Twitch allowing more nudity after disproportionately banning female streamers | Twitch confirmed its policy banning nudity was sexist.::Twitch confirmed its policy banning nudity was sexist.
Sexism is an issue with gaming for sure but banning nudity is not sexism.
It is if women’s nipples are nudity but men’s nipples are not.
Why not have a “no nipples” policy in general? I’m guessing that if parents think that their 7 year olds are going on Twitch to see boobs, they could lose some viewers.
But yes, policies should be applied equally.
Because having a no nipples policy is a stupid way to live your life. Free your nipples.
I’d rather not show you my nipples.
Fine keep your secrets.
Something wrong with them huh?
This is not about women being free to go shirtless which is fair, this about eyeballs and ads. This lazy sex work. This corporate giants profiteering. This about that corporate giants maintaining brand image control. Reducing it to a slogan is missing the rest of the picture.
Free the nipple
I agree with you but this is more of a societal issue and not necessarily a Twitch issue. I think Twitch following the standards set by society was reasonable however them pushing to improve upon those is absolutely welcome.
I disagree. At one point in time it was society saying black people couldn’t eat with white people and it was people and companies willing to push that boundary that changed this.
We are all members of society and it is on us to constantly push back against the unfair traditions in our community.
Did you just equate Jim Crow with not being able to see titties on a mainstream streaming site?
You know you can see titties on other streaming sites, right?
This is just a bad strawman. People want equality, not titties. Jim Crow is only used as a analogy to show that pushing back on inequalities is a good thing, and “we’re just following societal standards” isn’t a really good excuse.
Yikes why even reply to people if you want to be this deliberately dishonest.
Yikes, you’re the one who brought up Jim Crow in the context of seeing titties on twitch.
How else am I supposed to interpret your desire for society to progress when you go from Jim Crow straight to “free the nipple”
You could have brought of women’s suffrage or any other women’s struggle, but you chose the racism side of things.
How dare wanting to treat people fairly be cited when wanting to treat people fairly. Time to strawman that people just want boobies.
I would have to sit here wading through accusations and strawmans to try and get anything through to you. That’s why it’s a yikes because you don’t care to be more mature than a 15 year old about this and it show.
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Bad take in my opinion. It’s quite clear the difference between the two in our society.
Wait a minute could our society be sexist?
Maybe, maybe not, that really makes no difference here
Yeah, but that difference is specifically rooted in sexism and misogyny. The very fact that we can all see the difference that isn’t much of a difference shows that there’s a divide that needs to be bridged. We only think women’s nipples are inappropriate because we were taught to. Plenty of cultures around the world don’t see breasts as inappropriate, and they’re doing just fine.
Yeah, but you’re not going to stop people (generally) from getting horny when looking at breasts no matter how much you educate them. So idk what your goal is.
It’s hard-wired.
No, it’s not. People at nude beaches or at nudist colonies aren’t walking around with erections all day. African communities where women don’t wear tops don’t have guys jerking off whenever they get a chance. The sexualization of breasts in our culture is a product of our association with breasts as a purely sexual object, and the viewing of them as a purely sexual act. The way that stops being a thing is by allowing them to exist in non-sexual contexts, and teaching a new generation that they are just like any other body part.
If a girl nonchalantly takes off her top while going about her day today, it will be viewed as a sexual thing, because anyone who sees will have only seen such an act in sexual contexts. If, for several years, women all around the US are empowered to nonchalantly take off their tops whenever feel like it, it will become a common, non-sexualized act, because it will be associated more with everyday life than with what people do behind closed doors.
Just out of curiosity, total non sequitur here:
Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?
Your “non-sequitur” is trying insinuate that a person’s innate sexual orientation toward certain genders mirrors an innate sexual response to certain body parts, which I don’t disagree with. I find women beautiful, and in the right circumstances, I have a sexual response to that beauty. The difference lies between simple attraction and horniness.
