We're seeing more and more accounts on other social media platforms censoring normal anatomical words as if they're dirty - using nonsense terms like "v&g1n@". You'll never catch us doing that. Here's why...
First things first, if you use a screenreader, you'll have just heard your device attempt to pronounce something like "vand-g-won-at". That's not very clear, and furthermore, it's not accessible at all. That alone is a very good reason to reject this practice.
We're aware that this practice of self-censorship is rooted in concerns about posts getting deboosted or outright banned. This is definitely a real problem with automated processes on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. We ourselves stopped using TikTok entirely because it was unusable for a Vagina Museum.
Someone designed the automated processes and algorithms. They didn't just magically happen. A decision has been made by some social media platforms to treat anatomical language as if it's something that must be hidden away.
@vagina_museum I feel it's kind of instructive if you look at how anatomical words like that can be banned by corporate social media but inciting hatred against or even directly abusing minoritised people will return a ‘nothing wrong with this’ if it's reported.
The reverse seems more often true in this place.
@vagina_museum “Freedom of speech” they cry. But you can’t say vagina.
Censoring medical, anatomical words leads to a lack of understanding and poor health outcomes.
*completely unreferenced but seems right.
These decisions are dangerous. According to research by the Eve Appeal, 65% of women aged 16-25 have a problem with the word "vagina". A third of this age group would avoid going to the doctors with a gynaecological health issue due to embarrassment.
Just last week, the Eve Appeal flagged that Instagram was censoring the hashtag #VaginalCancer, a tag containing vital health information.
To avoid using the word "vagina" is to reinforce the decisions that have been made by social media platforms. To censor it as though it's a dirty word that you shouldn't be saying is to reinforce this taboo. We should be challenging the algorithms, not going with the flow.
@vagina_museum@Mary625 you’re welcome.
In some YouTube videos it’s quite funny though, they’re trying to find even more exotic synonyms when talking about these things creating a new sub-genre of humor resulting from this.
After challenging Instagram's decision, the #VaginalCancer hashtag was successfully uncensored. And isn't the fight for information, knowledge, and normalisation a fight worth taking up, even if it's at the expense of a few likes?
@vagina_museum It's always amazed me, the extent that these algorithms will go to in order to promote what amounts to blunt sexism and objectification. This was never about morality.
I hate the censoring of words that need MORE visibility, not less. All to cater to a minority of Victorian Era pearl clutchers. The damage they do by banning such words can be seen clearly when men ask questions like "is my pregnant wife drowning our baby by getting into the tub and preventing her vagina from getting air?"
And those questions make me very sad for humanity.
@vagina_museum ahhh and the last three GYN I visited were- actively horrible- made weird comments etc - so maybe it’s not embarrassment? Maybe it’s because even with female MD’s we’ve enough past experiences to… fill a book or two.
@vagina_museum I remember a glorious rant by Germaine Greer on a BBC4 program about the origins of words. She asserted that "vagina" wasn't a good word as it comes from the Latin for "sword sheath", and it would be far far better if people just used "cunt" instead.
Somehow, I doubt that the 16-25 year olds in that survey had quite the same problem with the word as Germaine.
@vagina_museum I remember this feeling as a teenager trying to buy underwear in a shop. I would cringe at the checkout and feel so awkward. Until my mum asked me if I would feel as embarrassed buying socks - it’s essential clothing. Of course, the answer was no.
Same goes for the correct names for body parts. If we have no issue saying the word elbow or forehead, we shouldn’t have an issue using the word vagina or vulva. They’re just body parts (and ones ~50% of the population have)
@vagina_museum I wonder how they explained where babies came from? "oh you know, that place under the cabbage patch." When you grow up you learn how to say 'naughty' words. which can mean life or death.
You say them long enough and they lose their power over your limited mind.
Should we be equally horrified by tibia and fibula? Or maybe phalanges. Along with vagina and penis and breast and toes, these are all parts of the human body. FFS. Humanity is the walking, talking symbol of a facepalm (face and palm, also parts of the body! ha!).
