Let’s Talk About Sex Baby: Mapping the Issue of Sex Positivity on Twitter and Instagram

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Let’s Talk About Sex Baby: Mapping the

Issue of

_{Sex Positivity on Twitter and}

Instagram

Maria Świerblewska

12370363

MA New Media and Digital Culture

Supervisor: Stijn Peeters

Second Reader: Davide Beraldo

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Abstract

This thesis provides an insight into the concept of sex positivity, which for the sake of the research is studied as a social issue originating from feminist theories. By grounding the concept in theories of feminism, activism and hashtag studies, the study aims to contribute to the definition of sex positivity. By taking Instagram and Twitter as case studies, the methodological process of issue mapping of sex-positive related hashtags is applied, where the publics of the sex positivity are detected in the issue networks and their dominant voices are analysed. The research discusses the similarities and the differences between the studied issue publics and relates the findings to the feminist and activits theories. The study concludes the issue mapping process with a set of sub-issues which are defining the digital discourse of sex positivity of the studied platforms.

Keywords

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Defining sex positivity

“PSA: ‘Sex positive’ is not a synonym for slutty or highly sexual. Sex positivity is about nonjudgmental embracing of sexual diversity; regardless of your own sexual desires or life choices. You can be slutty and sex negative. And you can be asexual and #sexpositive.” -1 tweets dr. Zhana Vrangalova, a well-known researcher, speaker, writer and coach within the area of sexuality studies, actively using Twitter and Instagram to promote her research and opinions on the topic of human sexuality. The same hashtag, which @Dr.Zhana employed in her tweet, is used also in a recent Instagram post depicting an image with inscription “Against abortion? Have a vasectomy!” , shared recently by an online clothing shop 2

@calibournelive.shop, right after the controversial anti-abortion bill was signed into law in Alabama, US (Kelly). One might ask, how does a professional sex therapist and a pro-abortion commercial post are found under the same “hashtag umbrella” of sex positivity? Once searched on the internet, the variety of definitions and topics included under the topic can be overwhelming, what one feminist blogger summarized with “put two feminists in a room together and you’ll have three definitions of the term sex positive’” (Mogilevsky).

According to the definition by International Society for Sexual Medicine, the sex-positive approach means “having positive attitudes about sex and feeling comfortable with one’s own sexual identity and with the sexual behaviors of others”, including variety of attitudes and behaviors, like accepting different sexual orientations or practices (ISSM). The idea of sex positivity however is not just another new popular topic, as it has its historical roots in the feminist movement and was influenced by various contributions form sexuality studies, with the discussions regarding potential positive and negative implications of the sex-positive approach prevailing for decades (Mosher, 489-493). Various voices in the sex positivity discussion emphasize different aspects of the concept, some praise sex positivity as beneficial to sexuality education, preventing sexual abuse and improving relationships, while others see the movement as a media slogan which promotes commodified version of sexuality or suppresses development of knowledge regarding sexual pathologies (Ivanski & Kohut, 216). The disparities in understanding the movement are resulting also from the historical perspectives, with example of pornography being criticised by radical feminist

1_{https://twitter.com/DrZhana/status/1089191259607101445} 2_{https://www.instagram.com/p/BxkPZ7wJzXy/}

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scholars during ‘sex wars’ times when they claimed it is degrading to women and advocated for state regulation of the matter, in comparison to nowadays, when porn can be considered by sex positive activists as liberalization and empowerment of sexuality (Ivanski & Kohut, 216). As there are various meanings emerging and new paradoxes are being constructed within discussion of sex positivity, the need to define the ideology more precisely emerged, as without defining it it is not possible to understand if the movement is underway and furtherly, where is it going with its consequences for the society (Ivanski & Kohut, 217).

1.2 Role of social media

As the sex positivity movement evolved over the years, the social media platforms were among the media that help advance its agenda and pave the way into more mainstream discourse. As Locke et al. argues, social media platforms enabled specific groups like feminists to advance their political agendas as they can easier connect with like-minded actors, spread their ideas, shape new discourses and perform new versions of activism (4). Depending on the platform, there is a specific set of affordances and features that allow both the movements to be constructed as well as studied; this research aims at understanding the sex positivity movement by utilizing the hashtag feature and what it connotes. Employed by various social media platforms, hashtags are a way to mark a conversation, used as both clerical and semiotics indexing system, allowing at the same time fast retrieval of information on specific topic (Bonilla & Rosa, 5). Hashtags became a way to demonstrate certain ideas and spread, often activist, messages in the digital discourse, with an example of ‘hashtag activism’ as a term for “discursive protest on social media united through a hashtagged word, phrase or sentence” (Yang, 13). Different movements and communities connected to feminist ideas were able to expanding thanks to social media platforms, with a prominent example of the ‘#metoo’ campaign, which was described as “ _{a time when sexual assault} survivors everywhere turned the internet into a platform for their voices and perspectives to be heard and respected” (Curtis). As more similar movements are appearing, it is an opportunity to explore how these social campaigns are being shaped in the online realm compared to their offline or historical ideals, as well as how the online platforms influence these movements, how do they enable construction of certain meanings, while possibly resisting others (Locke et al., 4). Regarding the sex positivity ununified concept, scholars argue that some of the discrepancies in the definitions may be attributed to different perspectives and needs of the educators, academics, writers and activists who use the term and construct its meaning (Ivanski & Kohut, 217). As sex positivity discourse is now disseminated and circulating in the realms of the web space, it can be useful to explore the

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meanings and definitions that people identifying with this approach are creating through these platforms.

1.3 Research question

As there are still many different or even diverging definitions of sex positivity, the research undertaken in this thesis paper aims to contribute to fill the gaps within the sex positivity definitions, taking an approach to define it through the online social media discourse, focusing on investigating the public of the sex positivity online. It investigates how the sex positivity concept is being represented and discussed on the platforms by its audiences, who associate themsleves with the idea of sex positivity by the tagging behavior on particular platforms. It will help to define whether the sex positivity ideology can be conceptualized as a unified movement or rather set of independent publics with separate goals and interests and in conclusion, what do these publics discuss while using sex-positivity-related hashtags. Once the publics of the sex positivity concept are discovered and evaluated how they understand and re-interpret the sex positivity meaning, it will be additionally grounded in the theory of feminism and activism, in order to fully understand and ground the representations of sex positivity through its publics. By asking a supportive sub-questions of ‘Who are the publics of sex positivity?’, ‘What kind of dominant voices are creating the discourse of its publics?’ and ‘How are the sub-themes of sex positivity relating to each other?’, the final and main research questions of this thesis will be answered: _{How is the issue of sex positivity} defined by its publics in social media platforms?

