NEW YORK — Online sex toy retailer WildFlowerSex.com lost its Instagram account last week and is rallying the pleasure products industry to call out unfair terms-of-service agreements that target sex education and body positivity.
Instagram later reinstated WildFlowerSex's account; however, the company seized the opportunity to make a statement about the recent changes to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram that label sex education as porn.
Nick and Amy Boyajian, co-founders of WildFlowerSex, found the company’s Instagram account, @WildflowerSex, locked and deleted without warning from the social media platform on Thursday.
“[Instagram] didn’t tell us how we had violated [the terms], only that we had and we were banned,” COO Nick Boyajian said. “Within the hour, we were contacted by countless friends and other people in the pleasure industry voicing their concern and asking where our account had gone and how they could help us get it back. We still haven’t been able to get any real answers about why our account was deactivated.”
WildFlowerSex's account had amassed well over 67,000 followers to the company's feed of inclusive, sex-positive posts that aimed to create a comfortable conversation around sexual health and pleasure.
“Finding our account disabled made our hearts sink into our stomachs,” CEO Amy Boyajian said. “We have poured so much energy and love into creating the educational content for the Instagram and our website, and to see it just disappear without any warning or reason was devastating.”
Though the business often showcased partial and artistic nudity in their photo posts to bust media stereotypes on body image, none of WildFlowerSex's images actually violated Instagram's ban on pornographic material, Amy Boyajian said.
“To be completely honest, we kind of had a feeling this was coming,” she said. “Instagram has noticeably cracked down on many accounts that it has deemed to be too ’sexually suggestive.’ WildFlowerSex’s entire mission is to promote healthy sexual pleasure. Is that a violation of their terms? We didn’t think so, and neither do the hundreds of people who have contacted us and posted about us in the past 24 hours [following the deletion] but maybe Instagram disagrees?”
WildFlowerSex now hopes to rally the pleasure industry and fellow sexual health educators to protest unfair treatment and improperly enforced terms of service across social media platforms, Amy Boyajian said.
“All we can really do is try to get Instagram’s attention and hope someone there can see this situation for what it really is,” Amy Boyajian said. “Our Instagram account is so much more to us than just an advertising tool for our online store, and it was huge for us to get it back.”
