Since our editor and social media manager Amelie Gante started working on sex-positive topics she became aware of certain problems on social media platforms: Shadow ban, censorship and deleted posts or accounts. The struggles on social media make it hard to work in a field that already faces a lot of discrimination, tabooing and prejudices. Here she explains why she didn’t give up yet and what „pleasure activism“ has to do with it.
by Amelie Gante
21.01.2025
I’ve been working as an editor at the media agency and podcast label Studio36 alongside my studies since the beginning of 2024. In the previous job interview with CEO Nike Wessel she mentioned in passing that she also had a sex-positive podcast. While I immediately thought: “Oh, how great!”, she added directly: “But I don’t expect you to deal with that. After all, it’s a sensitive topic.”. My private journey through the sex-positive scene began at almost the same time. For this reason, I was particularly curious about an editorial job in this field.
A few months later, I started working in the editorial department at Studio36. “Sex in Berlin” turned out to be my main project, including its social media.
When the algorithm fucks (with) you
Everything went well at the beginning. But after a few months, I wondered about certain anomalies on Instagram. Suddenly, far fewer people were viewing our story. The links to articles on the sexin.berlin website were hardly clicked. At some point, I saw in the statistics of our Instagram account that certain posts had been blocked. From time to time, our entire Studio36 account was shadow banned. This means that the account and our content can no longer be found. This comes very close to deleting the account.
Before the podcast “Sex in Berlin”, there were no regular sex topics at Studio36. The problems only arose after we started posting regularly about sex-positive topics. And don’t get me wrong, I think that there are good reasons to regulate what kind of sex content there is on Social Media. But the algorithm speaks in single puzzle pieces that sometimes fit together and sometimes not.
S.. in Berlin, s3x-positive, Sxx-positivity, …
When I talked to other creators on Instagram about it, no one was surprised. E.g. the Liebelei account of Katharina and Ferdinand, who run a sex store under the same name and also offer workshops, had already been deleted twice. They had to completely rebuild their followers. And they also got the impression that norm-fitting sex content was less likely to be censored. Some sex-positive creators have therefore already created a back-up account in their description text, which you can follow directly in case they are deleted.
Ultimately, this form of censorship is intended to keep feminist content and information about sex ed and sexual health off of Instagram. However, this raises the question of why violent, hateful or sexist content is supported by the algorithm on Social Media. The algorithm fluctuates between arbitrary censorship and a clearly anti-feminist stance. But it’s no wonder after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to abolish fact-checking on his platforms this year.
Creativity that annoys me
Despite the censorship I started to get creative like the others. No more Sex, now I wrote S.. or Sxx or S3x. Even words like queer or bisexual can already be harmful to your reach on Instagram. Sex educators, doctors and therapists cannot even use medically correct terms (e.g. Vagina) on social media without fearing consequences. Also journalistic accounts like Missy Magazine change the letters of certain words to mask them.
But what does it actually do to our psyche when we no longer spell such words correctly (while the algorithm provides a stage for hate and shame)?
The suppression of pleasure – sex is a political act
I first heard about the term “pleasure activism” from sexologist and sex educator Katharina Krauss. But Adrienne Mareen Brown coined the term in their book “Pleasure Activism: The politics of feeling good”. Pleasure activism is an everyday form of activism that advocates placing pleasure as a political act at the center of life and supporting people affected by discrimination, sexism and other forms of structural violence. It also shows the political, social and societal connections in the context of sex, body and gender and why the suppression (of certain forms of) pleasure plays a central role in this.
The aim of the “Sex in Berlin” podcast has always been to educate and to destigmatize. Being able to inform oneself about sex education and sexual health means self-empowerment and the prevention of assault and abuse.
The reality is a balancing act
For many, empowerment begins with communication. Only saying out loud how one would like to be touched and to be able to name your own body parts without shame is often a difficult act that requires a lot of learning. And I haven’t even begun to write about overcoming sexual trauma. And for this reason, making sex words almost unrecognizable in order to exist on Instagram is actually not compatible with pleasure activism and good education.
That is why we startet a petition against the censorship on social media – because sex ed should not be a taboo. You can sign the petition here.
Finding the best possible way to communicate sex ed is the balancing act that many sex-positive content creators try to walk. Social media is a love-hate relationship. Leaving Instagram to hate and shame content should only be our last option. At least not until there is a better alternative.
Why I didn’t give up (yet?)
The masking of certain terms is therefore on the one hand not in line with pleasure activism and on the other hand a necessity in order to give sex-positive topics visibility and to give pleasure activists a voice. Working or just being visible in this field ist already part of pleasure activism. And it motivates and inspires me to continue on this path and to work towards a society where people can express their gender, sexuality and body without shame, guilt or fear of violence and discrimination.
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