What Does It Mean if Twitter Becomes Sexless?

The times they are swiftly a-changing. And not in a direction where anyone truly wins.

A while ago, it came to light that Twitter had made some aggressive advances in their their TOS agreements against sex and nudity, beginning a campaign to suspend even large-audience and verified accounts that had previously lived unpunished. While it has long been against policy to have exposed genitals or sex acts depicted in headers and avatars, unless they were expressly reported to the Twitter police, these violations have mostly been unenforced. I’m sure you even know of a few accounts off the top of your head that feature buttholes and boners in their headers and avi graphics.

[RELATED: Social Snapshots: FRANCOIS PUCKERS, MAX POSES, VIC’S EDGING ERROR, DRAKE’S POV FUCK]

Without having a whose fault is it (it’s arguably quite clear whose fault it is) conversation, bigger questions about what it means and what we face are probably a better use of our collective energy. Is it unfair that censorship is being enforced now in places where it wasn’t before? Yeah, probably. But being angry about “censorship” misses the core point (just like it missed the core point with the Tumblr purge), by not looking toward what is driving the censorship, and what it will cost people in the future.

Twitter was, in many ways, the last open ground in online sex; porn stars used it to network and promote, to get cast in scene work, and to encourage fan activity when it was time to vote for awards. Sex workers and companions used it to promote travel plans and availability (sometimes even discount or promotions during slow periods). There was a bygone era when it was even beneficial for your site’s SEO to have twitter promotion and links.

But all of that is already in past tense, because what Twitter is doing, it has already done. Adult content has been censored surreptitiously for the better part of this year, with whole accounts being unwittingly cast into “sensitive content” designations that prevent them from surfacing in search, on hashtags, or even in retweets by their followers. The numbers show one thing (50 retweets! Great!), but a large percentage of those retweets never move the original messaging into anyone’s timeline. Those tweets were too “sensitive.”

Even the Twitter account for this blog is subject to a “sensitive content” designation that forces users who don’t already follow to click through an “are you sure” message to even see what the account is about. Research shows that pain points like these result in diminished engagement and follows, sometimes by up to as much as 50%. Half of users won’t click the “yes I’m sure” button to proceed, and fewer than half that will agree to follow later.

 

gay sex online, Twitter, @theswordcom

 

This isn’t a sign of things to come. It has come.

Let’s talk about cum, since we’re here. Ejaculate is now designed by Twitter as “graphic violence.” Whether this is intentional or they just couldn’t figure out a more appropriate header for semen is up for debate. But it means that cumshots are the same in Twitter’s eyes as beheadings, self harm, and actual shootings.

This is an important point, because associations like these don’t happen in vacuums. And they don’t happen without repercussions. As a cisgender male, I have long been informed by society that my very body is perceived as a threat, particularly to cisgender women. My penis represents an instrument of violence and prominent display of my (or any man’s genitals) are read as imposing or threatening on some level, even unconsciously. Doesn’t matter that I’m gay; the presence or display of my penis is cause for alarm.

When we teach young people – or old people, for that matter! – that genitals and sex are inherently linked to violence and therefor to be feared, whether that happens via news, or social media, or just terrible and flawed feminist thinking, the aftershocks are deep. Boys learn, not that they have power they can wield over others, but that their very bodies and their penises are sources of harm and shame and that they are obligated in a special way to prevent them from hurting others. Don’t believe me? Take ten minutes next time you’re at the airport or the mall and look around at the crotch-regions on display. They have been rendered neutered and Ken Doll’d by pants and underwear designed by people who have clearly never seen what external adult genitals look like; flattened smooth and unimposing by mass-produced garments crafted to help men feel ok about our unacceptable bodies.

[RELATED: Jeffrey Lloyd Cheats On Manuel Skye With Max Arion]

It is interesting to look at the gun/penis correlation here, too. Because, in the same way that guns don’t kill people (a human action is required for this consequence to be attained), penises don’t rape. There is nothing about the quality of having a penis that makes that person or that organ a threat. There is human action required to facilitate this end. For Twitter to broadly draw that correlation via the “graphic violence” designation, is problematic from beginning to end.

When one draws or is confronted with clear lines that shooting someone with a weapon and masturbating to ejaculation are the same – even in a context as seemingly large and unspecific as Twitter TOS – it is impossible not to absorb some of that ideology, however flawed.

In the same way that Catholicism has done untold damage to so many through the alleged imaginary sinfulness of sexuality or the very functions of human bodies, these rules and structures equalizing bodily function with graphic violence are setting up some dominos for young people now that will fall in unpredictable ways in their futures. The lessons being imparted by this platform’s flailing efforts to bend to federal law will give men and women pause to wonder whether maybe Twitter (as a mechanism or simulacrum for society as a collective) is right; maybe there is something inherently unacceptable or even harmful about their genitals and the biological consequences of genital stimulation. Maybe there isn’t any significant difference between a gunshot and a cumshot. Maybe just having a penis is something to feel ashamed of, for the ways that it could cause harm to others.

Maybe we’re all wrong and Twitter is right.

Or maybe not.

 

 

 


Tyler Dårlig Ulv is an Ontario-based blogger and professional companion. He has worked for Rentboy.com, Manhunt, and contributed to publications like Queerty and Thought Catalog. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram, or find out more about his work at his website and blog. Tyler lives full time in Toronto.

 

1 thought on “What Does It Mean if Twitter Becomes Sexless?”

  1. What this means is the same thing that happened to Yahoo and other Chat rooms. The religious right wing batshit crazy Republicans are at it again. They did the same thing when Bush Jr. was elected. Anything to do with sex, and it is forbidden. Yet they are very ones having sex outside of marriage, even having abortions.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 50 MB. You can upload: image. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Scroll to Top