@vagina_museum I have complicated feelings. I love the term "private parts" because it sends a clear message to people who take an unwelcomely prurient interest in my trans genitals.
But I also feel, for the reasons you've described, that euphemising these body parts allows dangerous rumour and misinformation to fester, for assumptions to be made, and for stigma to be attached.
I dunno. Reconciling those two things probably wouldn't be at all complicated if it weren't for context-collapse messing up our notions of privacy.
@Catriona
My five year old's daycare calls them "no-nos," which cracks me up, but can be a simplified way to say to a child "this is not a place on someone we touch"* The concept of "private" can be a lot harder to define, and we have extra difficulties in our household because we're all nudists who are fine with whoever not wearing clothing, but we have to repeatedly have conversations with our kids that OTHER people are not so chill, and so to prevent us getting in trouble, we have to wear at least underwear whenever we're outside, even our own backyard.
I also tell my kids, both cis white males, that they have to keep a shirt on at the beach, pool, etc because "it's not fair to female-presenting people like me, who aren't allowed to go without a shirt." which is a whoooooollleee other thing about social media censorship that infuriates me, but this post is long enough already 🙃
*the kids' old pediatrician would always ask them directly for permission before she touched their bodies at all, even for routine exams. I thought that was really sweet.
@vagina_museum this ^ even if it's a blooming "ai" that does the filtering a human somewhere approved it. Someone looked at what it's doing and said "yep that looks good ship it" someone somewhere is responsible for that filter existing. The higher up the org chart you go the more responsibility there is for that thing existing.
If Zuckerberg said "don't do that" it wouldn't do that by the time he went home for dinner.
@vagina_museum I actually love the word that begins with c if used in an anatomically correct way. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to spell it out properly though even here.
@vagina_museum
Heaven forbid people should learn about their "forbidden parts." I mean, it's not like you can't use something if you don't know what it's called.
It seems to be an unattainable mental leap for some people to see that objective knowledge helps you assess the risks of how to use your "naughty bits" -- and, what's more, reduces STDs, unwanted pregnancy, and other outcomes.
But I guess I'm preaching to the choir here, where that mental leap was more of a simple step.
@vagina_museum it’s insidious. e.g The Free Dictionary has a “content warning” on its page for vagina (https://tfd.com/vagina) but not for penis (https://tfd.com/penis). I emailed ages ago asking why they have this discrepancy but never received a response
@vagina_museum I asked Chat GPT how to pronounce v&g1n@ and... Well, it clearly knew, but it wouldn't tell me be because it thought it was rude. It knew where to put the word breaks in a lowercase hashtag too.
I don't agree with managing the spellings of words out of a misguided sense of prudery, but also, screen readers could easily be better than they are and this sort of thing should not be a problem for them.
@vagina_museum
It's just a matter of getting a word past the censorship algorithms, which is really stupid. When I used to make comments on Yahoo, a post would get rejected and then I would change one word and magically it would go through. This is the problem when humans no longer perform moderation.
@vagina_museum i really don't see the point especially as all of the social networks mentioned in the thread require the users to be at least 13 years old
@vagina_museum in addition to all the (excellent) points
below, shaming body parts make it more difficult for children to tell adults if they've been abused. Encourage the normalization of proper terms, normalize discussion of the way human bodies work.
@vagina_museum One reason that I avoid the grawlix is that if someone has decided that they are too delicate ever to read the word "vagina", and has set up their own filters to hide or collapse posts containing that word, I should respect that.
Writing "vag1na" instead, in a way that is intended to circumvent their setup, seems rude.
@vagina_museum I've also observed the whole shame around the lady bits has caused severe lack of knowledge of how their body works for a lot of women. this includes calling the vulva for vagina.
@vagina_museum They've also been censoring words like "war", "kill", etc. in a movie transcript, making it harder to find passages within said transcript.
The end result is that people will use "dead" in place of everything, then censor that.
@hypnobeard@vagina_museum that's because its normal to say vagina and Peenis. It's what we have as people. Call it whatever you want, pussy, kitty, beaver, fuck stick, dick, shlong. All words are valid.
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