Sex Positive Social Media

Suggested Reading

Sexual content and pornography on social media

Albury, K 2018, ‘Sexual Expression in Social Media’, pp. 444-462 in J Burgess, AE Marwick & T Poell (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, Sage, London.

Jones, A 2020, Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry, New York University Press, New York.

Lee, J (ed) 2015, Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy, ThreeL, Berkeley.

Miller-Young, M 2014, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography, Duke University Press, Durham.

Paasonen, S 2018, ‘Online Porn’, pp. 551–563 in N Brügger & I Milligan (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Web History, SAGE Publications, London.

Paasonen, S, Jarrett, K & Light, B 2019, #NSFW: Sex, Humor, and Risk in Social Media, MIT Press, Cambridge.

Paasonen, S, Attwood, F, McKee, A, Mercer, J & Smith, C 2021, Objectification: On the Difference Between Sex and Sexism, Routledge, London.

Porn Studies 2019, vol. 6, no. 3, Forum: Tumblr.

Stardust, Z 2019, From Amateur Aesthetics to Intelligible Orgasms: Pornographic Authenticity and Precarious Labour in the Gig Economy. AG About Gender - International Journal of Gender Studies, 8(16), pp. 1-29.

Tiidenberg, K 2020, ‘NSFW as an Intervention: The Case of Sexy Selfies on Tumblr’, pp. 142–153 in A McCracken, A Cho, L Stein & IN Hoch (eds), A Tumblr Book: Platforms and Cultures, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Tiidenberg, K & van der Nagel, E 2020, Sex and Social Media, Emerald, Bingley.

Tiidenberg, K, Hendry, NA & Abidin, C 2021, Tumblr, Polity Press, Cambridge.

LGBTQ users and online sexual cultures

Carrasco, M and Kerne, A 2018 ‘Queer Visibility: Supporting LGBT+ Selective Visibility on Social Media’, Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM)

Dhoest A and Szulc, L 2016 'Navigating Online Selves: Social, Cultural, and Material Contexts of Social Media Use by Diasporic Gay Men’ (2016) 2 Social Media + Society 2056305116672485.

Duguay, S.  2022, Personal but Not Private: Queer Women, Sexuality, and Identity Modulation on Digital Platforms, Oxford University Press.

Hutson, JA et al., and others 2018, ‘Debiasing Desire: Addressing Bias & Discrimination on Intimate Platforms’  2 Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 73:1.

Kornstein, H 2019, ‘Under Her Eye: Digital Drag as Obfuscation and Countersurveillance’, Surveillance & Society, vol. 17, no. 5.

Lingel, J & Golub, A 2015, ‘In Face on Facebook: Brooklyn’s Drag Community and Sociotechnical Practices of Online Communication’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 536–553.

Monea, A., 2022, The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight. MIT Press.

Triggs, AH, Møller, K and Neumayer, C 2021, ‘Context Collapse and Anonymity among Queer Reddit Users23 New Media & Society 5.

Rodriguez, JA 2022, LGBTQ Incorporated: YouTube and the Management of Diversity’ Journal of Homosexuality.

Simpson, E and Semaan, B  2021, ‘For You, or For “You”? Everyday LGBTQ+ Encounters with TikTok 4 Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 252:1.

Southerton et al., 2021, ‘Restricted Modes: Social Media, Content Classification and LGBTQ Sexual Citizenship’ 23 New Media & Society 920.

Wang, S & Ding, R 2022, ‘“Business Inquiries are Welcome”: Sex Influencers and the Platformization of Non-Normative Media on Twitter’, Television & New Media, pp. 1–18.

Sex work and deplatforming

Are, C 2021, ‘The Shadowban Cycle: An Autoethnography of Pole Dancing, Nudity and Censorship on Instagram’, Feminist Media Studies, DOI 10.1080/14680777.2021.1928259.

Barwulor, C, McDonald, A, Hargittai, E & Redmiles, EM 2021, ‘“Disadvantaged in the American-dominated Internet”: Sex, Work, and Technology’, in Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-16.

