Nipples, Censorship, and Social Media

So some of you probably saw my photos that I posted today; both on Facebook and Instagram. First off I'll start by saying that sure I've always been aware of censorship but you never realize how terrible something truly is until you have first hand experience with it.So last night I was playing around with some selfies; experimenting with lighting, new shirts, different camera techniques, best methods for wet t shirts, and I ended up with some really amazing images that I absolutely loved! I worked really hard on them so obviously I couldn't wait to share them with you lovelies today!!🔥🔥

As I went to go post them I realized some additional editing was needed. The beauty of wet white t shirts: they're see through! Both Facebook and Instagram have strict no FEMALE nipples policies so I had to find a way to block those so you couldn't see them. Drawing a black ✖️over a nipple doesn't seem like a big deal but after you've spent hours working on a piece of art and you're forced to deface it with an ugly scribble, it's heartbreaking!Despite the ugly black ✖️ on my images, at least I would be able to get them out there and share my art, right?✅

Wrong!!❌❌

🔇I've noticed my engagement (how many likes/ comments I get) has been way down on my boudoir Instagram account lately. I clicked on my hashtag #WelcomeToTheDNdarkSide and discovered my last two posts weren't listed there. Weird🤔. I clicked on the other hashtags I frequently use on that account. None of my images are being shown under any of the hashtags I'm using.

Why⁉️

👻👻 It's called a shadow ban. Basically without telling you, Instagram presents your public account as a private one. People that follow you can see your posts no problem BUT none of your posts show up when you search the hashtags, like a private account would. As someone who depends on hashtags to acquire new followers and new potential clients, this is a big deal!

Because Instagram doesn't let you know you've been shadow banned I had to double check somehow. I made a new account, 0 followers, exact same post: images, caption, hashtags, everything. It showed up under all the hashtags no problem! So my boudoir account was definitely shadow banned, annoying but why does it matter? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

⏸️Why should you care?

📣We're here to celebrate being ourselves, celebrate our bodies and finally learn to love ourselves again! How are we supposed to spread a message of self-love and positive body image when we're taught to be ashamed of our bodies?! That revealing certain parts of our body is "inappropriate". Certain parts that are only considered inappropriate based on whether you're male or female, even though they look the exact same?! Not only are we forced to be ashamed and covered up, but when we try to celebrate our bodies and even try to abide by these censorship rules, we still get shut down!

Facebook and Instagram won't change anything unless everyone has a problem with what they're doing. And that won't change until we change society's attitude towards our bodies. How do we do that?

📢📢📢

Talk about it!! Normalize it! We're all off to a great start in this group, I absolutely love what we've started here but that's just it; it's a start.

✌️💕I'd like to challenge all of you beautiful people to expand this group and the meaning behind it to the outside world. Whatever way you can, no matter how little impact you may think it has, spread our message of self-love, positivity, and the normalization of bodies and sexuality. If you've made it this far into the post, let me know by suggesting some ideas of how to accomplish this gigantic task in the comments below ⬇️⬇️

Thanks for reading lovelies 💕💋