Most people who have used the online platform known as OnlyFans report increases in knowledge related to sexual activity and sexuality, according to new research. The new findings have been published in the scientific journal Sexuality & Culture.
OnlyFans is a subscription-based platform that allows content creators to earn money from their fans by providing exclusive content such as videos, photos, and live-streams. The content is typically adult-oriented and OnlyFans has become particularly popular among creators in the adult entertainment industry. The authors of the new study sought to examine the effects of OnlyFans on users’ sexual lives and learning, including the specific types of knowledge acquired.
“Formal sexuality education curriculum varies widely throughout the United States, and individuals may seek out additional information about sex and sexuality from informal media sources and online platforms. We were interested in understanding learning on OnlyFans, given that it is such a widely used and novel platform,” said study author Marie Lippmann, an associate professor of psychology at California State University in Chico.
The study surveyed 425 OnlyFans users who had reported using the platform for sexual purposes in the three months prior to the survey. The average age of participants was 37. Roughly 53% identified as male and 46% as female. Most participants (80.9%) identified as heterosexual.
Most participants reported that their use of OnlyFans had resulted in them learning something new about sexual practices, personal sexual preferences, relationships, or sexual health. The majority of participants reported learning outcomes in each of these domains, with scores above 4.63 (out of 7). 41% of participants reported trying new activities such as toy use, producing content, and sexual orientation exploration, while only 6.8% reported not trying anything new after using OnlyFans.
The researchers found no gender differences on the effects of OnlyFans use on sexual learning. Both female and male participants reported more positive than negative outcomes.
In addition, the more users learned on OnlyFans, the more positively they perceived the influence of their OnlyFans use on their sexual lives. Younger participants tended to learn more on the platform compared to their older counterparts.
The researchers also analyzed responses to an open-ended question: “What new things have you learned from using OnlyFans in terms of sexual practices, relationships, communication, yourself, your personal preferences, or sexual health?”
The participants reported improvements in sexual functioning, expansions of their sexual experiences and attractions, improvements in relationships (such as improved communication techniques), increases in sexual confidence, the acquisition of particular sexual skills, having a sense of community, and changes in values (e.g. “learned that it’s not good to be so judgmental in life and sex”).
“People engaging with the OnlyFans platform are gaining new knowledge about themselves (self-exploration) and sexuality in general (conceptual domain-specific knowledge),” Lippmann told PsyPost. “They are also learning new skills (procedural knowledge) that they are applying to their sexual lives and relationships.”
But researchers have only scratched the surface.
“Due to the focus of this study on learning and limitations in sample characteristics and in the amount of questions we were able to ask in this one survey, a number of interesting questions remain open for future research,” the researchers wrote, “such as how the experience of OnlyFans may differ for sex workers and users, how sex workers choose OnlyFans as their platform, how certain demographics (such as race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship orientation, etc.) might be related to learning on OnlyFans, or what specific design features of OnlyFans may make the platform more or less likely than other platforms to be accessed for the purpose of sexual learning.”
The study, “Learning on OnlyFans: User Perspectives on Knowledge and Skills Acquired on the Platform“, was authored by Marie Lippmann, Natalie Lawlor, and Christine E. Leistner.