Reluctant Pornographer Erika Lust Shut Down by YouTube

At least, that’s the vibe she’s given off over and over again in interviews published by various mainstream media outlets.

For instance, this past May, Tracey Clark-Flory published a succinct sum up of Lust’s opinions of the “mainstream [porn] industry” in Jezebel:

Lust is historically a vocal critic of the mainstream industry. In 2014, she delivered a TED Talk in which she railed against “bad, wrong, chauvinistic porn,” invoked X-rated clichés—like “watermelon breasts,” money shots, and “fake pleasure”—and declared, “It’s time for porn to change.” In 2017, she appeared in Netflix’s Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, in an episode focused on just two of the many women now directing and producing pornography. In it, she made a similar argument to the one she makes now about mainstream porn: “The people creating it are more interested in punish-fucking women than showing good sexual encounters.”

There are myriad additional examples, but they all basically say the same thing: Your work is bad, and Lust’s work is good. Your vision of sexual expression is wrong, and her’s is right.

Recently though, Lust got to experience a little bit of what it’s like to be a dirty pornographer via sex work and sex media discrimination and YouTube.

VICE/Motherboard reported on July 13, 2018 that Lust had had her YouTube account shut down and was banned after a third strike against the channel.

Per VICE/Motherboard:

YouTube shut down an adult film production channel after it posted a series interviewing sex workers about their trade…

The ban came after an interviewee for the company’s series “In Conversation With Sex Workers,” which had been on YouTube for about a week, tweeted to promote her involvement in the film. Within hours of that tweet the channel was terminated, citing “violation of community guidelines.”

The episode prompting the termination featured four sex workers talking about their work, including law-related issues, client interaction and feminism. None of the interviews show nudity or describe sexual acts in detail. So, nothing that would appear to violate YouTube’s terms of service.

YouTube, however, would beg to differ. Their community guidelines state “sexually explicit content like pornography is not allowed. Videos containing fetish content will be removed or age-restricted depending on the severity of the act in question. In most cases, violent, graphic, or humiliating fetishes are not allowed to be shown on YouTube.”

The violation and termination had nothing to do with sexually explicit content though. It had to do with the links in the video’s description, which directed viewers back to Lust’s site – which, in spite of her repeated apparent denial is, in fact, porn.

True to form, the industry was outraged by discrimination directed against a member of the community. (Though if the links were in direct violation of a pre-stated policy then, technically, it’s not discrimination. Asshole behavior and part of a wider culture of sex negativity, yes. But discrimination via uneven enforcement of policies, no.)

Many people took to Twitter to show their support – because the community accepts you, girl. Even if you don’t like us.

This is absolutely outrageous @YouTube – you discriminate against LGBTQQIA folks and sex education by demonetizing content, pixelating the stills and downlisting content, and now you censor sex workers for sharing their experiences? https://t.co/iFM52cQaIX

— FreeSpeechCoalition (@FSCArmy) July 15, 2018

Dissapointed to see that youtube is joining the anti-sex movement.

To see @erikalust chanel banned is a lack of respect to human sexuality.

Just one thing to say: #SHAMEhttps://t.co/N5F155JCJM

— Â¥olandi (@Missjunngle) July 15, 2018

There is porn all over social media, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Apparently it's only allowed when it's nonconsensually shared nudes or lacks the framework of an intelligent discussion conducted by women.

— Rebel Scum (@nancyjosales) July 14, 2018

Disgusting and harmful to sex workers. wtf, YT?

— Nina Hartley® (@ninaland) July 14, 2018