LOS ANGELES — Following the deactivation of its original Instagram account, Kinkly has launched a campaign to have it reactivated using the hashtag #RestoreKinkly.
“We reached out multiple times through official channels to request a review, but we haven’t received an update or any details as to why our account was deactivated,” co-founder Tara Struyk said. “Although we do our best to adhere to Instagram’s community guidelines, there’s a lot of subjectivity in terms of how they are interpreted, especially in terms of what’s considered ‘sexual health.’”
Instagram’s guidelines warn against “implied sexual intercourse” and “implied stimulation of genitalia” but make an exception in “cases of sexual health context," she noted.
“Not only do we not know exactly what the limits around ‘implied’ are, we’d also argue that our key aim of helping people learn how to have better sex is a key element of sexual health,” Struyk continued. “Instagram’s guidelines as a whole suggest that any post about pleasure may not be considered ‘sexual health.’”
In addition, Struyk noted that Kinkly’s posts have been "incorrectly flagged many times by Instagram, suggesting a serious lack of understanding around sexual content among Instagram’s reviewers."
“We’ve been flagged several times for breaking Instagram’s Community Guidelines around sexual solicitation, for example,” she said. “Our site provides a lot of unique resources, but sexual services is not among them and I think that’s pretty clear when you visit our site. To me, it suggests that Instagram is just painting everything ‘sex’ with the same brush and, as a result, is censoring a lot of sex-related content that aims to educate [as well as] open conversations or simple artistic expression. Plus, we have to wonder how these bans can be fair when the labels used to enact them aren’t even accurate.”
In a post on Kinkly’s temporary Instagram account, the platform noted that it had built "a sex-positive community of more than 55,000 members, and that it hoped to reconnect to spread the message around more pleasurable, shame-free sex."
Kinkly is urging its supporters and those who want to help to tag Instagram using the hashtag #RestoreKinkly and share the post on their own feeds and stories.
Visit Kinkly.com.