1.4 Research structure

In order to examine how sex positivity is being defined in the social media platform’s discourse, the research will take one of the digital methods approach, meaning it will employ the methods of the medium in order to repurpose its outputs for social research (Rogers, 92). In particular, the method used is the issue mapping, meaning the sex positivity is taken as an object of study in order to deploy, describe and visualize the objects, actors and substance of this social issue, ultimately producing a narrative and visual mapping for its interpretation (Rogers, Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe, 9-10). In the process of mapping the sex positivity as an issue, the research intends to find the thematic clusters, which will reveal the issue publics and will be further critically evaluated in terms of their dominant discourse, conceptualized as the dominant voice, considering “the specific actors that give voice to the issue with the greatest strength” (Rogers, Otherwise Engaged, 7). In

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order to have a greater overview on the issue, the research undertakes a cross-platform analysis approach, meaning the social movement is studied among various platforms, being a deliberate strategy where each platform is evaluated separately according to its specific opportunities and qualities, however the results are interpreted together to tell the same story (Rogers, _{Digital Methods for Cross-Platform Analysis, 7). The two platforms examined} in the course of this research are Instagram and Tumblr, both prominent social media platforms with ongoing discourse regarding the sex positivity issue, which additionally both share the same feature of tagging content using hashtags. The object of hashtag will be the starting point for the issue mapping process, which will be based on the the co-hashtag analysis for the sex positivity-related hashtags in both platforms. As Sanchez-Querubin argues, “co-occurrence of hashtags can be read as discourse and capturing the vocabularies, actors and URLs attached to them can help deploy networks of entangled actors and objects” (99), what in case of this research will reveal the network of related topics and actors that will help understand how these concepts constitute the issue of sex positivity in the digital discourse.

Instagram and Twitter were chosen for variety or reasons, one being the feature of hashtag enabling the same type of methodological approach to the issue mapping process. Apart from it, both of the platforms may provide some slightly different insights on the topic of sex positivity due to the different characters of their main discourse. Instagram is largely associated with the idea of visual representation and identity curation, whereas Twitter is known for its politically-charged discussions, what can render an interesting comparative case for the issue of sex positivity. Additionally, both platforms have different policies regarding content moderation, especially with regards to “adult content” which is assumed to appear rather often in the issue space. All things considered, both platforms constitute an adequate database for the research, as they are relevant case studies for the topic and provide meaningful dataset for analysis. Findings from both of the platforms will guide the findings of how today’s social media publics define the sex positivity and further discuss it in relation to its origins.

The thesis is divided into a couple of chapters, with the first significant one being the theoretical framework, in which the main theoretical concepts are introduced, serving as a base for the methodological approach for the research and situating the researched issue in its wider context. The main subparts of the theoretical framework explore the history, current definitions on sex positivity and its position within the feminist discourse; explain the characteristics of feminist movements online and finally, characterize the hashtag as an

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object enabling the study of issue publics which is used for the reserach of sex positivity online. The methodology section focuses on justifying the choice of platforms taken as case studies for the reserach purpose, as well as explains the two parts of the methodology applied for both platforms - issue mapping, the process by which the publics of sex positivity are discovered, and dominant voice finding, which characterizes the most vocal types of actor in the discourse. Next, the findings part describes the main observations made in the course of the research, showcasing them based on a particular platform and separately for each part of the methodology. Afterwards, the discussion chapter will comment on the most important findings, taking into consideration both similarities and differences found in both platforms, situating them in the context of feminism and activism in which the sex positivity concept is rooted. The similarities between the platforms are the base to give the answer to the research question, while the differences are commented on with respect to possible explanations within the platforms themselves. Finally, the conclusion will summarize the main arguments and suggest possibilities for further research.

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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Sex positivity concept

In order to study the sex positivity concept online, first this chapter will provide a general overview of the origins of this idea and how it evolved over time, how it relates to other movements and where is its positioned within the wider feminist discourse. The concept of sex positivity became more identifiable and louder in the recent years as more scholars, media, acitvists and general publics started to discuss it, what is confirmed by increase in searches of the term “sex positive” after year 2008, corresponding to increased discussions about the positive effects of sex positive approaches (Ivanski & Kohut, 216). Although it became more trendy topic now, the sex positivity movement has a long history rooted in various fields of study, mainly with constructs about sex, sexuality and and sexual behaviors, which developed as part of burgeoning scientific method in the late 19th century. The scholastic approaches towards understanding and defining the sex-positivity concept were heavily influenced by feminist theories and often correspond to the historical four waves of feminism, starting from challenging the heteronormative view on human sexuality and finishing with today when scholars aim to explore societally and culturally diverse narratives of sex and sexuality. The construction of the sex positivity narrative can be seen as a reaction and result of context in which human sexuality was discussed, what is defined as sex-negative dominant discourse (Mosher, 489-493). Sex negative approach towards sex and sexuality sees them as set of behavioral functions and skills, focused on reproduction while restricting sexual expression and seeing any other sexual activity apart from heterosexual marital sex as abnormal or deviant (Wodda & Panfil, 583). Sex positivity therefore can be understood as a “cultural philosophy that understands sexuality as a potentially positive force in one’s life”, celebrating sexual diversity, different relationship structures and desires, and consent-based individual choices regarding one’s sexual life (Queen & Comella, 278).

