Thread by @kittystryker

I've seen some tweets and articles equate "explicit" content with "adult" content. As someone who has worked intimately with the adult industry, I can promise you those distinctions are both vastly different, and yet purposefully vague.

Explicit feels clear - it's porn, right, it's clearly visible sex acts, XXX, NC-17.

I mean, it's worth noting how even now blowjobs are seen as warranting a PG-13, while cunnilingus = NC-17.

cheatsheet.com/entertainment/…

But what is "adult"? What is "explicit"? "I'll know it when I see it" is an incredibly relative statement.

Who decides when a nude is "explicit" and when it's "adult"? What is "art" and what is "porn"? Who decides?

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation certainly wants to.

I'll tell you one thing- we've seen this before.

And what gets deemed as "explicit" is fat women buzzfeednews.com/article/lauren…

Black women theguardian.com/technology/202…

LGBTQ people theestablishment.co/why-are-tumblr…

I can't promote any consent culture content on FB because it's deemed "explicit".

Sexual wellness brands and sex educators are also shadowbanned on most social media. If they aren't straight up kicked off.
vice.com/en/article/y3g…

And of course god forbid you want to talk about sex worker rights, especially as a sex worker.

wired.com/story/sex-work…

But you know who DOES benefit from this?

Charities that make their money off sex trafficking campaigns. Who now get to be the only voice of sex workers and sex worker rights. Even though they lie to line their pockets. change.org/p/sex-traffick…

How convenient!

And of course not only do they get to dominate the conversation with their Christian moralism (they're all Christian orgs, y'all) but they also influence policy that impacts consensual sex workers - often causing them direct and lasting harm. marketplace.org/2019/04/30/sex…

Let's talk for a second about the number of scandals that have popped up with these anti-trafficking groups - not just pushing migrants to claim they were trafficked to avoid legal repercussions...

nswp.org/sites/default/…

...But also charity workers fucking raping and abusing people in their care??? Why isn't there an angry pushback against that?????

opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-traf…

I mean, these groups are doing so little to actually combat sex trafficking, but ARE hurting consensual adult sex workers AND are stealing money to line their pockets

fox13now.com/news/fox-13-in…

truthout.org/articles/speci…

Anyway, one such organization - NCOSE - praised itself for forcing OnlyFans to ban explicit content, saying smugly "it is the “creators” who pay the high price of psychological, emotional, and physical harm that the sex industry imparts".

endsexualexploitation.org/articles/explo…

Here's their "dirty dozen", which should give you an idea of whom they're going after next.

BTW, Twitter is on that list. endsexualexploitation.org/dirtydozenlist…

NCOSE is a group born out of 1960s church censorship groups trying to prevent people from reading "filth" like "1984", "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", "Howl", "Lysistrata", "Fanny Hill" etc.

It's never been just about banning porn. It's about banning pleasure.

It's about forcing us into a Christian authoritarian state.

Mark my words. If we don't start naming it for what it is, and pushing hard against it, we're going to enter our very own Dark Ages. Again.

Anyway, I'm going back to writing a longer piece about this - if you learned something about sex trafficking charities and their scandals, or about censorship vagueness, consider sending me some $ on venmo -
@kittystryker - or subscribing to my Patreon patreon.com/kittystryker

@threadreaderapp unroll

OH I should add!

The whole arbitrary distinction between "explicit" and "adult", the biases of who gets away with pushing the envelope and I go doesn't, and how that impacts moderation, can all be seen clearly in that BBC investigation bbc.com/news/uk-582558…