It’s sadly not an unfamiliar feeling, seeing a large avenue of my business close, consequently wondering if I’ll wake up tomorrow without an income.
A week ago, my Twitter account was suspended, it would seem that I showed a little too much butt in one of my profile pictures. It’s my second suspension, after last time I showed too much cleavage apparently, and the likelihood of retrieving my account through appeal I’m told, is minimal. It’s only social media, some people might think, but over the years it has been pretty integral to growing my business. To reach the people, you have to be where they are - and that’s Instagram and Twitter. Having a website is great and all, but it really only works as a landing page for me when people discover me elsewhere - a solo sex worker simply doesn’t generate the SEO or traffic required for traction on it’s own. So after 5-6 years of relentless posting, fighting ’shadowbans’ and increased censorship, I creeped my way to 30k followers, only to lose it overnight. I definitely cried.
One of the things I’ve always loved about Twitter is how conversation based it is. I have never been particularly good at Instagram, where it’s incredibly image heavy, a lot of smoke and mirrors, plus the censorship is next level. Instagram closes sex worker accounts every day - I’ve never invested fully in it because I knew they’d take my account at any moment. Twitter has always been less censored, much more conversational and word based - so I guess I took it for granted that I was safe there, but now they’re cracking down on flesh in header images. I was tastefully in underwear - graphic nudity has never been my gig - you can pay for that on my Onlyfans where I might actually benefit from it haha, but even implied sensuality is now against Twitter’s rules.
I’m of the general opinion that women’s bodies are becoming more and more policed online. I received this vague message regarding my suspension - “We consider adult content to be any media that is pornographic and/or may be intended to cause sexual arousal.” ‘May be intended to cause sexual arousal’ - have they met people? That could be literally anything - feet, hair, armpits even! But I bet the same doesn’t apply to a male torso - are men’s bodies not sexual too? God knows how many accounts I see on Twitter that are primarily just their cock and balls, can’t the algorithm remove them first? So it’s safe to say that the internet is getting harder every day to navigate as a sex worker. At the moment the general public is experiencing increased censorship as Facebook cracks down on certain words and discussions. We warned everyone - what starts with us, finishes with you - censorship and erasure is trialled on sex workers before escalation - we all saw it coming. Society is regressing - just watch this Internet Safety bill that is being pushed through (rather undemocratically) in Australia right now - it’s a very real possibility that we are being thrown back to the dark ages regarding freedom of information, women’s rights and sexuality.
I have been here before, losing countless hours/days/years of work, when I lost my website, domain and email when SESTA/FOSTA was passed in the US, and the loss of Backpage at the same time. That hurt. I thought then that my business was done, but I remembered then that I had started over this business before - I’d retired then unretired, I had shifted countries - and I adapted. So after SESTA/FOSTA I put my head down and my bum up and business was ok, I just had to work harder for a while. And I guess that’s what I’ll do this time too. Obviously it’s heartbreaking to watch years of work and thousands of images and decent engaging content disappear, but I guess I’m already used to starting again, so I’ll embrace the opportunity for a fresh start - there has to be a silver lining in there somewhere.
I’m a solutions kind of girl, so I have now taken over use of my cat’s twitter page, poor guy, and am starting again there. Many of my clients were already there following the antics of my cat, bless them, so I didn’t go completely dark on the platform. Please, follow @FoxandtheFeline to follow my journey out of censorship, and sign up to my newsletter from my Petra website so I can reach you all regardless.
PETRA FOX
Twitter: @foxandthefeline
Instagram: @foxandthefeline
Web: petrafox.com.au
