Can I Still Write About Sex? If So, For How Long?
Because of banks and payment processors, we’re moving in a repressive direction. That worries me.
A little over a decade ago, I wanted to build an online magazine dedicated to sex. It would feature erotic photography, articles on sex in art, thoughtful interviews with sex workers, and personal essays. I wanted to create a beautiful online experience that would be somewhere between mainstream media and pornography, one that explored complicated sexual experience with nuance and without judgment.
After I wrote this idea up, I met with a friend who happened to be a lawyer with some experience in this area. I wanted to know if there was anything I needed to worry about.
“Love the idea, hate the business,” he said. “And it’s going to be a fucking nightmare if you try to make this happen so don’t do it.”
He told me that even if I made it aesthetically interesting and kept the eroticism down to a soft simmer, it would still be an ‘adult business.’ As an adult business, it would be flagged as ‘high risk,’ which meant everything would get a hell of a lot more difficult.
The problem, he said, was the photography. Inside a gallery, nude photographs were art, but if I created a website featuring those same…