Although the sex positivity is rooted in the feminist movement, its history within feminist ideology like the movement itself, they don’t have a unified view on the sexuality and its politics. The brief history of feminism can be divided into four waves which were emphasizing major changes in how the movement and its ideologies were evolving. The first one can be traced back to early 20th century, where the first signs of opposition took place, regarding

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women’s role in society, especially with respect to property ownership and suffrage. It continued with the second wave feminism, which expanded the advocacy to examine wider impact of sexism and patriarchy on daily lives of women, as well as started breaking gender stereotypes and point out the importance of feminism for men (Munro, 22). The most important period however to understand the how the sex positivity ideology emerged, is the transition between second and third waves of feminism, referred to as the period of ‘feminist sex wars’ which divided the feminist community. The ‘sex wars’ refer to series of discussions and political battles within the feminist community, which touched upon various topics, among others: legal protections for queer people, regulation of pornography, matters of sex education or reproductive rights and freedom for women (Duggan, 1). The two main camps opposing each other were the libertarian feminists, who see sexuality as a potentially liberating force by exchange of pleasure by consenting partners, supporting any kind of sexual behaviors based on consent, like sadomasochism, pornography and other transgressive forms of sexual behavior. On the opposite side, the radical feminists rejected such practices posing potentially a risk of violence towards women and as ones perpetuating the male dominance in the patriarchal society they were opposing to (Ferguson, 106-107). Although the two groups were disagreeing fundamentally about the role of female sexuality, they still were sharing the ideology of personal emancipation, making the freedom of sex one of the fundamental feminist goals (Glick, 22). The debates persisting throughout the feminist sex wars can be potentailly still observed within the feminist movement, confirmed with lack of clear definitions of sex positivity nowadays.

Whether conceptualized as the sex positivity movement, or pro-sex arguments, such views persisted throughout feminist debates in the next decades and they contributed to various fields regarding sexuality, like decriminalization of sex work, expanded representation in pornography, development and public embracement of “sexual enhancement” devices’, comprehensive sexual education and overall embracement of sexuality as healthy and normal (Fahs, 268). Although the movement contributed to major improvements in depathologizing, especially female, sexuality, there are still aspects in which its politics could be advanced, especially in the case of advocating for ‘freedom from’ still existing oppressive structures for women, what Fahs sees as deprioritized, comparing to politics of ‘freedom to’, focused on expansion on sexual rights and freedoms (272-273), in a manner of what once libertarian feminists were advocating for. Currently, various groups like academics, educators, activists and writers attribute different levels of importance to various aspects within sex positive claims, what results in sex positivity definitions lacking homogeneity in the

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framing of whether it is a belief, a movement or a philosophy. It is stated by most though, that it is an approach that people should strive for (Ivanski & Kohut, 217), hence the need for more unified understanding of sex positivity was the reason for this research to be undertaken.

2.2 Feminism and activism

The previous chapter has mentioned how sex positivity has emerged as the feminist movement was transitioning from the second into third wave of its development. The third wave, representing mostly the 1990’s era, introduced the queer theory and its academic investigations, focusing more on the personal emancipation aspect, however it is the conceptual fourth wave of feminism that is the most crucial period this research has to take into consideration when understanding the sex positivity movement today. The fourth wave distinguishes itself mostly with the role that internet plays in spreading its ideas and it is constantly debated whether nowadays feminist practices deserve a separate label. It is a fact though that feminism online enabled creation of the feminist ‘call-out’ culture, where cases of misogyny and sexism in everyday situations can be immediately shared, backed up by the feminist community and brought up to a greater discussion in the society (Munro, 23). Such approach to the usage of technology can be referred to as ‘cyberfeminism’, which is defined as “a woman-centered perspective that advocates women’s use of new information and communication technologies for empowerment” (Hawthorne & Klein, 3). This definition gets along the understanding of what fourth wave of feminism is bringing to the movement, however what the ‘cyber’ is bringing (‘cyber’ in Greek meaning ‘governor’) is the questioning of the digital discourse being governed by the dominating male perspective, producing inequalities, on the other hand, seeing the new technologies as potentially liberating from patriarchal oppression (Hawthorne & Klein, 2-3). As in the case of previous generations, cyberfeminism still can’t be reduced to a single theory or a movement with clearly defined political agenda, it is rather a range of debates, practices and theories about the relationship between digital culture and gender, which can be different for various races, sexual orientations, sharing the common idea of questioning the patriarchy and confronting the top down with the bottom up approach (Daniels, 102).

Cyberfeminism is considered a genre of the digital activism, which is defined as set of activist practices based on and facilitated by digital networks. The term is argued to be widely used to variety of social campaigning movements that make use of digital

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technologies, however what is the key factor in such understanding of the concept is the reliability, scale, speed and low cost of the digital networks that enable the contemporary activists to reach a wider audience and increase the scope of their activity. In such form of activism, digital technologies become the infrastructure, while the social, economic and political factors affect how people make use of those technologies with regards to activism (Joyce, 2-8). As the feminist movement started to disseminate into the web spheres, the emergence of digital platforms renewed the feminist politics and offered great potential for dissemination and shaping of new modes of feminist discourse about gender and sexism, enabling connection to various constituencies and allowing new modes of protesting to emerge. This digital feminist activism, as part of fourth wave of feminism logic, can be considered a turning point for feminist politics in several ways, including: the emergence of feminist memes as a chance to create greater awareness of feminist issues in the wider public sphere and promoting engagement with feminism; digital feminism engaging more with issues of access, difference and privilege, where feminists can create a network for exchanging experiences and learning from each other, contributing to building intersectional approach to feminism; and finally, interplay between feminist protests and female bodies creates an interesting space for emerging feminist politics which move away from relying on traditional legislative channels (Baer, 18). All these new modes of feminist protest are considered by Baer as a way of “redoing feminism for a neoliberal age”, where a crucial factor is the interplay between platforms, providing a disembodied discussion space, and local, offline protests which draw attention to embodiment of feminism into female body (19).

