Instagram Is A Massive Prude & It's Disrupting The Sexual Health Of Society

Facebook and Instagram are massive prudes and it’s disrupting the sexual health of society. Here is an excerpt from Instagram’s community guidelines:

“Instagram is a global platform for people of all ages and we have rules around nudity and sexual solicitation to ensure content is appropriate for everyone. We allow sex positive content and discussion, but we do not allow content that facilitates or coordinates sexual encounters between adults.”

It goes on to highlight how female nipples are not allowed, as well as posts that depict sexual acts and requests for sex or sexually explicit messages.

I want to make it clear that I am 100% supportive of the intent behind these guidelines: Consent is king. Safety is paramount. Minors must be protected.

My problem is with the execution and judgement of what is considered acceptable and what isn’t. Put simply, questionable posts are flagged and removed by algorithms/AI whose decision can then be appealed and supposedly reviewed by a real person.

If you appeal and your appeal gets rejected, you get a warning against your name. If you don’t appeal, you get a warning against your name. Too many warnings and your account will be deleted. Users are not told how many warnings they will get prior to deletion. Users are not told exactly why their post was removed, other than that it violates community standards.

There are a few problems with this system.

Without specific feedback, users cannot determine where they went wrong. They know that they took a post too far in some way, but they don’t know exactly how it was wrong.

Was the picture too suggestive?
Were their captions too sexual?
Did they choose a flagged hashtag?
Did someone report them?

All of this ambiguity results in one of two responses from the user. Either they give up on it all and decide to post whatever they like, community standards be damned. Or they dampen their discussion, moderate their opinions and post less compelling content.

Both responses are impacting the online space in a way that wrecks the experience for both the user and the platform.

The first response results in all out porn being posted. With the users posting more and more explicit content until their channel is removed, at which point they start the entire process again. I have seen this play out with some of my followers who are literally on their ninth iteration and are still going strong.

Personally, I am not keen on being exposed to porn without prior knowledge and consent, and I know that many people agree. If they wanted porn, they would specifically look for it.

But it is the second response that is far more concerning from a society wide perspective.

If a user wishes to stay on Instagram or Facebook, they need to comply with the community guidelines. Problem is that those guidelines are ambiguous, unevenly enforced, and violations are not clearly defined.

The result is that those users will post less controversial content in order to stay on the platform. Every time a post of theirs gets flagged and removed, they know that they are closer to losing their entire channel, thus they pull back their content.

This matters because it is limiting the discussion of sex and sexuality to fit into what is currently considered normal. It is less risky and controversial to post what is acceptable in the mainstream, so users will in effect be being trained to share only those posts.

Thus, the entire online discussion around sexuality will be being restricted. And that restriction can be dangerous.

I believe that sexuality is directly linked to mental health. If you have a desire, fetish, kink, fantasy or preference that isn’t considered normal, or isn’t being fulfilled, you will likely suffer some form of mental affliction.

Attempting to marry your inner identity with what you see projected externally (online) will cause dissonance as you fail to see anything that represents who you are, what you want, and what you believe.

Just like mental illness, some of this can be avoided if we open up, talk honestly and break the stigma. Readers of my book will be exposed to a variety of different types of sexual expression. My followers will be privy to nuanced discussions around different kinks and other forms of play. The comments between my followers will show us all that we are not alone.

The more we talk and share, the less stigma there will be. The less stigma, the better.

So, when Facebook prudishly removes nuanced discussions around anything and everything that deviates from their version of acceptable, we all suffer. And because those platforms are so large, their choices can and do impact us all.

I don’t know the answer to this problem, because policing such a large online space seems damn near impossible without some issues like I am experiencing here. I just want to highlight the fact that there is an issue, and that issue needs to be addressed.

Twitter is far more accepting of sex, sexuality and nudity on the platform. Channels that post NSFW content have their posts hidden, but the user can choose to have them automatically revealed. They are also far more accepting of most all discussions; I am yet to have any of my posts removed.

Finally, it is also worth noting the schizophrenic nature of Facebook and Instagram. They make money by having users spend as much time on site as possible. The longer we stay, and the more times we return, the more adverts they show us.

Therefore, they want to make an environment that is compelling, engaging and addictive. To do this the algorithms feed us things that are controversial and appealing. This is why you get shown news articles and posts that anger you. And it is why you see so many pictures and videos of hot people working out in tight yoga pants/or topless with a six pack.

True, those posts fit within their community guidelines, but the ones that are more sexual (tighter clothes, sexual movements etc) get far more engagement – for good reason.

I am concerned that if we allow ourselves to be trained into talking about sex (or any issue) by an algorithm, we risk ostracising and inadvertently shaming vulnerable members of our community.

Just like mental health, sexual health is important. It is only through open and honest discussions can we hope to remove some of the stigma and grow together. To add my bit, I have released KINK Volume 1, a collection of 33 erotic short stories and poems, out now for free in its entirety. Enjoy!