I'm really loving the vibe here on Beehaw. Documents like What is Beehaw? | Beehaw Docs demonstrate a transparent dedication to tolerance and kind community building that IMO sets a gold standard.
While nothing is certain, Beehaw is restoring some of my hope that a "by the community, for the community", healthy, happy, federated space is something that can be built and might even be sustainable.
On the other hand, as I see the wider Lemmy experiment continue, I have almost zero hope that something like Beehaw can exist that embraces the richness of human sexuality, which is my round about way of saying, good old-fashioned pornography.
The value of pornography
This might be a divisive position, but I think porn, on the whole, is a good thing. Healthy, happy, consensual expressions of human sexuality in all its gooey glory are, in my opinion, not only joyous but essential to the wellbeing of those of us who like to get our rocks-off in one way or the other.
This isn't to ignore the problems of pornography as it is on the internet today, or how it's been in the past. As with all aspects of human expression, it can become a medium for hate, or misused, or be created via exploitation and cruelty. I think there's a lot of interesting discussion to have about the effect of hardcore pornography "normalising" what charitably should only be considered "stunt sex", and that's a softball compared to the more difficult questions.
But, despite this, I believe that it's possible, if not always easy, to find and enjoy ethical pornography in a way that ultimately healthy and beneficial to all involved.
The growing puritanical anti-porn blob
So as a lover of porn, it's hard not to be a little scared about the way the internet is changing. While in the past, this might have been driven by anti-sex puritans of various ilk, this new threat seems more insidious because it's not so much a movement of dogmatic individuals. Instead, it appears to be an emergent trend that comes from tech addiction to advertising, and well-meaning but oppressive regulation.
The result is ever fewer places for porn. Reddit is one of the few community-driven sites that still allows porn, and it's clear with the recent changes, that the writing is on the wall for porn on reddit in the long term.
As for replacements in this new brave federated universe, well, in the beehaw docs it discusses the reasoning for avoiding NSFW spaces on beehaw and yeah, can't really argue with the logic. It seems like a nightmare. Even if it made sense to integrate that content here, which I'm not certain that it does, it seems an impossible task for the beehaw admins to tackle.
lemmynsfw.com, which is obviously trying to fill the niche, is already struggling with these very problems. It's clear I think that it'll be impractical for them to keep up with the moderation requirements in a way that's even ethical, let alone one that embraces the full diversity and creativity of human sexuality. There are real concerns of ending up in prison just for running the thing, and who'd sign up for that.
What about the big boys?
OK, I'll admit, there's still plenty of porn on the internet. It's arguably easier to access than ever, with behemoths like Pornhub almost becoming mainstream.
But even with Pornhub trying to be your friendly local smut merchant, there's still something hostile and repressive in these offerings. There's not the sense of community, with the intentional creation of non-exploitative, diverse and loving spaces, like what Beehaw is attempting with SFW content. There's no sense of liberal expression of joyous and shameless sexuality.
I'll admit I might be overselling the vibe of the smutty communities that have come in the past, but it still feels to me as if these "replacements" are cold, shameful and harmful compared to the various dead spaces of the past.
Who cares?
You might not care much for porn, or maybe you're happy with your smut. It's just porn, it's not a big deal.
I'd disagree, though. Tumblr at its height was a haven for LGBTQ+ sexual expression. It gave people a way to express their sexuality in a way that wasn't just safe-for-tv; holding hands and pecks on the cheek. It was a chance at accessing the same joy of sexual expression that was available exclusively (for the most part) to straight, cis men.
Even outside sexual orientation, it's hard not to internalise the new attitude to pornography. Shame about one's sexuality is hard to avoid, compounded by the clear messaging that sexuality isn't healthy or welcome. Even more so if one's tastes deviate from the "mainstream", which doesn't necessarily mean scat and clown porn. Good luck avoiding incest in your porn, or maybe you want something more gentle than is usually on offer. Not all kinks are scary, or even kinks! Although that's not to say that one should be shamed for a consensual ethical kink that is not to everyone's taste either!
Sex is meant to be fun, and creativity is part of that. We humans are ever innovating on exciting new ways to use the old hardware, and that could be a force for good. The death of these more liberated communities also means death for that creativity, and we'll be left with the same tired old fauxcest scenarios where everyone looks and acts the same.
Censorship bad?
I'm no free-speech absolutist. I think Beehaw's explicit attitude to moderation and building a kind community is refreshing.
Without getting dark, there are some things that almost everyone would agree require moderation and enforcement. People might have that line in a different place, but the number of people who genuinely believe that anything should be allowed online are in a minority.
But, where we are now, there's no safe way to find that line. The safe option for providers, community or commercial, is to turn it all off. The result, I believe, is we all lose out.
And for the really bad shit? That'll still be there, hidden from view, and if Pornhub isn't pushing your buttons, and you look elsewhere for your diversity, you risk ending up in the same pool as that stuff.
So what's to be done?
Damned if I know. I mostly wanted to put voice to something that's been bringing me down for a while. It's sad. I can't help but feel like I'm being closeted for a fundamental part of who I am, but equally, I don't really feel I have a right to complain either.
Decentralised link aggregation might be a thing someday. Aether is a decentralised thing that, while only holding text, is a peer-to-peer option that might decentralise the risk. On the other hand, there's the risk you end up in the same pool as some really bad folk, and good luck explaining Aether's, albeit quite interesting, approach to decentralised moderation to the cops.