A variety of examples of such movement exists, where another way of conceptualizing some parts of the feminist movements is the hashtag activism, specifically hashtag feminism, which enabled the creation of virtual spaces where victims of inequality can provide mutual support and organize themselves in the process of advocating their rights (Dixon, 34), at the same time establishing new modes of communication and starting new types of feminist conversations, both online and offline (Baer, 18). The concept however faces a lot of criticism about whether the contested social change is actually happening, what is often referred to as ‘slacktivism’, describing mostly social media campaigns gaining great public support but not bringing an effective change or not addressing the pressing issues, potentially being the case of the feminist online campaigns (Munro, 24). Whether effective or not, the feminist virtual campaigns have a long history, with prominent examples such as the #freethenipple movement, pointing out the unequal standards of acceptance of nudity between genders, which first became an offline movement which translated into widespread hashtag campaign (Faust, 166); or German Twitter movement #aufschrei (‘outcry’), which

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emerged in a response direct discriminations and violence again women, translating into debates among journalists and politicians (Baer, 28). They serve as examples of how social media platforms may afford certain feminist campaigns to evolve, however as much as they can contribute to advancement of the feminist agenda, they also have the means to sabotage it. Social media platforms, with example of Instagram, may act as a “hostile environment for feminist art practices” (Olszanowski, The 1x1 Common, 232), creating the conditions and forcing feminist community to re-negotiate constantly the policies and how they navigate those spaces. An example can be the owners of feminist art accounts in Instagram, whose self-imagining practices go against the draconian censorship laws of the platform, creatively circumventing the content policies while staying true to their sexually charged aesthetics (Olszanowski, Feminist Self-Imaging and Instagram, 84). In this way the platforms may be a paradoxical space, where feminists gather as community to pursue their goals using affordances of social media, but trying to challenge their politics and subvert them at the same time. For the analysis of the sex positivity concept online, it is crucial to understand how it is placed within the wider feminist discourse; how it becomes a form of activism while being disseminated into web spheres and finally; how sex positivity as activism is enabled by the social media platforms and what are their constraints.

2.3 Hashtags and their publics

As mentioned in the intorduction, the research applies the method of issue mapping, where the key objects being evaluated are hashtags connected to sex positivity issue. This section will provide an overview about understanding of hashtag as a digital object, its brief history and various definitions, as well as different cases of how and by whom it is being employed in social media platforms, introducing the idea of ‘hashtag publics’ and how this contributes to the overall mapping of sex positivity.

The concept of hashtag as such can is rooted in IRC (Internet-Relay-Chat) channels and the phenomenon of user-generated tagging systems of Web 2.0, which got popular among user-generated content platforms by 2007, with platforms like Flickr or del.icio.us being the most prominent examples. On Twitter, hashtags were introduced for the first time as channel tags, with the aim of allowing people to contribute and follow conversations regarding particular topics (Bruns & Burgess, 16). Technique of tagging was also popular among platforms like Evernote, where tags were being employed as tools to describe content, retrieve and archive it, what changed with Twitter changing the role of tag to filter and promote the content; tag became part of message broadcasting (Rocheleau & Millette, 244).

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The hashtags started to become more and more popular in variety of platforms, while the academia started to conceptualize it as more than just a feature, but rather as technosocial events in the media ecology that are entangled in various networks and help to understand them (Rambukkana, 2). For the sake of this research, it is important to understand how the sex positivity-related hashtags are placed within the existing literature in order to explain how they represent the publics in the sex positivity issue networks.

The hashtags this research is interested in, which represent the studied issue, are mostly #sexspositivity and #sexpositivie. There are various scholastic concept describing types of hashtags, which some of the most accurate for this case are described below. Bruns and Stieglitz described such tags as recurring ones, as they are being used to contribute to certain topics and debates in repeated manner (97). Additionally, Sauter and Bruns conceptualize them as the topical hashtags, which can be reactionary to different discussions or events, but they have to aim at contribution to a particular topic (62). With such hashtags, users can easily exploit them as a tracking mechanism for the topics they are interested in, but once they reuse them, it becomes also a relational marker, which actors use to relate either to others or themselves, described also as a “technology of engagement” (Sauter & Bruns, 52). Burgess et al. introduced this notion of engagement of public by hashtag as ‘hybrid forum’, basing it on understanding forum as open space for discussion of the collective interest, and hybrid considering the heterogeneous nature of the public involved (63).

Through its affordance of marking conversations and facilitating dialogue, hashtags fulfill another role, which is focused on engaging users who employ them and hence shaping the communities around particular topics. Usage of particular hashtags may be interpreted as a community affiliation or user’s desire to belong (Burgess et al, 62), however it is debatable to what extent a group of people involved in a hashtag can be described as a community. On one hand, notion of community implies that the participants share specific interests and are deliberately engaging with each other, which can, but doesn’t have to always be the case and whether a particular user considers himself a member of a community is a very individual matter. On the other hand, it is proved that hashtags facilitate the process of ‘audiencing’ as they bundle together content on a common, unified topic and that translates often into engagement of those posters outside of the platforms or enable a participant in a hashtag stream act as a community as they retweet or repost the each other’s content. This suggests that the participants do not engage only with the hashtag but also what other

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members of the community are posting behind it, thus forming a collective discourse around it (Bruns & Burgess, 21).

In case of the public's behind the hashtags of sex positivity, as the topic is highly controversial and does not have a homogenous definition, it may be assumed that the audience behind it is also rather heterogeneous set of various actors who build up the sex-positive community. In this way the community is constituting a network of issue publics, as they are mediated public spheres in which hashtags take a coordinating role for each issue public (Bruns & Burgess, 18). The sex positivity community emerges in various platforms, however it may be facing different obstacles from their policies, what can be considered an important factor why they continue to push back and continue the discourse, what can be reffered to the notion of ‘intimate publics’. According to Olszanowski, it is a produced public sphere, within which members can freely exchange their ideas and opinions, that are already partly shared due to common worldview and emotional bond derived from broadly shared historical experience (The 1x1 Common, 232). Since the sex positivity issue is rooted in feminism, it is potentially an accurate concept for its publics. Adding the perspective of Antonakis-Nashif, the sex positive community in social media may act similarly to a feminist movement #aufschrei in Germany, which is conceptualized as a ‘subaltern counterpublic’. Such hashtag public emerges as a reaction to a mainstream discourse, in which particular group does not considers to be heard, thus it regroups and withdraws from general public sphere and starts to produce its own alternative knowledge to raise its voice (103). By applying this concept, the sex positive movement online may be seen as a issue public opposing to the mainstream discourse in the platforms. All aforementioned concepts of the publics are rather a hypothesis of how the publics of sex positivity, formed around hastags, can exists in the studied platforms, what will be examined by the fidnings and discussion chapters.

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Twitter and Instagram as case studies

Given that this research aims at understanding the concept of sex positivity through its publics, the main goal of the methodology was to employ a framework that would determine the main sub-groups of the general audience and analyze what are the main perspectives on sex positivity that they are representing. The research was designed based on the digital methods approach, meaning it will follow the methods of the medium in interpreting the web data to analyze the studied social issue (Rogers, Digital Methods, 1). Such approach could take into consideration various digital objects and data sets, however in pursuit of studying sex positivity issue, the research was be focused on realizing issue mapping on particular social media platforms in order to answer the research question. The process of issue mapping was divided into two parts: first, the issue network analysis in order to proceed with finding the main issue publics; secondly, finding the dominant voices within the main sub-publics to understand in-depth the main narratives that are given the greatest authority within the networks.

