Sex Positive Social Media

About the Authors

Dr. Zahra Stardust is a socio-legal scholar working at the intersections of sexual rights, sexual surveillance and the law. She is a former Penthouse Pet, Hustler Honey and Feminist Porn Awards Heartthrob of the year and her doctoral research examined the regulation of queer and feminist pornographies online. Zahra is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society at Queensland University of Technology and an Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.  She has published research on  public interest sex techsexual content moderationdeplatforming sex, post-work politicspolice surveillance on dating apps, sex positive legal thinking, whore stigma in the criminal justice systemsex worker mental health, sex in the academy, queer pregnancy and parenting, pornographic authenticity, community-led approaches to chemsex, and HIV treatment and prevention. 

Dr. Emily van der Nagel researches social media identities, platforms, and cultures, with a focus on anonymity and pseudonymity. Emily has published work on secondary or alternative social media accounts, ways people negotiate unknowable algorithms, embodied verification on NSFW Reddit, and the shift from usernames to profiles in social media. Her most-cited article, co-authored with Jordan Frith, argues that we would lose dynamic, engaging social media practices in a move to the “real name web”. Emily’s book, Sex and Social Media, co-authored with Katrin Tiidenberg, takes a feminist, sex-positive approach to how social media platforms shape and restrict sex, and how sexual identities, practices, and communities must all negotiate platforms to survive and thrive. Emily tweets at @emvdn.

Prof. Katrin Tiidenberg is a Professor of Participatory Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University, Estonia. She is the author and editor of multiple books on social media, digital cultures and digital research methods, including, most recently “Tumblr” (2021, co-authored by Natalie Ann Hendry and Crystal Abidin), “Sex and Social Media” (2020, co-authored by Emily van der Nagel) and “Metaphors of Internet: Ways of Being in the Age of Ubiquity” (2020, co-edited with Annette Markham). She is currently wrapping up research projects on platformization of sexuality and on the role of the internet in young people’s political participation and starting another one on visual digital trust. Her research interests span social media, digital cultures, networked visuality, internet governance and self-care. More info at: https://katrin-tiidenberg.com/

Jiz Lee (they/them) has performed in porn since 2005, in projects spanning adult films. A versatile performer and key player in the queer porn movement, Jiz is the recipient of multiple AVN and XBiz Award industry nominations and Feminist Porn Awards, and was an honoree of The Trans 100. Jiz’s first book, Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection and Privacy, is an anthology by adult film industry workers on the social stigma of sex work. They are a member of the Porn Studies Journal Editorial Board and the co-editor of the Porn Studies Journal Special Issue: Porn and Labour. They are a contributing Sexuality Chapter editor of Trans Bodies Trans Selves (2nd Edition). Their writing – which spans online piracy, paying for porn, consent and feminism – has appeared in publications including The Feminist Porn Book, Thriving in Sex Work, ASK: Building Consent Culture, and Global Internet Society Watch: Sexual Rights and the Internet.

Em Coombes (they/them) is a scholar-organizer based in Las Vegas. Their work investigates the impacts of increasing surveillance and changing digital landscapes on political mobilization. A PhD student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, their research focuses on the 2018 sex worker-led hashtag campaign #LetUsSurvive #SurvivorsAgainstSESTA launched against FOSTA/SESTA. Emily previously worked as the North American Regional Correspondent to the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and currently serves as the Resident Movement Scholar for Hacking//Hustling.

Assoc. Prof Mireille Miller-Young, PhD, is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, Non-Resident Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin. An award-winning author and educator, Mireille specializes in race, sexuality, and feminist politics. Dr. Mireille’s widely acclaimed and taught book, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography (Duke University Press, 2014) was awarded the Sara A. Whaley Prize for Best Book on Women and Labor by the National Women’s Studies Association and the John Hope Franklin Prize for Best Book by the American Studies Association. She has published in numerous anthologies, academic journals, and news outlets, and has been interviewed for various books, articles, radio programs, and documentaries. Along with Constance Penley, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and Tristan Taormino, Mireille is a co-editor of The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, finalist for Lambda Literary’s Anthology of the Year, with translations now published in German and Spanish. She is also lead editor and of the recent volume Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a Culture of Capital.