Blunt, D and Wolf, A 2020, ‘Erased: The Impact of FOSTA-SESTA & The Removal of Backpage’, Hacking//Hustling, https://hackinghustling.org/erased-the-impact-of-fosta-sesta-2020/.

Blunt, D and Stardust, Z, 2021, Automating whorephobia: sex, technology and the violence of deplatforming: An interview with Hacking//Hustling. Porn Studies, 8(4), pp.350-366.

Blunt, D, Wolf, A, Coombes, E and Mullin, S 2020, ‘Posting Into the Void: Studying the Impact of Shadowbanning on Sex Workers and Activists’, Hacking//Hustling.

Foldes, L. 2022, Sex Workers Built the Internet. Parsons.

McDonald, A., Barwulor, C., Mazurek, M.L., Schaub, F. and Redmiles, E.M., 2021, " It's stressful having all these phones": Investigating Sex Workers' Safety Goals, Risks, and Practices Online. In 30th {USENIX} Security Symposium ({USENIX} Security 21).

Molldrem, S 2018, ‘Tumblr’s Decision to Deplatform Sex Will Harm Sexually Marginalized People’, Wussy, 6 December, .

Lingel, J 2021, The Gentrification of the Internet: How to Reclaim Our Digital Freedom, University of California Press, Oakland.

Swartz, L 2020, ‘Transactional Politics: Getting Paid and Not Getting Paid’, pp. 76–107 in New Money: How Payment Became Social Media, Yale University Press, New Haven.

Sybert, J 2021, ‘The Demise of #NSFW: Contested Platform Governance and Tumblr’s 2018 Adult Content Ban’, New Media & Society, pp. 1–21. 

York, J 2021, ‘The War on Sex’, pp. 145–165 in Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism, Verso Books, London.


Platform governance and content moderation

Bennett, T & Stardust, Z 2022, ‘Positive Potential: Sex Positive Legal Thinking and Sex Work Regulation in Australia’, Monash University Law Review, vol. 48, no. 1.

Duguay, S, Burgess, J & Suzor, N 2020, ‘Queer Women’s Experiences of Patchwork Platform Governance on Tinder, Instagram, and Vine’, Convergence, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 237–252.

Henry, N & Witt, A 2021, ‘Governing Image-Based Sexual Abuse: Digital Platform Policies, Tools, and Practices’, pp. 749-768 in J Bailey, A Flynn & N Henry (eds), The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse, Emerald, Bingley. 

Henry, N, Vasil, S, & Witt, A 2021. Digital citizenship in a global society: a feminist approach. Feminist Media Studies, 1-18.

Haimson, OL, & Hoffmann, A L 2016. Constructing and enforcing" authentic" identity online: Facebook, real names, and non-normative identities. First Monday.

McKee, A, McNair, B & Watson, A-F 2015, ‘Sex and the Virtual Suburbs: The Pornosphere and Community Standards’, pp. 159–174 in PJ Maginn & C Steinmetz (eds), (Sub)Urban Sexscapes: Geographies and Regulation of the Sex Industry, Routledge, London.

Oliva, TD, Antonialli, DM and Gomes, A 2021, ‘Fighting Hate Speech, Silencing Drag Queens? Artificial Intelligence in Content Moderation and Risks to LGBTQ Voices Online’, Sexuality & Culture, vol. 25, pp. 700–732.

Stardust, Z 2018, ‘Safe For Work: Feminist Porn, Corporate Regulation and Community Standards’, pp. 155–179 in C Dale & R Overell (eds), Orienting Feminism: Media, Activism and Cultural Representation, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Thach, H, Mayworm, S, Delmonaco, D, & Haimson, O 2022, (In) visible moderation: A digital ethnography of marginalized users and content moderation on Twitch and Reddit. New Media & Society, 14614448221109804.

Tiidenberg, K 2021, ‘Sex, Power and Platform Governance’, Porn Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 381–393.

Witt, A, Suzor, N & Huggins, A 2019, ‘The Rule of Law on Instagram: An Evaluation of the Moderation of Images Depicting Women’s Bodies’, University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 42, pp. 557–596.