Two platforms were chosen to serve as a base for the case study: Instagram and Twitter. Each of these platforms has its unique set of affordances and is used by its participants for various purposes, what has to be taken into consideration while analyzing the findings. What they both have in common though is the same feature they employ, that is also the key object in this research - they all deploy hashtags. In Instagram, tags are a function that accompanies the photo by describing, classifying and expressing feelings connected to it (Ye et al., 386), moreover, it can be seen as more than just a marker, as it facilitates reading the intended message that is contained and expressed through the images (Olszanowski, The 1x1 Common, 236). For Twitter, which is mostly known for its opportunity of microblogging, the hashtags are a vital part of the platform as they are constituting a part of the message itself, primarily used to mark the tweet’s content and signal its affiliation to general topics and themes, serving also as a coordinating discussion mechanism (Bruns & Burgess, 13). Although the studied platforms are focused on different types of content and initially could have different ideas of what function the tagging behaviour might serve, as the social media platforms and hashtags are becoming more and more popular, their usage is

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being adapted re-created by the platforms’ users, hence it can be considered comparable, as they all mark specific topic being presented or debated within the studied discourse.

As Rogers points out, analysis of collective actions, social movements and “connective actions” requires more exhaustive approach then analysing only one platform, hence the cross-platform analytical approach is recommended, where each platform is evaluated according to its unique research opportunities and features it deploys, however the findings are compared and combined in order to explain a social phenomenon (Rogers, _Digital Methods for Cross-Platform Analysis, 7). _{In this manner, each platform will serve as a case} study for the sex positivity issue research, their findings will be reflected on considering the specific “cultures of use” (8), hence each of the platforms will be treated as a separate issue space and a separate issue public to study. The findings from each public are treated as an input to answer collectively the research question _{How is the issue of sex positivity defined} by its publics in social media platforms?, based on the commonalities found in both of the platforms. On the other hand, the comparison between Instagram and Twitter gives an opportunity to spot the differences in its publics and their discourse defninig the sex positivity issue. Although this research is not a platform study, these differences triggered some interesting observations regarding the platform’s influence on the issue publics and therefore are commented on with respect to each of the platform’s specifics in one part of the discussion section.

3.2 Issue mapping

The method used to detect the publics of sex positivity online is the issue mapping, which is a range of techniques and strategies that help in understanding an issue and its communication. The issue mapping approach takes a current affair as an object of study and employs various techniques to describe, deploy and visualize objects, actors and the substance of a social issue. Issue mapping is mostly interested in the topics that are considered unstable, fluid and potentially a sphere of misunderstanding. Considering the lack of unified view on definition of sex positivity, it renders it a good topic of study. Moreover, issue mapping seeks to reveal how the actors involved in those matters are constituting those issues by relating to each other and creating alliances with unified views, referred to as issue publics. The ultimate goal of the method is to produce a mapping of a network, in both narrative and visual way, in order to trace and identify the relations between actors involved in the issue (Rogers et al., 9-10).

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There are multiple ways of conducting the issue mapping, among which is the concept of social cartography, rooted in the actor-network theory by Bruno Latour, who challenges the way of how ‘social’ is being understood. According to Latour, the idea of social shouldn’t be understood as static, pre-given or ordered, instead, the social should be seen as movement of various actors in the constant process of constituting the social. In his understanding, actors involved in a social issue constantly perform the social and thus define the state of affairs, which later can be analysed as an issue, however focusing on the movement and the struggle between the performers. Based on this theory, the social cartography treats the social as a trail of connections, constantly re-associating and re-assembling, resulting in the society being what these connections produce. The traces of new associations are the only visible elements a researcher can map in order to map the social issue itself (5-16). While proceeding with an issue mapping by applying social cartography, the publics that are found in the process of mapping explain how the issue of sex positivity is being constituted by the actors involved in creation of its discourse in the social media platforms.

According to Latour, the social controversies should be the starting point of an issue mapping process, what was developed by Tommaso Venturini in framework of how to explore them using the actor-network theory. According to Venturini, social controversies are “the crucible where collective life is melted and forged” (Venturini, Diving in Magma, 264) and they exist in a magmatic state, what serves as a metaphor for their constantly changing state as the social is being constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. Conceptualizing controversy, he refers to a simple definition, which explains them as matters of shared uncertainty or situations where actors disagree, additionally listed the conditions which a controversy should fulfill in order to be suitable for mapping (261-263). Thay are applicable to the issue of sex positivity is as follows:

1) it involves all kind of actors, including non-human actors - various groups within feminist discussion and not only participate in the sex positivity issue, additionally, platforms themselves may act as actors;

2) displays the social in its most dynamic form - as it is assumed that within the issue publics new, surprising alliances and connections between them are being formed, as the discussion is heterogenous and multi-sided;

3) is reduction-resistant - meaning that the controversy in being constantly a site of disagreement, impossible to reduce to one simple questions, what in case of sex positivity is true, looking at its history and position within the feminist discourse;

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4) is it debated - as more and more subtopics within the controversy is being discussed over time, in sex positivity an example can be new debated related to ethical porn being brought up, what can be considered a relative novelty for this issue;

5) is a conflict - where controversy is a struggle to solve the social inequalities, while being influenced by distributions of power - in this case study the assumption is that the struggle may occur between various publics involved with issue, but also between the public and the platforms that host them.

Additionally, it is advised to avoid cold, past, boundless and underground (meaning closed from public debates) controversies as an object of study (263). As sex positivity is neither of the aforementioned types of controversy, it is considered an appropriate social controversy to apply social mapping to.

The research takes sex-postivie-related hashtags as a base of the issue mapping process, treating each platform and its hashtag network as a separate case study. Treating the hashtag as a starting point of detecting a network of associations was proposed by Sanchez-Querubin, who suggests that hashtag stream produces new issue space and therefore be interpreted through the lens of ‘politics of association’, similarly to mapping with hyperlinks.. Once hashtags occur together in the same message, those associations enable to trace the topical mobility between different positions, hence, in this analysis the co-occurrence of hashtags should be read as a discourse, where capturing the vocabularies and actors can help in deployment of network of entangled objects and actors (96-99). The hashtag associations reveal the main publics and their discourse of sex positivity, hence contribute to definition of the issue itself.

