Commodification of the Subject in Presentations of Virtual Sexual Identity

Abstract

When the profiles created in social networks and the content produced are examined, the problem of commodification of the subject, especially in sexual identity presentations, draws attention. For this reason, in this study, emotions, thoughts, values and situations that cause objectification of people were investigated. This research has four aims: to create a conceptual framework regarding the sexuality perception of obscene content producers in social media, to investigate the motivations that cause people to create obscene content, to identify common points that affect the network preferences of content producers and to contribute to the literature on social media studies. For this purpose, case analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The data were collected from social media applications named Instagram, Tender, Twitter by using purposeful criterion sampling method. Users who stand out with their sexual identity presentation on these platforms were asked questions in four different categories. These categories are users' opinions about the phenomenon of sexuality, the reasons for their social network preferences, why they prefer the presentation of sexual identity (common goals) and the problems they experience on these platforms. The findings of the research are as follows: The phenomenon of sexuality is seen as an escape from real life, freedom, pleasure, communication tools and discovery. The reasons why the participants prefer social networks are the ease of access, ease of sharing, the fact that these applications carry less risk than in real life, and the advantage of control. The common goals of users are economic freedom, recognition and self-realization. Problems arising from the presentation of sexual identity are disconnection from real life, exclusion, harassment and depression. Our results clearly show that sexual identity presentations created through social media applications commodify the individual and individual values. We think that our results will contribute to the current literature and will be good ground for new research to be conducted.