I’m attracted to a beautiful woman wearing clothes that compliment her beauty. Do I immediately get a hard on? No. Do I become unable to function as a result of seeing her? No. Whatever reaction I have toward her beauty is my own circumstance to handle - she is under no obligation to change herself based on my reaction. I’m attracted to her, but seeing women wearing well-fitting clothes is a normal part of my day, so I don’t find it overtly sexual. It can become sexual if the woman starts flirting with me, for example, but just wearing nice clothes doesn’t make me horny, because most women wear nice clothes simply because they want to.
I see my wife topless all the time, and while I think she’s beautiful, I don’t get horny at every sight of her, nor should I. Most of the time she just doesn’t want to deal with putting a shirt on - she’s not trying to turn me on, and I’m not getting tuned on. This is a normal example a woman comfortable with being topless in a non-sexual situation, and a man, used to seeing that woman topless, not having a strong reaction to it. This is how all men, regardless of sexual orientation, would see breasts if women were as comfortable not wearing a shirt around men as my wife is around me. If my wife were to start teasing me and trying to turn me on, I would start getting horny, because that’s the appropriate time for a person to have a sexual response to another person’s body.
A horny teenage boy is a prime target for abuse. You may think it’s cultural, but you may also be wrong. Hormones are a helluva drug.
A horny teenage boy better learn to keep his hands to himself. I don’t give a shit what he feels compelled to do, and neither should any woman who happened to set him off.
That doesn’t mean society isn’t sexist. There’s lots of bullshit society is sexist about like how men can’t be loving and affectionate parents.
Or how you can mutilate male sexual organs for profit but can’t do so to female sexual organs
Society also says a kilt and a plaid skirt are two different things. Yet my Scottish roommate wore a plaid skirt from Zara to a party and no one batted an eye.
Free the balls, man.
Show of hands, how many here have jerked it to male nipples?
Some people have jerked it to fully clothed women. Ought we ban every woman from twitch? Maybe enforce hijabs?
Too sexy, must enforce nikabs!
Keep it flaccid or we’re going full burka!
No, that’s literally how the laws in most countries work. It turns out men and women have different biology.
There are literal sex differences between men and women. If we include those in the definition of sexism, we cheapen the word.
You should apply for the fantastic four with that much stretch. They’re fucking nipples and we literally stick them in the mouths of our infants. You know damn well that we’re not talking about the differences between men and women but the way society and twitch threats people differently.
Even men who present as women on twitch have seen this. Finnster has had bans for shit nobody would care about if he weren’t so feminine looking.
Yes, we’re talking about the way society and twitch treats people differently… on the basis of physical sexual characteristics expressly regarding the topic of physical sexual characteristics. I’ve never used Twitch, but unless there’s something I’m supposed to be reading inbetween the lines, I don’t see the problem with banning female nipples. If society is going to have any standards on the rejection of nudity, I don’t see why the line has to be drawn somewhere before nipples and no further.
When you say “Physical sexual characteristics,” do you understand that the word “sexual” refers not to the act of sex but to a person’s biological sex? Physical sexual characteristics include anything that expresses differently due to differing amounts of gonadocorticoids, like a person’s height, their body and facial hair, their body shape, the sound of their voice, their ease with developing muscle mass, etc…
A woman’s (or femme presenting person’s) nipples are not sex organs any more than a man’s mustache is.
I agree with all of that. I don’t see our two comments as in conflict, except that when I said “societ[al]… standards on the rejection of nudity”, I didn’t draw the line at sex organs. But I don’t think Twitch is going to ban short people any time soon, if you’re worried about a slippery slope.
My original reply was in regards to the word “sexist”. If your definition of “sexist” is so morally neutral that it includes literally any kind of discrimination between sexes, then that’s fine; this is “sexist”, and so are all of us. But since most people use “sexist” to refer to a moral transgression, it seems silly to me to pretend that male and female nipples are the same, and I don’t see any moral hazard in saying so.
Whether or not society should care so much about titties isn’t a question I was trying to address, only that it’s not sexist to do so.
It is sexist to treat men and women differently without a good reason, and it doesn’t seem that there’s a good reason in this case, which means that doing so is sexist.