For each platform, the hashtags chosen for analysis are the ‘sexpositivity’ and ‘sexpositive’, based on the fact that they are the most generic ones relatively to the topics thus they allow for capturing biggest amount of discourse related to sex positivity. In order to create the needed dataset based on respective hashtags, the method of scraping was employed, which is a web technique applied to online content that allows for collection of large amounts of data (Rogers, ‘Introduction: Situating Digital Methods’, 1). As each website or platform have different specifics and affordances, scraping of the platforms should also be conducted in a tailored manner (Weltevrede, 30), therefore for each platform in this case study different tool was employed in order to obtain the dataset of the hashtags. Each of the tools chosen for scraping of the platforms were developed by the Digital Method Institute (DMI) and they are

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publicly available on their website. They were suitable to use due to their flexibility regarding customization of the date range and particular hashtags to be scraped.

For Instagram research, the Instagram Scraper was employed, which “interfaces with the3

API of Instagram to retrieve overviews of posts for a given set of usernames or hashtags” (Instagram Scraper), in this case scraping two aforementioned hashtags. Regarding the Twitter platform, datasets was produced by the TCAT tool , which “captures tweets and4

allows for multiple analyses” (TCAT). All the tools provide their output in the form of .gdf file which contains a co-tag dataset, meaning tags which appear together and including determined weight indicating how often they appear together (Instagram Scraper). The .gdf file was further processed in the Gephi, a network visualisation tool, where various optimizations were applied in order to enhance the aesthetics aspects of the graph and facilitate analysis. The spatialization of the nodes and edges of the graph was deployed using on of the most popular force vector algorithms in Gephi - ForceAtlas2 - which enabled to give relative positions to all data points (Venturini, Visual Network Analysis, 3). The co-existing tags in the network are represented by nodes, where the bigged the node the more often it appears in the dataset, and their edges which constitute the relations between the hashtags. With the issue network visualised in for of a graph, the network clusters can interpreted to understand the different perspectives and views entangled in the issue being analysed (Burgess & Matamoros-Fernández, 82). For all the tools used, the data were collected in the time frame from 7.04.2019 till 7.05.2019. The dataset proved to be big enough to collect the findings, as both of the produced networks are based on more than 1000 nodes and 9000 edges each.

The produced network graphs are interpreted according to the aforementioned framework proposed by Venturini of how to explore the controversies following the actor-network theory. First, he suggests to start with statements, understood as collection of arguments in the debate, and demarcate them into existing literature discourses, following with identifying the actors involved in the production of these arguments (266), what is the focus of the analysis aiming at discovering the issue publics. Next, as the researcher should move towards identification of the networks those actors and their arguments constitute and move from networks to cosmoses that represent the underlying ideologies that the different voices in the debate represent (267), it is represented by the discussion section where the findings of issue publics and their sex positivity definitons are grounded in the theories.

3_{https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolInstagramScraper} 4_{https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolDmiTcat}

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3.3. Finding the dominant voice

The second part of the methodology is based on the issue network analysis described in the previous chapter, but focused on examining in-depth the thematic clusters found during the issue network analysis, in order to find the dominant voices within those issue publics. The notion of dominant voice was proposed by Rogers as a part of framework which repurposes the social media space from the once user for self-presentation into one that mobilizes publics of social issue; and treating the vanity metrics for social networks as the metrics for analysing the issue networks. Vanity metrics is a term developed for the business studies, concerned with counting the likes, page views and other metrics in social media platforms that indicate “success in the hit and like economies” (Otherwise Engaged, 1-2). Rogers proposes to use the vanity metrics for the process of critical analysis applied to the social movement online, where the metrics build up the social issue work. One of the critical metrics he proposes is the ‘dominant voice’, which indicate the most impactful source (though not necessarily the most credible) within the studied issue space. The questions one may ask while looking for the dominant voice within a network analysed is which sources are present in the space, and among those, which ones are dominating the discussion, while others are being marginalized (7). The dominant voice identification is a process of identifying the actors who are producing the knowledge and opinions within the issue space (20) and this is the main concern in the second part of the research.

Dominant voice was chosen among the other vanity metrics to contribute to the research objective as it enables to find the actors who are being a representation of the whole public’s discourse due to reach that they have within the issue space. As the dominant voices will be detected by their visibility, measured by tweets amount or likes amount, they can be seen as the main representatives of the discourse of each public, meaning the dominant voices due to their reach can be considered the ‘defining’ voices of their publics, hence they will best contribute to the answer of how these publics define the issue of sex positivity. To apply the concept of the dominant voice to mapping of an issue network in social media platforms, it had to be decided first which vanity metrics would be taken into consideration for the critical analysis. Instagram and Twitter enable various features for users to engage them in activity on the platform therefore for each platform one metric had to be chosen, which could be comparable to the ones in other platforms and indicate user engagement in an issue space. Twitter allows its users to perform a variety of activities, but the most basic one is simply sharing a status message, that can contain both text caption and associated hashtags. A

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previous research suggests that the platform is mostly content-oriented, where networks are constructed around subject and topics, signalized by tags, rather than individual users and their conversations (Anger & Kittl, 1). Knowing this, following the topics indicated by hashtags are the first step to determine who are the main voices expressing them. For this reason, the TCAT tool was used again, where the full tweets dataset with their IDs was matched with another TCAT data set, containing all tweets IDs with the hashtags and usernames they are associated with. By pairing up these data, another set was created, presenting the statistics of how many times each user mentioned particular hashtag in the issue space. The most actively tagging users for each of the tags were determined, what was followed with categorization of those accounts by their thematic and source type (explained in more detail in the findings section).

