Sex, Education & Censorship: How Harmful Shadowbanning Can Really Be

Photo by Anna Shvets / Pexels

“Name a sex scene that was completely irrelevant to the plot. I’ll go first…” So begins the TikTok trend that aims to discredit intimacy and pleasure depicted on screen.

You might expect such a movement to be headed by conservative boomers pleading, “won’t somebody please think of the children!” but you’d be wrong. In fact, it’s the children themselves (Gen Z, to be specific) who are calling for fewer sex scenes in media, on the basis that they find them “awkward” and “uncomfortable.”

Elsewhere, content creators specialising in sexual and female health are experiencing their own kind of conservatism online. As it stands, a lot of this content (aimed to educate about issues like consent, female health, pleasure, and more) is being marked as explicit, and therefore in violation of the terms of service of platforms like Instagram and TikTok. But why is this kind of censorship happening, and what kind of effect is it having on our culture? 

‘Shadow-banned’ is a relatively new term in the world of online censorship. It involves a person’s account being hidden without their knowledge, effectively ‘banning’ them from posting to a new audience.

Over the past few years, many creators specialising in female health and sex education have reported being shadow banned by Instagram and TikTok for sharing content relating to pleasure, masturbation, sexuality, and gynae-related issues. This has led to a restriction on this type of educational content, which can be detrimental to those who may not be able to find that information elsewhere. 

Photo by Anna Shvets / Pexels

Psychosexual therapist and author of The Science of Sex, Kate Moyle, says there is a huge amount of censorship and shadow banning occurring on social media, “which is heavily loaded on words, anatomy and language related to women’s health.”

She says: “What this means is that often education and sometimes medical and health awareness, like gynaecological cancer information for example, gets swept up in the censorship, and access to that information is limited. It also reinforces messages of shame, or that this language should in some way be hidden.” 

Some sex educators and content creators have found a way to get around this censorship. Instead of the word ‘sex,’ they say ‘seggs.’ They’ll write things like ‘v*lva,’ ‘org*sm,’ and ‘p*rn.’ For many, playing with language and tricking the algorithm works for them, but for others, it’s not enough.

Irish sex toy business owner Shawna Scott was forced to set up an entirely new Instagram account for her company, Sex Siopa, after she was informed that only people who already followed her would see her posts. She had previously noticed a steep decline in reach and engagement. Last year, she said: “I’m sad and angry that by trying to do something positive in the world by being honest, loud and proud about seggs communication, I’ve actually shot my own business in the foot by having ‘S*x’ in the name as we see tech platforms becoming more and more conservative as the years go on.” 

Similarly, back in 2021, sex educator Jenny Keane started an online campaign to ensure her Instagram account, where she discusses sexual health and pleasure in a holistic manner, was not banned. Eventually her account was marked as ‘educational’ – something she said couldn’t have happened without the support of her followers.

“I always say that what we are doing here is learning how to expand our definition of the word s:xuality to include more than just penetrative s:x,” she said at the time. “In a country where s:xual shame still clings tight to us and to the land […] to see the amount of you supporting this account PUBLICLY is something I’m still getting over.” 

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But it’s not just accounts that are being shadow banned, it’s people too – and more importantly, their experiences. Writer and women’s health advocate Ally Hensley recently shared a post on the 40 most censored words by Meta. These included ‘vagina,’ ‘vulva,’ ‘discharge,’ ‘cervix,’ and ‘nipples.’ This research was carried out by period brand Bodyform, who found that 46% of people recognise the stigma that still exists around using medical terminology to describe women’s anatomy.

Ally was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) Syndrome when she was 16, a rare disorder which meant that she was born without a vagina and uterus. She largely uses her platform to educate on the condition, as well as the stigma that still exists around women’s gynaecological health. She says that censorship not only affects the content being shared, but the person who is sharing the content. 

“It’s affecting the people who are speaking about their experiences online, but what on Earth is it doing to the scroller?” she says. “To the person who isn’t ready to talk to their family or their friends or their partner? In turn, they’re then shadow banning themselves. I’ve shadow banned myself my whole life. I’ve sensored myself, and I’ve cancelled myself on more than one occasion. I want to say to people – please don’t censor yourself, please don’t shadow ban yourself, because it just leads to shame and poor mental health and so much sadness.” 

Ally says that censoring this kind of content only validates the feelings of insecurity that a person struggling with their body might be feeling. “If you come to the table going ‘I’m really not sure about myself, I’m not sure about my worth, I’m not sure about my enoughness,’ and then see [accounts being censored], you go, ‘well, actually, now that’s just validated it.’” Ally adds that although a campaign now exists to challenge these shadow bans, “I think it’s going to be a slow process. There is so much education online, and it needs to be used positively.”

But where there is information being censored online, there is an increase in education in pop culture. In 2020, Hulu series Normal People was praised for its accurate and honest depiction of sex and consent, while Netflix’s Sex Education has been commended for its no holds barred approach to intimacy and sexuality.

Therapist Kate says that intimacy co-ordinators are doing incredible work to make sex scenes on screen and stage “more accurate and more representative.” She says: “Previously, we were missing consent, condom use, sex not going perfectly… They depicted unrealistic angles or positions which in real-life would be unattainable.

Many people use these versions of sex as a comparison or reference point as they are readily available and widely accepted in terms of their placement in popular culture. So making [these scenes] more representative and realistic only helps people to break away from idealised versions of sex, which they often feel that they can’t compete with, which can create anxieties or worries about their own sex lives.” 

While many creators may be struggling to share their work on social media, it does appear as though TV and film has become somewhat of a mecca for those wanting to depict pleasure as accurately as possible – with all the messiness and awkwardness that oftentimes comes with it.

Sex can tell a story, it’s a part of life, but it’s education and support that will continue to empower women – whether that language is censored or not. 

This article originally appeared in the March/April issue of STELLAR 

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