How many times have you had a social media post removed, or even had your whole account shut down? In our industry, these things happen every day.
The fact that the pleasure industry faces restrictions in marketing and advertising is old news. Fun Factory has been navigating these restrictions for 25 years. Social media is just the newest minefield, but it threatens to undo much of the progress we’ve made. Over the past decade, we’ve normalized realistic sexual imagery and frank talk about sexual health for diverse audiences, and yet our world is becoming ever more censored and restricted.
We all know sex sells, but it would sell a lot more with the support of both tech giants and the banks.
We have access to information at our fingertips 24-7, but on social media, that accessibility only applies if the content is not sex-related. Social media platforms have a long history of censoring sexual wellness, body positivity, and LGBTQI+ accounts that promote a balanced understanding of sexuality and sexual health.
Millennials and Generation Z, in particular, are being cheated by online norms. These are the generations that have grown up with the internet, having access to information on their phones around the clock. Yet, the platforms they have helped to build, the platforms they have made into billion-dollar industries, are censoring them, and restricting their access to much-needed information about sexual health.
What are the restrictions and why do they matter?
The restrictions are sometimes draconian and sometimes very vague.
Let’s look at Facebook, which also owns Instagram. The company’s stated policy: “Ads must not promote the sale or use of adult products or services.” In other words, no matter how tame we make our ads, they will be rejected.
Facebook also says: “Our nudity policies have become more nuanced over time. We understand that nudity can be shared for a variety of reasons, including as a form of protest, to raise awareness about a cause, or for educational or medical reasons.” This begs the question of whether nudity in the context of sexual health is more “educational” or more prurient. The guidelines, and their enforcement, do not make that distinction at all clear.
So, for us in the industry, these vague standards mean we walk a tightrope. Some posts are accepted while others get flagged and removed, and most of the time there is no logical explanation. We even had a relatively tame post taken down just last month with no reasoning offered.
Content created to raise awareness about diverse sexual practices and to promote sexual health, body positivity, and LGBTQI+ causes gets taken down. The result is that people — including the most vulnerable people, and including the people who made Facebook an empire — are being deprived of the opportunity to get much-needed information about sexual wellness.
Just when we thought times were changing and that surely these restrictions would soon be eased, Instagram announced an opt-in clause to see “sensitive” content, making it even harder for us to get sexual health information in front of those who need it most.
Sex is becoming more accepted IRL, so why is censorship getting worse?
It’s true that big business and popular attitudes in the U.S. and Europe are increasingly open to sexuality. Mainstream media no longer shy away from sex content. Celebrities are finally endorsing sex brands. Beauty and fashion retailers are starting to stock sex toys, and as sex continues to go mainstream, we’re finally starting to see investors move into this space. Our industry has been on a big upward growth curve for years, and the pandemic has further accelerated the growth. With many stores shutting and brands from other industries struggling over the past 18 months, investors who had been sitting on the sidelines started to pay attention to the sex toy industry. But with a surge in investment comes a big complication: additional censorship.
In the worlds of tech and finance, both dominated by white men, the adult industry is still seen as frivolous and financially risky. Even though much of the rest of the world has realized that sex is healthy, important and fun, these more conservative industries are lagging.
I believe it is because of these industries’ outdated point of view that we are continuing to see restrictions tightening on marketing, advertising and funding, instead of relaxing. The pleasure industry is in a Catch-22 — we need the finance and tech industries in order to grow, but at the same time, they are limiting us.
For example, last month, we saw OnlyFans do a complete 180 and reverse its decision to impose a ban on sex content on its platform — the very content that made the site a success in the first place. It turns out the company had been under pressure from the banks.
This story brings us right back to marketing and advertising, online and off. If there were fewer restrictions, marketing and advertising could help the industry grow, and make the industry more appealing to otherwise hesitant investors. But as of right now, the tech and finance industries are actually reinforcing one another’s hesitancy. A lack of investment minimizes our industry’s advertising budgets, and a lack of advertising and name recognition makes us seem like an unwise investment.
Cindy Gallop, advertising expert and CEO of Make Love Not Porn, has been rallying for more than a decade for advertising restrictions to be lifted for this very reason. In a campaign for the Change.org petition to end sexual wellness censorship on social media launched by pleasure products brand biird, she says, “The ability for sexual health and wellness brands to advertise, and therefore to scale, unlocks the ability to raise serious funding from venture capitalists and investors in search of unicorns, which in turn guarantees serious revenue for those platforms.”
It’s great that our industry is starting to attract investors, and this shows that all the work we have been doing over the past decades is actually normalizing sexuality, but until both the tech and banking worlds realize that sex shouldn’t be taboo, I think we’re going to continue to face further restrictions. It’s up to us as an industry to exert pressure on them and show them that we’re both profitable and a force for good. We all know sex sells, but it would sell a lot more with the support of both tech giants and the banks.
Kristen Tribby is the head of global marketing at Fun Factory.
