Sexual Attitudes and Characteristics of OnlyFans Users

• Published in: Archives of sexual behavior Vol. 51; no. 6; pp. 3093 - 3103
• Main Authors: Litam, Stacey Diane Arañez, Speciale, Megan, Balkin, Richard S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; African Americans; Age groups; Arab people; Asian Americans; Attitudes; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Demographics; Ethnicity; Female; Gays & lesbians; Heterosexuality; Hispanic or Latino; Hispanic people; Humans; Male; Men; Original Paper; Pornography & obscenity; Psychology; Public Health; Race; Sexual Behavior; Social Sciences; Subscriptions; United States; White People; Women; United States; Sexually explicit material; Pornography; OnlyFans; Sexual attitudes
• ISSN: 0004-0002; 1573-2800
• DOI: 10.1007/s10508-022-02329-0

As new forms of sexually explicit material (SEM) platforms emerge, sex research and sexuality-based studies must also evolve. Although the subscription-based platform OnlyFans has become an increasingly popular way for content creators to share and access SEM, the demographic information and sexual attitudes of users across sex have not yet been reported. The present study contributes to the existing body of SEM literature by providing a demographic analysis of OnlyFans users and an assessment of sexual attitudes between users and nonusers across sex. In this study, participants from a US-based sample ( n  = 718, M age  = 29.46, male [ n  = 335, 46.7%], female [ n  = 383, 53.3%]) were solicited using the Mechanical Turk platform. Participants were predominately White ( n  = 475, 66.2%); additional representation of ethnic/racial groups included Black/African-American ( n  = 121; 16.9%), American Indian/Alaskan Native ( n  = 10; 1.4%), Asian-American/Asian ( n  = 32; 4.4%), Hispanic/Latinx ( n  = 53; 7.3%), Arab American/Arab ( n  = 10; 1.4%), and biracial or multiracial ( n  = 17; 2.4%). Based on our findings, OnlyFans users were predominantly married, white, males who identified as heterosexual or bisexual/pansexual. Our findings also revealed that OnlyFans users and nonusers endorsed similar sexual attitudes related to permissiveness, communion, instrumentality, and birth control across sex. Findings from this study may be helpful for future studies on OnlyFans and other forms of subscription-based platforms.