Regardless of morals, from a biological perspective, treating male and female nipples differently is irrational, since male chests are also physical sexual characteristics. To be clear, I’m differentiating from the perspective of “these two body parts are shaped differently and therefore have different needs when fashioning clothing” perspective. There’s a good reason to do that (though there isn’t a good reason to enforce it). But from a “one is sexual, one is not, so one needs to be covered and the other doesn’t” perspective, what’s the reason? You indicated that they’re physical sexual characteristics but as I already pointed out, physical sexual characteristics aren’t generally required to be covered. People find both men’s and women’s chests (and other body parts) sexually attractive, so that isn’t it, either.
If you’d say that society treats them differently because we’ve historically objectified and sexualized women (and continue to do so) and as a result women’s bodies are considered sexual in a way that men’s aren’t, and this is ingrained in our culture at this point then I would agree with you. I just don’t agree that that’s a “good reason.”
What’s the difference between male and female nipples?
Female nipples produce milk, for one. Note, that doesn’t mean I think they should be banned.
Males can also lactate if they have elevated levels of prolactin (which can be genetic). It’s fascinating stuff, some cis guys can allegedly get “sympathy lactation” after their partners give birth. There are also quite a few other species of mammals that have males lactating over females.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-males-can-lactate/
However, guys, if you do start spontaneously secreting fluid out of your nipples, I would suggest getting yourself to a doctor.
I would rather not see any nudity on my gaming streams…
I’m all for allowing nudity in general, but it would be nice if you could actually block it or at least remove it from your recommendations.
One time I accidently clicked on one of these bathtub streamers and since then there always is one in my recommendation, with no way to remove it. I literally had to install a browser extention “Unwanted Twitch” to finally get rid of it.
My home page is literally bathtub streamers and horny VR chat streamers, I think it’s because I watch VR chat meme streamers (lolathon, darrenzeus) and the algorithm just thinks that means I want horny shit. I’ll have to look at that extension.
Removed by mod
It’s crazy to me that Twitch doesn’t natively have an option to blur thumbnails based on content tags, yet HAS mature content tags (for M-rated games). This service launched in 2011.
That’s it. If other viewers of streamers you watch are watching those streams, it’ll push them to you
Allowing you to block them would also be sexist of you. You need to be reeducated by showing you even more of them to correct your sexism.
It’s a circular game and in the end, nobody wins.
Wat
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Not enough apparently
I can do this. EQUALITY!!!
Twitch is stuck between a religious rock and a hard-as-wood place.
Hard-as-rock?
Boners
They meant hard ass wood
Why is twitch becoming a cam soft porn site? It was supposed to be about gaming. I just want to watch people play games.
You’re in luck! There are millions of people playing games on Twitch. Who knew?
Definitely not RabbePompano.
Well, you see, it turned out that people are far more willing to fork over money when they get to see boobs instead of noobs.
goes on Twitch
finds game
watches someone play it
At some point in there I completely ignored all the discount OnlyFans over on IRL and Just Chatting tags.
That said: An opt-in with specific categories would halt a lot of the people complaining. Been awhile since I’ve dug into websites design, though thay shouldn’t be too difficult to implement, especially as they already have tags.
There’s a lot of good content under the umbrella of. Just chatting. From scam baiters to glassblowers and musicians, all trying to do their best to attract viewers.
It hasn’t been strictly gaming for many years,
What is interesting is if you don’t click on or watch those streams Twitch doesn’t recommend them to you.
A lot of the complaining is often just an unaware self report which is kinda funny.
No, they’ll definitely still show on the front page if under Just Chatting, even if you log out, open a private window, or use a different computer altogether. It’s basically random, as far as I can tell, or just showing popular streams (or both).
Sure, but you should be aware that logging out, using a private window, or a different computer are all sure fire ways to ensure it acts as close to randomly or popular as possible.
The 18+ streams shouldn’t be freely advertised until the user has identified themselves as 18+ at any rate.
True, no disagreement there
See people said this about tiktok too and while for the most part it’s true they’ll still push it in your face every now and then.
I’ve blocked or clicked “not interested” on every clearly sexualized video yet they keep showing up.
They recommend what’s popular. The biggest issue is there’s enough simps with endless money watching these streamers/content creators that they’re not going away anytime soon
I don’t use tiktok and haven’t ever so I’ll have to take your word on that.
