has garnered a lot of attention for the way it has changed the sex work industry – but whether it fosters parasocial relationships requires deeper analysis (Morris, 2020; Bernstein et al., 2019; Hamilton et al., 2022).
Understanding that parasocial relationships are inherently tied to commerce, self disclosure, wishful identification, and perceived intimacy with content creators necessitates the analysis of motives behind creators pursuing gig work on OnlyFans. Self disclosure is an interesting topic because Janning et al. (2018) and Kaffaee and Kohut (2021) unveiled that sexually suggestive space held online has the capacity to generate intimacy and satisfaction in relationships. With many users continuing to find pleasure in OnlyFans, the capacity for OnlyFans generating intimacies is also an abstract argument. Anderson (2013) highlights that positive sexuality leaves room for agents to foster satisfaction, self efficacy, self esteem, and pleasure in their sexual lives. While there is a requirement of respectful and positive approaches to sexuality and sexual relationships enforced by the World Health Organization, sexuality scripts often play a large role in expression (Anderson, 2013). These sexuality scripts commonly foster intimacies between agents no matter the medium they take (Janning et al., 2018; Kafaee and Kohut, 2021), but Anderson (2013) firmly makes room for OnlyFans to exist in a realm of positive sexuality. If this is the case, OnlyFans would be providing space for fulfillment of sexual desire, experience of sexual pleasure, sexual satisfaction, emotional connection, intimacy, physical health, and psychological well being (Anderson, 2013).
With it being known that sending explicit messages has the capacity to generate intimacies attached to the understanding that OnlyFans offers a platform for monetization of adult content, parasocial relationships can come from the simple act of sharing explicit content that is also viewed as intimate and vulnerable. Sharing photos of the naked body via messages in long distance relationships generated intimacy and a sense of knowing in partnership that correlated with relationship satisfaction. If OnlyFans creators are interacting with clients with sex work motives, facilitating sexual conversations and revealing intimacies – parasocial relationships could be stemming from the emotions that arise during general moments of engaging in sex and sexuality. Sex and sexuality being a modernized subject does not render the concept any less vulnerable or intimate when it is enacted – it simply hides it within the context of normalization. Viewing someone at their most vulnerable state - naked - tends to generate intimacies – especially when consent is present.
With an abstract argument stating that the general explicit content being perpetuated on the OnlyFans platform has the capacity to generate parasocial relationships simply by creating space for sex working agents to reveal vulnerabilities that fruit intimacies, studying the motives of sex workers is most helpful. Hamilton et al., (2022) emphasized the motives of sex workers using OnlyFans being centered around the value of monetization. Money, flexibility, and accessibility were all commonly cited reasons for sex workers engaging on the platform, but creativity in curating an account and media personality was also something alluring (Hamilton et al., 2022). Many had extreme desires to engage in sexual expression with their already existing and growing audiences of followers, but were frustrated by having to significantly market and promote their work (Hamilton et al., 2022). With OnlyFans not being a site that renders creators the ability to reach more followers, producers must seek outside resources to garner attention – thus becoming their own advertisers. This directly reflects the monetization and capitalization aspects related to parasocial relationships emphasizing consumerism goes hand in hand with fostering them.
Attached to Courtney Ebersole’s (2023) work discussing sex work and college students, motivations for sex workers use of OnlyFans also centers around productionist values. Eager to explore why people from different populations use the platform for sexual suggestive contnet, Ebersole (2023) turned to college women using OnlyFans. Siting mainstream adult entertainment being normalized via the pandemic, posting explicit pictures on to OnlyFans no longer seems like a maladaptive idea when it comes to making money (Ebersole, 2023). College undergraduates are motivated to create OnlyFans accounts out of economic necessity as a result of the pandemic normalizing unpaid labor through content creation. To Ebersole (2023), it is the virtual community of OnlyFans that acts as resistance to the exploitative environment that is sex work in a digital gig work economy. Monja Halvorsen (2022) looks at how norms around sex as a commodity mediate digital platforms like OnlyFans when commercial sex has become beyond mainstream in western society.
From a Foucauldian perspective on power, sex being commodified allows for agents to take advantage of technology that resists disciplinary powers that percept how sexual agents can act (Halvorsen, 2022). Sex as a commodity indulged in via OnlyFans has created an acceptance towards the sexualization of bodies, which may fit into liberal ideas of sexuality. With the “emphasis on individuals responsibility and choice” in today's society, OnlyFans sex workers saw an opportunity to take advantage of their “erotic capital” (Halvorsen, 2022). There is an initial story of liberal women who take advantage of technology that actually fits in light with neoliberal economy where “disciplinary power dictates the way in which women are “allowed” to act as liberal subjects (Halvorsen, 2022). In other words, discourse has changed to accept sex work as well as make room for more sex workers to comfortably find work; however, the normalization of sex work falls in line with some of the same neoliberal ideas of production where new technology offers new modes to objectify agents – along with new discursive ways of justifying. In this case, justification is born our of the desire to monetize off of sex, sexuality, and eroticism – something seemingly stripped from agents' lives and taken agency over via monetizing off of content on OnlyFans. That being said, no matter what framework of thought brought them to the platform, OnlyFans as a place for parasocial relationships to develop firmly takes root in the desire to capitalize off of intimacies.
Conclusion: More Research Regarding OnlyFans and Parasocial Relationships
In the work titled “Improving the Health and Status of Sex Workers in Europe, Ravenswaaij et al. (2021) set out to provide context for how the United Nations can improve functions through sustainable development frameworks. Recommending that their be an active consideration of including sex workers in related policies was born out of the pandemic creating and exacerbating disadvantages related to the sex work industry (Ravenswaaij et al., 2021). Advising that more community based workshops by and for sex workers be created alongside low cost sustainable toolkits with condoms and self sexually transmitted disease tests, mental, physical, and socioeconomic health status of sex workers throughout the EU necessitates more attention. With the recognition that technology has changed the way relationships come to fruition alongside parasocial relationships Kafaee and Kohut, 2021; Janning et al., 2018; Chung and Cho, 2017; Tolbert and Drogos, 2019), understandings for how OnlyFans makes room for parasocial relationships to develop necessities research. More specifically, exploring sex workers relationships with the platform might generate relevant understandings as OnlyFans usage by creators correlated with parasocial relationship maintenance efforts of building connection for profit via consumption of content. (Morris, 2020; Bernstein, 2019; Anderson, 2013, Ebersole, 2023, Hamilton et al., 2022; Halvorsen, 2022). In tandem, the general notion of sharing explicit photos of the self is in line with aspects of self disclosure and trust that can be naturally generated through in person intimacies – but take the medium of technology based intimacies.
As research continues on in the field of parasocial relationships, looking closely into sex work relationships might provide truly tangible evidence for the existence of attachment in these settings. My research was limited by the lack of research on consumers' motives for using OnlyFans, which would have offered insights into whether or not clients of sex workers felt like they knew and had moments of intimacy with workers. Moreover, it would have offered potential succinct understandings for the aspects that help to foster parasocial relationships in more explicit settings. Relationships with media personalities or through social media has the capacity to generate parasocial relationship qualities and ignorance on the dynamic leaves agents more susceptible to being consumers in others quests for profit. While this is not inherently a bad thing, the influence of online relationships is still being unveiled as the internet and technology purveying it progresses into other realms for fostering connections.
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