Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)

When you hear the words “sex positive,” what comes to mind? Is it radical? Is it NSFW? Does it sound too complex to understand? If you’re unsure of what it means to be sex positive, you are not alone. In a nutshell, sex positivity actively educates others by destigmatizing sex with positivity and healthy attitudes while being inclusive.

Accessing educational resources with a focus on sex positivity has become much easier with social media. In fact, a majority of the education that occurs within the sex-positive movement takes place online via your favorite social media platforms. Before these platforms existed, it seemed a lot harder for people to find safe spaces to share their insights and experiences. Instagram has become an especially powerful tool to learn about an array of topics from living with endometriosis to the ins and outs of kink culture.

Instagram has always had set boundaries when it comes to sexually explicit content. You may recall when Rihanna was temporarily banned from the platform after posting multiple revealing images back in May of 2014. IG’s most recent crackdown on sexually explicit content has led to extensive pushback due to its new algorithm methods. In early 2019, Instagram announced that it would begin demoting “inappropriate” content by preventing certain accounts from appearing on the Explore Page regardless of their following. As a result, hundreds of accounts supporting the sex-positive movement have been censored without a plausible reason. Their current guidelines state:

“We know that there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.”

Frustrated with the nature of this policy change, sex educators, sex workers, and activists alike have spoken out on the lasting impact these regulations can have on their work. The most common complaint has been the lack of clarity, for example, when using the word “some” in their guidelines: “some photos of female nipples,” “some digitally-created content.” Their diction has influenced the public to assume that their vagueness grants them permission to exempt only certain profiles from these rules. Furthermore, their guidelines led to outrage over the neverending sexualization of the female anatomy despite the fact that they allow males to post their chests without censorship. 

People within the sex-positive movement have called for clarification but Instagram representatives have yet to provide it. However, its representatives have made it clear that they are open to having constructive conversations about helping activists and artists keep their content going strong in order to reverse the slippery slope that the changes have caused. On October 20th, the social media giant held a closed-door roundtable meeting with artists to discuss nudity and art on social media. Art News reported that artists such as Micol Hebron, Marilyn Minter, and Joanne Leah were all in attendance.

Mude Threads founder Jazz Moodie uses her platform to create unique embroidered t-shirts made from actual nude images sent to her by her followers. After her original account was deactivated, Jazz took to Instagram to speak on the issue and has since continued to protest the wrongful censorship of other feminist, LGBTQ+, and sex-positive platforms. “Our bodies are not open for sexualization without our consent,” she says. “You and only you have the right to sexualize your naked form.”

Carly Pifer, founder and Editor in Chief of erotic magazine Aurore, had a similar issue when Instagram flagged an image of a woman holding a bar of soap as inappropriate content. 

“Typically, it is always for an educational or empowering reason that these accounts are posting something provocative. So evaluating how much damage is truly being done is important...The soap image is such a funny example because I didn't want to include any pornographic images in Aurore; the whole point was to not confront people with something that they didn't want to see.”

Censoring these kinds of accounts facilitates the narrative that any sort of sex-based conversation, educational or not, is taboo and should be deemed inappropriate regardless of the intention. But a lot of these accounts provide so much more than what they’re often made out to be.  

Instagram is for ages 13 and up. By the age of 13, I knew plenty of sexually active boys and girls. That might seem young, but the fact of the matter is that it’s not uncommon. If children have sex at 13, and the parents have yet to talk to them about the birds and the bees, are they really too young to learn about it? If kids aren’t learning about sex from their school or from their guardians, odds are they’re learning about it through mature content that rarely depicts what sex can and should be. 

According to Planned Parenthood, the 2014 Center for Disease Control School Health Profiles state that “fewer than half of high schools and only a fifth of middle schools teach all 16 topics recommended by the CDC as essential components of sex education.” This sort of education consists of information about birth control, communication, decision-making skills, HIV, and STI’s. If Instagram were to continue to allow educational content to be censored, their actions would further diminish the already declining percentages of teens and adolescents with an academic education about sex.

It’s understandable for Instagram to be against the posting of pornography or nudity, but if there’s one thing I hope we can all agree on, it’s that sex education is necessary. We live in a hypersexual society, and that’s not changing anytime soon. So, if we have the opportunity to educate through a community of people who have dedicated their lives to teaching and understanding an often overlooked subject, why not? This is not to say we should ignore the dangers of receiving all of our information from social media platforms that, in some cases, have no credibility. However, if we look at the current state of social media as an opportunity to redefine education by refining and filtering content responsibly, we can actively inform without policing bodies through double standards, without leaving creators in the dark, and without censoring powerful stories.