I suspect ignoring content is way more influential to the algorithm. But at the same time I spend relatively little to no time just browsing streamer channels.
It really seems like seeing something sexy every now and then isn’t really pushing it into faces. But if anything I do not think Twitch is readily prepared or equipped to adequately sequester their 18+ content given the absolute reliance on users and streamers to self report their content and access to it.
Your comment insinuates that you have trouble finding gamers on the platform, as if there’s a finite limit on creator count and the gamers are getting pushed out by non-gaming creators, which is obviously not the case.
Is it a matter of going to Twitch for games but then getting roped in by the porn instead? If so, that’s pretty funny tbh.
I don’t use twitch anymore. And porn doesn’t need to be everywhere. There’s a place for it. There’s nothing wrong with specific platforms. I wouldn’t want a restaurant that sold porn in the back rooms either.
It’s mostly that the front page is increasingly being titty streamers, which really isn’t a problem, but isn’t super fun to land on every day.
It’s also heavily pushed in recommendations if other viewers of a stream you’re watching are regular watchers (ex. I’m watching shroud, but a ton of shrouds viewers also watch titty streamers, so I must want to as well)
Honestly it’s just more annoying than anything else. There’s no viewership loss implications for streamers, despite what some scream about.
Cash money, son
I’m gonna get downvoted, but this culture where teenagers can form parasocial relationships with what are essentially softcore pornstars and a culture where women can very easily become pornstars isn’t healthy.
I believe some of them are on websites like OnlyFans, which can be real porn if they decide to do so. I imagine being on Twitch is a method to be discovered.
I also agree with what you said. I also dislike how pornographic content is served right next to normal innocent content. It’s like having porn channels on TV right next to the family channels.
I can argue that everyone on Only fans is a pornstar, just that some are softcore pornstars. On the flip side some are prostitutes.
Twitch IMO is fucked up in a different way. This is a platform that pre-pubescent children frequently use. Allowing for nudity essentially creates a pipeline where kids hit puberty, form parasocial relationships with pornstars, and get unhealthy ideas about women.
Like in the past there used to be a lot more of a disconnect. Like if you went on pornhub, you were explicitly going to watch porn. The porn videos were well known to be completely over dramatized to the point where it can’t be taken as a realistic depiction of sex. The porn stars were explicitly porn stars. You had no idea about their personality and there was no concept of getting an emotional connection to them. There also was a general acknowledgement, even among the most liberal circles, that sex work was incredibly unhealthy.
Nowadays all of this shit is not only normalized to an insane degree, but the line between fiction and reality has been blurred to an insane degree.
Every time this comes up someone says “Oh what’s the harm? PRUDE”. There are some things that are harmful in ways that are difficult to explain, and not at all immediately clear. I feel like our current sex culture is a good example of that.
I agree twitch is stuck but for me they shouldn’t allow more nudity. Even if they put it in different categories. It s not a problem of puritanism , it s just that kid will have a direct access to literals strip stream , and your twitch account is directly linked with your amazon account and your cc. I have absolutely not problel with site like chaturbate , because you have to search for it , its completely clear on the content and even if of course there are kids who will browse it , well its more" difficult " to pay on it . Oh and btw on twitch the streamer is way closer to the chat than on any cam site the line between streamer and porn is too blur.
Is it really that hard for twitch to create an option to mark a stream as mature only Allowing 16+ accounts? (Should be mature enough for erotic non porn)
Kids who lie about their age know what there doing and require more parental oversight when signing up to a platform.
That’s already a thing, but 18+ like the law states. Streamers can mark their streams mature and it shows you a warning and disclaimer. Only twitch needs is kids accounts with the option for a parent to disable access to those streams.
I don’t understand, children cannot see nudity? Is it bad for them?
Personally, I don’t care about nudity.
My concerns are with normalizing hypersexualization. Both in the way that it turns normal nudity into some erotic situation which leads to nursing mothers being explicit and in the way it teaches people, and in particular children, that behaviour towards sex workers is normal behaviour to have when dealing with people outside of sex work. Including those sex workers.
