Capitalising on Sexuality: Exploring the Experiences of South African Female Content Creators Who Perform Digital Sex Work on Onlyfans

There has been a gradual increase in popularity among female content creators to use social media as means to accrue body, economic and sexual capital (Easterbrook-Smith, 2022:1; Hamilton et al., 2023; Rand and Stegeman, 2023:2113). Depending on the specific social platform (e.g., Instagram, OnlyFans or X) and the reasons for using the platforms, social media content creators carefully reflect on and navigate their decisions to disclose specific information about themselves and how they represent their bodies and sexualities to their followers and subscribers (Merunkova and Slerka, 2019:246). Studies show that social media content creators seek to show their “best” and idealised selves to their followers (Schreurs and Vandenbosch, 2021:303). In-keeping with the focus of the proposed study, scholars attest to the fact that women use social media platforms to display bodily and sexual ideals (e.g., posing in a manner or editing the picture to look thinner) (Cardoso & Scarcelli, 2021; Pedallino and Camerini, 2022). Cardoso and Scarcelli (2021:111) argue that women create and post imagery and videos that are “fake [and] made on purpose so that people are tempted” to follow them, i.e., they seek to gain more reactions and interactions. Through using an exploratory qualitative research methodology, this study will seek to elucidate the reasons as well as the benefits and challenges of female content creators who perform digital sex work. This could relate to or add to existing studies that report about the need to accrue sexual capital through enacting sexual autonomy, amassing safety, accruing economic capital, establishing communal bonds or destigmatising sex work.