Instagram is the platform thus is referred to as an ‘image machine’, where users present their bodies through images and relate to each other with a set of practices to give and gain attention. The engagement in the platform may take various forms, among which the most popular and common ones are liking and commenting of the posts (Carah, Nicholas, Shaul, 70-71). From these two metrics, the ‘like’ is the quantitative one, which can be easily compared among variety of posts and this is why it was employed in the research as the indication of the dominant voice. The Instagram scraper enables downloading a file containing all the metadata of the scraped posts, including also the likes per post what was the focus of analysis. Using the overall data .csv file, it was also possible to count the hashtag frequencies in order to determine the most used ones and additionally, match the most liked posts with users who employed the most frequent tags, in this was the dominant voices in Instagram were detected, followed by categorization and analysis like in Twitter case.

To sum up, the first methodological step for both platforms was to map the sex positivity issue based on their co-hashtag connections, and with analysis detect the main clusters representing the main publics of the issue. This helped to answer the question of _{Who are}

the publics of sex positivity? Once they were detected, the clusters were matched with the most frequently used hashtags to narrow down the research and followed with matching process of those hashtags with the dominating users who are representatives of the discourse within each of the issue spaces. As users were analysed and categorized, it enabled to answer the question of _{What kind of dominant voices are creating the discourse if} its publics? By combining findings of both questions, comparing and consolidating them in a

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cross-platform manner, it enables to understand how these publics contribute to the emergence of sex positivity issue online and how its publics define it.

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4. FINDINGS

4.1 Twitter’s sex positivity issue network analysis

Figure 1: Twitter’s sex positivity issue network graph with main clusters labelled

The network of the sex positivity issue in Twitter produced by scraped data in the time period of one month, from 7th of April till 7th of May 2019, is based on 1349 nodes, representing the hashtags co-related to ‘sexpositivity’ and ‘sexpositive’ hashtags, and 9402 edges, representing the connections between them. Considering the scale of the graph, the network analysis of the issue is focused on the main nodes, meaning the most frequently used hashtags, and the main clusters and sub-clusters formed around them, which will allow to discover the publics of sex positivity in Twitter platform. The complete issue network graph visualised in Gephi, with main areas for interpretation, is presented in _{Figure 1,} where certain visual ranking settings in Gephi were applied. The colour of nodes represents the degree of how many times a particular hashtag has been used, meaning that the darker the node is the more this hashtag has been mentioned in the issue space in the tweets collection. The same logic was applied to the size of the nodes, the bigger the node the

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more frequently the hashtag was used. The darkest, central node represents the hashtag ‘sexpositive’, which is the most frequently used one and serves as a reference point in other graphs in order to situate the clusters.

Figure 2: Table with top 25 most frequently used hashtags in the issue space

As the co-hashtag dataset was processed by the appropriate software, the network was produced and then interpreted. In most of the network graphs, their spatial setting can reveal various regions of assembled nodes, where the main aspect that matters is the clustering of the network, meaning “the relative position of the nodes, their agglomeration and their separation” (Venturini, Visual Network Analysis, 4). Depending on the network, the boundaries of clusters are not necessarily easily detectable, however it is easiest to detect the “structural holes” between them and the nodes that act as “bridges” which connect them and indicate connections (10). The Twitter’s sex positivity issue network is not easily divided into clusters due to huge amount of connections meaning hashtag co-relations, hence apart from only spatial analysis, the clusters reach was detected by analysis of the nodes label in order to match them thematically. As the network is huge, where not all the clusters are adding value to the analysis of sex positivity issue, the network analysis was focused on choosing clusters corresponding only to the most commonly used hashtags in the dataset, which are presented in _{Figure 2} . Following the described logic, only the most discussed

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topics through hashtags were chosen to answer the research question to define the issue of sex positivity, given the following clusters: ‘pornography’, ‘body positivity’, ‘queer’, ‘BDSM’, ‘swinging’, ‘sex toys’ and ‘sex education’, marked also in the _{Figure 1.} Under most of these clusters, smaller subclusters are also formed, which will be described in spearat parts of findings, together with deeper analysis and explanation of cluster’s meanings for the definition of sex positivity.

4.1.1 Twitter’s ‘pornography’ cluster

Figure 3: Central ‘pornography’ cluster

First cluster to be analyzed in the central, ‘pornography’ cluster [ _{Figure 3}], which contains most of the most frequently used hashtags in the issue space and additionally is positioned very closely to the central, dark node representing the starting point of the graph - the ‘sexpositive’ tag. The proximity to the central node indicates the strong hashtag correlation between the nodes, meaning that the themes described by them are also core to the definition of sex positivity given by the Twitter public. Some of the hashtags are very generic and non-related to the studied issue, however most of them is related to direct sexual content and pornography-related themes, like ‘hotwife’ or ‘naughtygirls’, hence the cluster is labelled as ‘pornography’. Some of the tags are generic, like ‘adult’, however considering the issue space studied and its relation to other tags, it is certain they refer to adult, porn-related content in Twitter. Some of the tags are also connected to more feminist ideas, like

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‘sexualempowerment’, what poses the question of how all these hashtags are thematically related being contained within one cluster, however the explanation may be the fact of high frequency of them, thus the probability they appear together is greater. Additionally, the thematic character of the central cluster indicates the overall character of the whole network, what will be examined again in the upcoming sections.

4.1.2 Twitter’s ‘body positivity’ & ‘queer’ clusters

Figure 4: The ‘body positivity’ and ‘queer’ cluster

Apart from the centrally-located hashtags around the sex positivity node, the next frequently used tag in the network is the ‘bodypositive’, located very close to the main node, around which there is a small cluster formed, containing hashtags like ‘nudity’ or ‘nudemale’ [ _Figure

4]. The body positivity approach became a very vocal topic in the mainstream discourse over the past decade, expressing mostly an approach of accepting one’s own body and changes it undergoes, ultimately resulting in greater one’s self-acceptance and self-esteem (Schreiber & Hausenblas). The absence of female-related tags implies that the body-positive public represented by this hashtag is mostly male-dominated and expressing the body positive identity through nude-related content. The ‘bodypositive’ node is also connected to the close hashtags ‘gay’ and ‘queer’, accompanied by other queer-related nodes like ‘trans’ and ‘bi’, which are considered to be their own queer-themed sub-cluster [ _{Figure 4}]. The nodes are very closely connected, this is why although thematically different, the two clusters are presented together. Queer stands for the theoretical model focusing on the mismatches between sex, gender and desire, however being commonly used to describe the assemblage of culturally marginalized sexual self-assigned orientations, what emerged as a concept from gay and lesbian studies (Jagose, 1-3). It explains the coexistence of the tags in

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the cluster, where nodes are comprised of various hashtags, with focus on gay nudity, photography and art, like ‘artisticnude’, ‘malebody’ or ‘gayphotographer’. The ‘bodypositive’ node is connected also to most of these hashtags, implying that the body-positive public of Twitter is mostly queer-dominated, what can be understood as the linkage between the artistic expression of body nudity and the body acceptance, as the cluster’s hashtag meanings suggest.

