L'économie politique de la production pornographique dans le capitalisme de plateforme : l'exemple d'onlyfans

This thesis undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the history of pornography, the evolution of digitalisation, and the dynamics of platform capitalism as shaped by the intersection of digital technologies and capitalist systems in the contemporary era. Using OnlyFans as a case study, it critically examines the mutually reinforcing conditions and interplay of digitalisation, capitalism, and patriarchy. It explores the transformation of pornographic content and its relationship to broader political and economic structures. Beginning in the 1990s, internet technologies gradually entered households, carrying the promise of an egalitarian and free space by enabling unlimited and cost-free access to information. However, under the neoliberal conditions in which digitalisation developed, the internet was gradually reshaped into a tool for facilitating capital accumulation. Today, companies that mediate access to online content and services enrich themselves through various forms of commission-based monetisation. The thesis explores the platform labour model, characterized by flexible and precarious working conditions rooted in the 1980s, through a case study of OnlyFans—a platform commonly associated with pornographic content whose prominence surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. OnlyFans operates as a facilitator that helps individual creators communicate exclusive content to their subscribers in exchange for commissions from subscriptions and additional transactions. Although OnlyFans introduces itself as an independent, secure and highly profitable digital sex work forum, the enterprise behind the medium extends its assets via these charges and the pile of confidential data, subsequently, contributing to the commodification of body and sexuality. Although women comprise the majority of content creators, the pornographic models on the platform essentially persist in mirroring the male gaze, contrary to assertions that internet pornography has diversified toward a more alternative representation, in which the thesis also primarily claims that the enterprise obscures the structural tension between employer and content creator by encouraging the narrative of 'being your boss,' while upholding gender-based inequalities in pornographic representation. This research also seeks to discuss the financial and social status that pornographic production conveys in the digital age in evidence of the real-life experiences of creators to delve into how this digital method reinforces existing social structures. To that end, it demonstrates a historical course of pornography and digitalisation which then evaluates the current content—largely claimed to cater to men—within the digital economy. The study also incorporates findings from semi-structured interviews conducted with seven people who make revenue by communicating their bodies and sexual actions on the OnlyFans platform. The study contends that the ban set on OnlyFans in Turkey in June 2023—justified on the grounds of "content incompatible with public morals and the Turkish family structure"—has additionally worsened the precarious working conditions of content creators. By jointly analysing today's political-economic context and the work dynamics distinctive to platform capitalism, the thesis strives to offer an original contribution to the field.