Let’s Talk About Sex Baby: Mapping the Issue of Sex Positivity on Twitter and ​ ​ Instagram Maria Świerblewska 12370363 MA New Media and Digital Culture Supervisor: Stijn Peeters Second Reader: Davide Beraldo Abstract This thesis provides an insight into the concept of sex positivity, which for the sake of the research is studied as a social issue originating from feminist theories. By grounding the concept in theories of feminism, activism and hashtag studies, the study aims to contribute to the definition of sex positivity. By taking Instagram and Twitter as case studies, the methodological process of issue mapping of sex-positive related hashtags is applied, where the publics of the sex positivity are detected in the issue networks and their dominant voices are analysed. The research discusses the similarities and the differences between the studied issue publics and relates the findings to the feminist and activits theories. The study concludes the issue mapping process with a set of sub-issues which are defining the digital discourse of sex positivity of the studied platforms. Keywords Sexpositive, Instagram, Twitter, feminism, activism, issue mapping 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.INTRODUCTION 5 ​ 1.1 Defining sex positivity 5 1.2 Role of social media 6 1.3 Research question 7 1.4 Research structure 7 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 10 2.1 Sex positivity concept 10 2.2 Feminism and activism 12 2.3 Hashtags and their publics 14 3. METHODOLOGY 17 3.1 Twitter and Instagram as case studies 17 3.2 Issue mapping 18 3.3. Finding the dominant voice 22 4. FINDINGS 25 4.1 Twitter’s sex positivity issue network analysis 25 4.1.1 Twitter’s ‘pornography’ cluster 27 4.1.2 Twitter’s ‘body positivity’ & ‘queer’ clusters 28 4.1.3 Twitter’s ‘bdsm’ cluster 29 4.1.4 Twitter’s ‘swinging’ cluster 31 4.1.5 Twitter’s ‘sex education’ cluster 32 4.1.6 Twitter’s ‘sex toys’ cluster 34 4.2 Dominant voice analysis in Twitter 34 4.2.1 The dominant voices of ‘pornography’ cluster 37 4.2.2 The dominant voices of ‘body positivity’ and ‘queer’ cluster 38 4.2.3 The dominant voices of ‘swinging’ and ‘bdsm’ clusters 39 4.2.4 The dominant voices of ‘sex toys’ and ‘sex education’ clusters 40 4.3 Instagram’s sex positivity issue network analysis 41 4.3.1 Instagram’s ‘body positivity’ cluster 43 4.3.2 Instagram’s ‘sex education’ and ‘health’ clusters 44 4.3.3 Instagram’s ‘sex & pleasure’ cluster 47 4.3.4 Instagram’s ‘feminism’ cluster 49 4.3.5 Instagram’s ‘art’ cluster 52 4.3.6 Instagram’s ‘queer’ cluster 54 4.4 Dominant voice analysis in Instagram 56 4.4.1 The dominant voices of ‘body positive’ cluster 58 4.4.2 The dominant voices of ‘sex education’ cluster 59 4.4.3 The dominant voices of ‘sex & pleasure’ cluster 60 4.4.4 The dominant voices of ‘health’ subcluster 61 3 4.4.5 The dominant voices of ‘queer’ cluster 62 4.4.6 The dominant voices of ‘feminism’ cluster 63 4.4.7 The dominant voices of ‘vibrators’ subcluster 64 5. DISCUSSION 66 5.1 Gendered publics 66 5.1.1 Gendering of ‘body positivity’ public 66 5.1.2 Gendering of ‘queer’ public 67 5.1.3 Gendering of ‘sex education’ and ‘sex toys’ 68 5.1.4 Gendering of ‘pornography’ public 69 5.2 Sex positivity as a feminist issue 70 5.2.1 Feminism and pornography 70 5.2.2 Feminism and pleasure 72 5.3 Sex positivity as activism 72 5.4 Impact of policies on the issue space 74 6. CONCLUSION 77 REFERENCES 80 APPENDIX 86 The following points present the necessary information to recreate the datasets used for this research. 86 4 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Defining sex positivity “PSA: ‘Sex positive’ is not a synonym for slutty or highly sexual. Sex positivity is about nonjudgmental embracing of sexual diversity; regardless of your own sexual desires or life choices. You can be slutty and sex negative. And you can be asexual and #sexpositive.”1 - tweets dr. Zhana Vrangalova, a well-known researcher, speaker, writer and coach within the area of sexuality studies, actively using Twitter and Instagram to promote her research and opinions on the topic of human sexuality. The same hashtag, which @Dr.Zhana employed in her tweet, is used also in a recent Instagram post depicting an image with inscription “Against abortion? Have a vasectomy!”2, shared recently by an online clothing shop @calibournelive.shop, right after the controversial anti-abortion bill was signed into law in Alabama, US (Kelly). One might ask, how does a professional sex therapist and a pro-abortion commercial post are found under the same “hashtag umbrella” of sex positivity? Once searched on the internet, the variety of definitions and topics included under the topic can be overwhelming, what one feminist blogger summarized with “put two feminists in a room together and you’ll have three definitions of the term sex positive’” (Mogilevsky). According to the definition by International Society for Sexual Medicine, the sex-positive