Having some gate between regular content and erotic content can help establish a line that easy for people, and children, to understand. If a streamer doesn’t turn off the camera to change and he or she is nude on stream, I don’t care about. If a streamer does a strip tease for the outfit change, I’d want a separation or warning. I don’t think it should be blocked, but sexualization and nudity are different things and should be treated differently. Sexuality should be a very opt-in process.
I very much agree with you, but I’m not sure the concept easily translates to online media.
I’ve gone to nudist waterparks since I was 14, and my mother sometimes took me to the sauna at an even younger age, so basically grew up with non-sexualised nudity. But it took some social feedback to learn it, like learning the difference between looking and staring.
That last aspect is lost when it comes to streaming or videos. There is nothing preventing you from sexualising any nudity on screen.
They absolutely can and even should be exposed to healthy non sexualized human bodies but all is depending on the context.
I dont think people who are to young to understand topics like consent and objectification have any business on stream made for erotic tinted pleasure because we cant expect them to behave mature about the content and towards the streamer. Thats even a problem for adults but we simply should know better, kids cant and will at worst imitate toxic adult behavior offline.
I also put the age at 16 because i think 18 is to unrealistic and depending on maturity much younger teens may have the right level of maturity but we cant really know that when allowing people acces to such streams.
Thank you for acknowledging this. So many people grossly oversimplify objections to this into some sort of prudish anti-nudity thing. That’s not it, they’re arguing against strawmen.
I have an issue with the ongoing sexualization of content available to children, and I have precisely negative faith in Twitch’s ability to properly discriminate between “artistic” and not.
I think you make some good points, I’m a bit torn on this topic and am not sure what to think yet. I do however agree that preventing the user from hiding any topic they don’t want to see is harmful.
Platforms need to add common-sense controls like category blocking and family modes (which the user can craft themselves).
My biggest complaint here is the platform deciding what I want to watch.
There’s a huge difference between nudity in the neutral sense of “no clothes on” and erotica (which may or may not involve nudity, but usually does).
My kids see nudity all the time. They see me and their mum nude in the mornings when we’re getting dressed, they see people nude in the changing rooms at the swimming pool, they undoubtedly see other kids nude at nursery in the course of the day. That’s all normal and healthy.
That’s not the same as letting my 3 year old watch porn.
Porn is a complex subject even for adults, and absolutely needs an adult perspective to contextualise it, understand it, and potentially recognise when something about it is seriously wrong. This is something that is perfectly reasonable to limit to adults.
I don’t think people care about the nudity as much as they care about the intent behind the nudity. Streamers seem to be edging as close to the line of porn as they can in order to gain views and money. This isn’t someone simply walking around a beach without a top on.
I don’t care if people want to fingerbang or jack themselves on cam while playing Zelda, but don’t fucking blend it in and recommend it to people on a site specifically designed for children. That’s what turns it from “someone seeking it out on their own” (as with the availability of porn on the rest of the internet) to “let’s shove it in your face to boost our quarterly profits during an economic slump.” People can claim that this all should be prevented by rules and tags but let’s be real people are going to do whatever they can to skirt the rules and standout from the crowd and no human being is actually going to be moderating any of this just like with YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or any other similar site.
Also I think parents want to know when an app has nudity. Twitch is rated 14 plus on Google play store. Parents wouldn’t expect nudity on it.
Also this was already walked back likely because disney and other advertisers didn’t want thier ads to run in front of nudity / porn
“It’s not a problem of puritanism, but (puritan argument)”
Interesting how we’ve gone from “expecting nudity from women is sexist” to “NOT expecting nudity from women is sexist”.
I don’t think that’s the message at all. It’s disproportionately punishing women for nudity that is sexist.
Unless the women are disproportionately engaging in nudity.
That’s what’s hard to gage. Likely due to what we consider nude on a woman isn’t on a man. A shirtless man is completely acceptable, but a woman isn’t. The discrepancy is cultural and the culture is discriminatory. This isn’t going to change anytime soon.
The sensible thing would be to accept that what we consider appropriate for a man isn’t for a woman. But this will always be pointed out as sexist. You could ban all nudity except arms, neck and knees down. But this will be criticised as excessive.
