It’s 2024, and everywhere you look on social media, it seems like people are speaking in code. In some places, people avoid using adjectives; in others, potentially violent words are censored. Sometimes, the effort to attempt to avoid your account or group being punished by site administrators is so great that I am surprised anyone bothers at all.
And it is not necessarily paranoia. I know plenty of people who have been shadow-banned, suspended, or permanently removed from social media sites.
I now frequently have my Facebook account limited if I laugh react a funny cat picture.
So I understand why the people and pages I follow will use “S3x” or “S-x” instead of sex because there’s a real risk that the content we post will catch the attention of some person or bot, and our accounts will be throttled if not entirely removed. Our hard work will be instantly deleted, and our reach diminished as we are forcibly disconnected from followers. What’s worse, our attempts to educate people about sexuality will be thwarted, and streams of income may be ripped from us.
There are very real consequences to not playing by the rules of our social media overlords.
And I hate it.
It’s not just that trying to read these posts becomes nearly impossible (and I cannot imagine how much more difficult it is for anyone using a screen reader!), which has forced some people to give up on spaces that enforce these rules.
Social media should not censor sex, not when they let rampant violence, harassment, and misogyny go unchecked, and especially not when lack of access to such information contributes to sexual assault, the spread of STIs, suicide, and other general misery.
Censoring sex actively harms people.
Yet, these sites do exactly that.
As much as we can try to diversify by starting a SubStack or Patreon or by joining BlueSky or Mastodon or one of the other overly hopeful replacements for the tech giants, they do not replace the reach offered by Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter, or, yes, even Facebook.
Sex bloggers, educators, and therapists are in good company with retailers, venues, certification providers, and others, none of whom feel safe using accurate words to describe their profession, products, or services. It is a spot between the sharpest rock and the hardest place.
And there’s no end in sight. In fact, the censorship only seems to have worsened since I first started this draft!
What is the end game in all of this?
Platforms that are so sanitized of sex that we lose decades of progress? Sex returning to the taboo shadows, so there is no hope of satisfying relationships, and pain becomes the norm once more? Difficulty finding legitimate sex education that leads people to risky sources? Funding cut from sexual research? Oh, wait.
I mean, I see it happening before my eyes. But I don’t want to believe it. And I can’t understand it because such a world harms everyone, even those who are pushing for it or who allow it to happen. Maybe they lack foresight, but I do not.
And my foresight tells me that we are on a slope that couldn’t be more slippery if we emptied a case of lube on it. Of course, this isn’t new, but it’s become impossible to ignore, much like all the creative expressions of the word “Sex” on social media practically scream at me.
Maybe, for a bit, these efforts will garner some attention because they’re so jarring. Or maybe people will learn to ignore them because what’s the point when you need to decrypt all the content on your feed? And what do we do when the tech overlords catch on and ban these workarounds? At what point will they have to draw the line? Will it be when censorship interferes with their profits? Or do we need a new sex-friendly platform with reasonable rules and allowances to take the world by storm? Is such a thing even possible?
I have so many questions and so few answers. I don’t know if anyone does.
But I do know that I don’t want to censor the word “Sex.” So, I won’t. Not here. Not on social media.
I recommend you sign up for email notifications (see the option in the sidebar) if you’re interested in reading about sex without censorship, should my failure to comply result in me being banned from social media.