4.1.3 Twitter’s ‘bdsm’ cluster

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Figure 6: The ‘club culture’ subcluster

Another big cluster representing a certain public of sex positivity formed in the network is the ‘bdsm’ cluster, which is relatively big in comparison to other clusters, as shown prevously in the _{Figure 1} . It is formed around the main node of hashtag ‘bdsm’, which is the 30th most frequently used hashtag in the issue space, and can be divided into smaller thematic sub-clusters. BDSM stands for the community of people who are “interested in bondage (B), domination (D), submission (S), sadism (the same “S”) and masochism (M)”, often referred to as “kink” by its practitioners (Bezreh et al., 38), which is another commonly used hashtag in the space and included in the cluster. The two main sub-clusters of the bdsm sphere can be distinguished, starting with the ‘bdsm practices’ one _{[Figure 5]}, including tags related to common practices of bdsm community, like ‘blindfolded’, ‘gagged’ or ‘bondagegirl’. The subcluster can be interpreted as the bdsm public who actively engages with bdsm and discusses its practicalities in the platform. The second sub-cluster is the ‘club culture’ one [_{Figure 6}], in which all the nodes are also connected to another frequently used hashtag in the issue space - ‘fetish’. The tags like ‘club’, ‘swinging’, ‘dance’, ‘party’ or ‘techno’ interpreted together refer to the connections of BDSM scene to clubbing culture, as the BDSM community usually performs its practices in territorialized places like clubs, where they can enjoy their lifestyle away from public gaze (Zambelli, 476-478). The BDSM

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sub-public of this cluster can be interpreted as the people connecting the idea of sex positivity to the freedom of practicing BDSM in the club clulture institutions.

4.1.4 Twitter’s ‘swinging’ cluster

Figure 7: The ‘swinging’ cluster

The ‘bdsm practices’ subcluster is connected to the node ‘kink’, being also a frequently used tag, ranked at 74th place, which links to another cluster, placed in a separate part of the graph, however being thematically connected to the ‘bdsm’ cluster - the ‘swinging’ cluster

[Figure 7]. The main node of this cluster is ‘swingers’, ranked at 27th place in the list of most commonly used tags, what emphasized the importance of the public represented by it for the whole issue’s public. The hashtags contained in the cluster describe the nature of the swinging approach, like ‘openmarriage’, ‘openrelationship’, ‘sharedwife’ or ‘nonmonogamous’, which accurately explain the approach of swinging being mostly employed by married couples who agree to exchange partners for sexual purposes (Jenks, 507) and constitute an important and vocal sub-publics of sex positivity within the studied issue space.

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4.1.5 Twitter’s ‘sex education’ cluster

Figure 8: The ‘sex education’ cluster

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The 25th most commonly used hashtags in the sex positivity issue space is the tag ‘sexeducation’, which forms another important public in the central part of the graph. The cluster includes nodes like ‘sexpositions’, ‘sexcoach’ or ‘ sexualwelness’, referring to general idea of sharing knowledge about sexual experiences and practices in an open manner. The ‘sexeducation’ node is connected also to similar tag represented by node ‘sexed’, ranked 47th in the issue space, which links to the thematically connected part of the graph. The ‘sexed’ node connects to tags like ‘sexualfreedom’, also frequently used one, or ‘masturbation’, between which a ‘masturbation’ subcluster can be found [ _{Figure 9}]. It includes tags like ‘sexplore’, ‘masturbationmonth’, ‘sexualbehaviour’ and ‘femalemasturbation’, what can imply that the sub-public of this cluster is slightly more female-gendered. This node is also connected to the ‘feminism’ node, however no significant cluster is being formed around this node, with the hashtag being ranked only at 139th place in the issue space, this is why for Twitter it is not analysed as a separate issue public. The topic of sex education and masturbation seem to be tightly connetced, hence discussed together in this one section. The whole sphere which diverges from the main ‘sexeducation’ node shows the main interests of the sex education public, being the sexual health and the open, informative approach towards the idea of masturbation, which is still a taboo topic in various societies, while the sex educators are calling for destigmatizing it through initiatives like “Masturbation Month” in order to increase awareness about need of self-pleasure (Lloyd). This explains why masturbation is treated as a matter of sexual education. Moreover, the female-gendered hashtags suggest the female public playing an important role in the sex education discourse, however judging by the size of the cluster, not necessarily in the general Twitter’s sex positivity discourse itself.

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4.1.6 Twitter’s ‘sex toys’ cluster

Figure 10: The ‘sex toys’ cluster

The last main cluster found in the issue space is the one formed around the hashtag ‘sextoys’, also located closely to the main ‘sexpositive’ node [ _{Figure 10}]. The cluster contains tags like ‘safesex’, ranked on 67th place, and ‘intimacy’, ranked 52nd, and other sex toys-related tags, mostly connected to lubricants as commonly used sex products. The cluster is not big, however the tags within it are some on the most frequently used ones, what may imply that people using or interested in sex toys are an important public within the sex positivity discourse and find the topic of using sex-enhancement devices as a sex-positive behavior. As for the rest of the graph which was not discussed in this section, the more distant subclusters formed in the peripheries of the graph are not taken into consideration for the analysis as they are not representing a commonly used hashtags thus they are not considered relevant for the research purpose.

4.2 Dominant voice analysis in Twitter

The the second part of the sex positivity issue space findings are guided by the dominant voice analysis, meaning that for each of the sex positivity sub-public the dominant accounts are determined, followed by categorization of those accounts by subjective labels, which help to understand what type of accounts they are hence what kind of knowledge sources are given the power in the issue space to define it (Rogers, Otherwise Engaged, 7). Basing on the tweets dataset and previous findings of the main publics’ clusters, the main tags for

Let’s Talk About Sex Baby: Mapping the Issue of Sex Positivity on Twitter and Instagram