Or maybe you want to put your trust in a community, as we do with Beehaw, to build a consensus on the kind of space we'd like to build together.
So share your thoughts, your pain and your joy! Although keep it safe for beehaw please! I don't want to cause the lovely mods any trouble!
I think for a “happy” porn instance to exist, there needs to be something like at most 3-4 “new” posts per moderator per day. Maybe even less than that.
I’ve worked as a cyber forensic specialist and I needed to take a few months off after some cases. And I was being paid.
Porn is not talked about “mainstream” enough and as a result there are probably as many “good” sexual communities as there are “bad”. I have no idea really I don’t think anyone does but I think it’s fair to explore the 50/50 threat model. I think it’s worth adding “grey” area and making it a 34/33/33 split. Because there are some communities that have been trying to make an argument that they aren’t bad and some other communities think they are bad… So I think at best we can have federation islands of like-minded sexual communities only.
“bad” content creators know they are bad and are illegal. So if lemmy adds features to quickly trace and expose “bad” content creators to authorities this can help. But this where the challenge comes - on Reddit “good” content creators trusted the admins to not dox them. On lemmy you now have to trust the instance admins. More over the federated nature makes this even more challenging - if a “bad” instance comes out your only choice is to defederate and maybe send a email to the feds (and likely face some sort of audit as well). Because if the same tracking tools become available across instances then it’s going to be doxxing galore.
I should add that I’m sitting in a waiting room about to have a minor surgery I’m very nervous about and posting online is me currently trying to ignore my feelings so this post’s reasoning is likely incomplete
Loved this post, and I agree on everything. I don't really have anything to say, I'm just commenting to up this post hoping more people will comment :)
To me, the problem boils down to the lack of regulation on basic internet infrastructure. Websites aren't free. Moderation isn't free. Well run porn sites need a lot of money to keep running. Money, that people are more than willing to spend on something run well, despite the memes about 'paying for porn'.
But we've seen time and time again that websites who host porn face issues with basic business services like payment processors, sometimes datacenters and ISPs too. Why are we allowing banks to control what is and isn't allowed online? Why is that the 'just go build you own' sentiment seems to include standing up a worldwide bank, credit card system, ISP, datacenter, etc all just to run a webpage without outside interference.
We wouldn't stomach power company shutting off power to abortion clinics or stem cell research universities just because they disagreed with it. Why do we allow the basic backbone of modern society to do something similar?
And yes, this has affected websites for content that I find absolutely abhorrent. Truth Social and it's ilk are truly terrible, but I do think it's worth exploring how comfortable we are with the kind of interference they faced from Amazon AWS and payment processors. What happens if Trump or someone like him wins again and the mood shifts so that companies start cracking down on trans and LGBT resources in the same way?
Monetisation is an issue that I definitely dodged in my post.
I know much of your comments focusses on basic access to the ability to even receive payment, but however much I "love" some of these communities, it's hard to ignore how many thrive on the sharing of other people's content without paying, and while my sympathy for the other industries is limited wrt copyright theft, there are an awful lot of very small, often vulnerable creators in porn, that in particular really deserved to get paid for what they do.
On the other hand, as a consumer, paying for porn (when it's even an option) often means locking into a very specific creator or site, and again there's that lack of diversity and creativity that goes with that. I think the patreon model works well for media creation and consumption that scales well, but there we end up back with your point about payment services excluding adult content, as I believe is the case with patreon. I don't have any experience with OnlyFans, but when even they're trying to cut content creators off, it's a bit bonkers.
I was interested to see what looks like the hentai-foundry people experimenting with payment for creators in a way that, I think, could scale well (not that it's fundamentally a new idea) with subless, but I can't see them building traction without being cut-off by their own payment provider.
I am a free speech absolutist and I want pretty much anything to go but I want the tools for users to be able to block it in any manner they want from blocking users to blocking magazines to blocking domains and I want it to include comments and actually go both ways (joke not intended but right after I wrote that I liked it). When I block something I don't want that person, place, or thing to see any of my comments or posts. If I blocked them its a good chance its folks that might try doxing or some shit. I would like blockers to know who or what they blocked so they can undo if they choose but I don't want blockees to know. I would like profiles to be only seeable by logged in users and I would like usernames and such masked for folks not logged in. I realize this is a lot and its not here now and that some folks may hate the idea of what I write here but that is how I would like to see something like this go. As much power as possible brought to individual consumers to prune their feeds and as much freedom as possible for creators.
I'm curious to hear how a non-corporate NSFW community can thrive safely? You said you don't have any answers - does anyone else?
I have the technical knowledge and plenty of money to run a lemmy instance and enough time to dev some moderation tools. But it seems like the issue isn't technical.
If somebody brought me a few full-time moderators and a lawyer or two (who I don't have to pay), I'd happily spin up an instance with terabytes of storage and start developing whatever tools the mods need. If somebody guarantees me I won't be liable and won't EVER see CP, I'll provide the servers, sysadmin, and some dev work.
Reddit has something special with their unpaid mods - I can't see it working any other way, but a group of mods like gonewild or something is probably one in 10milion.
Quick edit: I also want to say that I agree with everything you said :)