approach means “having positive attitudes about sex and feeling comfortable with one’s own sexual identity and with the sexual behaviors of others”, including variety of attitudes and behaviors, like accepting different sexual orientations or practices (ISSM). The idea of sex positivity however is not just another new popular topic, as it has its historical roots in the feminist movement and was influenced by various contributions form sexuality studies, with the discussions regarding potential positive and negative implications of the sex-positive approach prevailing for decades (Mosher, 489-493). Various voices in the sex positivity discussion emphasize different aspects of the concept, some praise sex positivity as beneficial to sexuality education, preventing sexual abuse and improving relationships, while others see the movement as a media slogan which promotes commodified version of sexuality or suppresses development of knowledge regarding sexual pathologies (Ivanski & Kohut, 216). The disparities in understanding the movement are resulting also from the historical perspectives, with example of pornography being criticised by radical feminist 1 https://twitter.com/DrZhana/status/1089191259607101445 ​ 2 https://www.instagram.com/p/BxkPZ7wJzXy/ ​ 5 scholars during ‘sex wars’ times when they claimed it is degrading to women and advocated for state regulation of the matter, in comparison to nowadays, when porn can be considered by sex positive activists as liberalization and empowerment of sexuality (Ivanski & Kohut, 216). As there are various meanings emerging and new paradoxes are being constructed within discussion of sex positivity, the need to define the ideology more precisely emerged, as without defining it it is not possible to understand if the movement is underway and furtherly, where is it going with its consequences for the society (Ivanski & Kohut, 217). 1.2 Role of social media As the sex positivity movement evolved over the years, the social media platforms were among the media that help advance its agenda and pave the way into more mainstream discourse. As Locke et al. argues, social media platforms enabled specific groups like feminists to advance their political agendas as they can easier connect with like-minded actors, spread their ideas, shape new discourses and perform new versions of activism (4). Depending on the platform, there is a specific set of affordances and features that allow both the movements to be constructed as well as studied; this research aims at understanding the sex positivity movement by utilizing the hashtag feature and what it connotes. Employed by various social media platforms, hashtags are a way to mark a conversation, used as both clerical and semiotics indexing system, allowing at the same time fast retrieval of information on specific topic (Bonilla & Rosa, 5). Hashtags became a way to demonstrate certain ideas and spread, often activist, messages in the digital discourse, with an example of ‘hashtag activism’ as a term for “discursive protest on social media united through a hashtagged word, phrase or sentence” (Yang, 13). Different movements and communities connected to feminist ideas were able to expanding thanks to social media platforms, with a prominent example of the ‘#metoo’ campaign, which was described as “a time when sexual assault ​ survivors everywhere turned the internet into a platform for their voices and perspectives to be heard and respected” (Curtis). As more similar movements are appearing, it is an opportunity to explore how these social campaigns are being shaped in the online realm compared to their offline or historical ideals, as well as how the online platforms influence these movements, how do they enable construction of certain meanings, while possibly resisting others (Locke et al., 4). Regarding the sex positivity ununified concept, scholars argue that some of the discrepancies in the definitions may be attributed to different perspectives and needs of the educators, academics, writers and activists who use the term and construct its meaning (Ivanski & Kohut, 217). As sex positivity discourse is now disseminated and circulating in the realms of the web space, it can be useful to explore the 6 meanings and definitions that people identifying with this approach are creating through these platforms. 1.3 Research question As there are still many different or even diverging definitions of sex positivity, the research undertaken in this thesis paper aims to contribute to fill the gaps within the sex positivity definitions, taking an approach to define it through the online social media discourse, focusing on investigating the public of the sex positivity online. It investigates how the sex positivity concept is being represented and discussed on the platforms by its audiences, who associate themsleves with the idea of sex positivity by the tagging behavior on particular platforms.