BROOKLYN, NY – Etsy will ban the sale of most pleasure products and content that depict sexual acts and genitals beginning July 29.
Etsy’s revised policy on adult nudity and sexual content was published last week.
Starting in late July, Etsy will ban the sale of adult toys that are “inserted into the body; applied to the genitals; or designed for the insertion of genitals.”
The company specified that the new policy applies to adult toys such as dildos, vibrators, anal plugs, sex dolls and Fleshlights.
Etsy will continue to allow the sale of “non-insertable, non-penetrative adult toys and sexual accessories” as long as they meet our requirements for sale on Etsy. This includes items such as seat belts, handcuffs, nipple clamps, body harnesses, sex furniture and BDSM accessories.
The permitted adult toys and sexual accessories “may not be shown in use or worn by human models in the listing or review of photographs.” Etsy urges sellers to “use a mannequin or lay-flat photography instead.”
The ban on pleasure products also extends to promotional copy using what the company calls “sexual language referring to family relationships,” which it calls “references to sexual acts, sexual bodily fluids, fetish acts (including BDSM acts such as spanking), genitals, sexual arousal, and sexualized terminology such as ‘slut’ or ‘whore’” in combination with “terms referring to parents, step-parents, children, step-children, siblings, step-siblings, grandparents, aunts or uncles, and nieces or nephews. ”
“This includes slogans such as ‘Daddy’s slut’ or ‘Choke me Mommy’,” the company specifies.
The policy also prohibits the sale of “pornographic content” on Etsy, which the company defines as “printed or visual material that explicitly describes or depicts sexual acts, genitalia, or other erotic behavior for the purpose of sexual arousal or stimulation; material produced by pornographic publishers (e.g. Playboy, Brazzers), including vintage magazines and adult films; material marketed and/or described as pornographic in advertisement titles, descriptions, or tags, regardless of whether there is nudity or sexual content in the images themselves; items modeled by a human in advertising or review photos When a human model appears in an advertising or review photo for an item, genitals, anuses, buttocks, and female nipples/areolas may not be visible.
The ban also includes all photography and photorealistic content that “depicts sexual acts, genitals or anuses, even if these are hidden in the frame of images,” but it excludes “photographs and photorealistic images of buttocks and nipples, as long as these share bodies are hidden in the first listing image,” as described in the policy for properly displaying adult content.
For content that is neither photographic nor photorealistic – such as paintings, illustrations, sculptures, and line drawings – Etsy allows certain forms of adult nudity, including “visible breasts and buttocks; genitals or anuses without any additional sexual context (such as sexual acts, visible arousal, sexual stimulation, sexual bodily fluids, or sexually suggestive posing); and sexual acts without visible genitals or anuses.” All other images of sexual acts, genitals or anuses are prohibited.
Another explicit prohibition is the sale of “fetishistic items (for example, items that have been used intimately by a specific individual, such as worn underwear), and customized photos and videos that depict nudity or sexual content, or content that sexualizes a specific body part ( for example ‘foot pictures’).”
Etsy VP of Trust and Safety Alice Wu Paulus has a rack He explained that the reason for expanding sex censorship was “to keep Etsy and its community safe.”