You could also allow all nudity as long as the context isn’t sexual. However, twitch has a large market for sexual content particularly from people who may be limited from accessing that content like minors. So theres a large finical incentive for anyone to try to exploit allowed nudity.
Twitch likely want and encourage some of this content, as it drives engagement and thus profit. However, they want to minimise the legal/moral/reputation issues associated with delivering this content.
You can make the argument that toplessness on men is more predatory since it’s so casually accepted and thus male body’s are more sexually exploited. In my younger in shape days lots of women were turned on by my shirtless torso
At the end of the day its advertisers who will decide what os acceptable and a lot of brands don’t want to deal woth nudity. The majority don’t want to have to have a nuanced review of the content and on a love stream it be impossible to do so anyway .
Also all nudity is sexual in nature. A young heterosexual male going through puberty seeing a vagina would be aroused just as much as a homosexual boy seeing a penis. Or a hetero female seeing a penis vs a homosexual female seeing a vagina.
There are plenty of cam sites and porn sites these women can go to of they want to stream nudity. I am sire someone can create a middle ground between game streaming and women top less begging for donations. It’s just that the top less site would only have donations and no advertising.
Telling women what they can, can’t, must, or mustn’t wear is the sexist part
How in gods green earth did you mangle that point out of this story
Well, in my experience from using Twitch it’s predominantly female streamers who do these kind of streams, so if there’s a policy against it, it would make sense that it would affect mostly women. That’s not sexist in and of itself.
But when you say that the policy is sexist because it affects mostly women, it implies that its unfair not to expect women to engage in nudity, doesn’t it.
You would have a point, except twitch very clearly had double standards of treatment for male and female streamers prior to this.
No, no it really doesnt. Not even a little bit.
If thats what it implies to you, I need you to call up your high school lit teacher and apologize for failing to learn a single thing in their classroom.
And then maybe invest in some picture books
Ah yes, calling my argument stupid is certainly going to convince me that I’m wrong. /s
I taught college stats, you dimwit. Perhaps you should invest in a math book. You know, with formulas and stuff. But you probably failed math since 9th grade.
You dont seem the type to be capable of realizing when youre wrong.
As evidenced by the fact you think a math degree makes you an expert in what is and isnt sexist? I bet you think being a lecture hall baby sitter also makes you president material, but thats not the case either.
Like. Whats that flex mean here? Ive got functional degrees in biology and ecology, why would that matter either?
A bunch of furries tried to abide by this policy and ended up getting banned lol
Removed by mod
Why?
So what happens when a minor streams themselves nude to thousands of viewers? Does everyone get charged?
LOL what? It would be the same if a minor uploaded themselves to Pornhub. The video would just be taken down.
Pornhub isn’t a live stream.
You think there were no incidents of live streamed cp on Omegle or ChatRoulette? Naive af
You missed my point entirely. If underage porn ends up on pornhub, do the viewers get arrested? No, of course not.
well, now I really don’t feel like I’m missing much on twitch.
Are minors allowed to stream? I don’t know if it’s worth the legal hassle.
Rules are 13 with parents written legal permission delivered to twitch’s legal team last i remember. I had a friend whose daughter wanted to stream when she was like 15 a few years ago, thankfully she was talked out of it
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In one prominent example, just two days before the policy change, Twitch banned OnlyFans model Morgpie for posting “topless” streams.
Hession confirmed that Twitch’s policy prohibiting “content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region,’ even when fully clothed” was confusing.
“Streamers found it difficult to determine what was prohibited and what was allowed and often evaluating whether or not a stream violated this portion of the policy was subjective,” Hession wrote.
The only exceptions will be made for streams labeled as including mature-rated games and profanity, which will still appear in the main feed on the homepage.
“In addition to providing clarity, these updates will also reduce the risk of inconsistent enforcement and bring our policy more in line with other social media services.”
“With the updated terms of service, content on Twitch containing mature themes will be allowed but no longer pushed on the homepage of the site,” Morgpie told Dexerto.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I think rule no. 2 should be more clarified.
