Faced with the censorship of any image displaying nudity that plagues almost every social media outlet, Lips promises sex workers and others free expression.
While classic social networks are excessively picky about content displaying nudity, Lips, created in June 2020, intends to break taboos and promote sex workers, artists performing erotic performances or people from LGBTQI + communities. , as reported Korii.
It was thought to be an essential alternative to traditional social networks. In 2018, Tumblr banned adult content, despite being a sex education tool for some young people. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, and which has the unfortunate tendency to censor all content displaying naked bodies, has been accused on several occasions of suppressing works of art or charity campaigns because of bare breasts or visible nipples. For its part, TikTok "purges" users who have registered "OnlyFans" (Editor's note, online hosting service for photo and video content accessible by subscription) in their bios.
"Currently, social networks do not differentiate between sexual expression and sexual exploitation, deplores Val Elefante, the community manager of Lips, in a post on Medium. Therefore, they chose to take a ruthlessly combative approach to sex that causes significant harm to female and LGBTQIA + designers."
First a university magazine
When it started in 2008, Lips was a college magazine aimed at the LGBTQI + community. It then spread to several other universities, opened an Instagram account which now has nearly 19,000 subscribers, and forged partnerships with more than fifty brands. So the creators came up with the idea of making it a social network dedicated to LGBTQI + people and to all those interested in sexuality and its representations. In fact, between a few photos of naked women in abundance, we find buttocks, lascivious drawings or even erotic poems.
But the ambition remains to create a real generalist social network. "Don't feel pressured to share half-naked self-portraits or erotic art if that's not what you fancy", says the site team in a post."This space is intended for the expression and discovery of your true self. You just want to post pictures of cats? Awesome! I love cats!", encourage the creators.
An alternative for sex workers
Not being welcome on social media such as TikTok or Instagram, sex workers feel confident to invest in Lips to promote themselves. The platform has therefore just created a hashtag # 4sale "intended for artists and entrepreneurs wishing to present their works and their products".
Val Elefante, the community manager, also claims that Lips will be a "fundamentally benevolent" social network, unlike Twitter or Facebook which are full of hate messages. "A platform specially designed for marginalized groups will always stand in solidarity with marginalized groups", hopes the community manager, who relies on self-moderation.