Moxie Rose Just Wants to Watch the World Learn

(Originally published December 6, 2022)

The internet is full of terrible information about sex and sexuality. But those who grew up in the days before ubiquitous web access know this misinformation predates the internet. Schoolyard scholars would swear that you couldn’t get pregnant your first time or that blue balls was easy to cause and could lead to permanent damage.

The internet has only changed the speed and reach of misinformation. Thankfully people like Moxie Rose are combating this misinformation about sex and sexuality on and offline.

Moxie is a sex educator, burlesque dancer, former alt-pin-up model, and purveyor of sex toys at For the Love of It in Wenatchee, Washington. She provides queer-friendly, non-judgemental, fact-based sex education. While some of her TikTok and YouTube videos are about sex toys, driving sales isn’t her primary motivation for sex education.

We are asking for nothing. You wanna buy from my store? Love it. Perfect. Thank you for your support. But I’m very much known for giving information about products that we don’t even carry or information that is irrelevant to a product we have.

Moxie wants to provide good sex ed because “I think the world would be a better place if you understood more about your body, if you understood more about how to advocate for yourself.”

She hopes that people can take the lessons and apply them outside of the context of asking their partner to try something new in the bedroom.“I could take that same verbiage, that same kind of gumption, and advocate for myself for a raise with my boss.”

Moxie fills a role that a lot of people need. In the USA, at least, a focus on abstinence-only sex ed leaves many unprepared for the sex they’ll most likely end up having anyway. Even though abstinence-only sex ed fails to reduce the rate of adolescent pregnancies, it continues to be the primary model thanks to political pressures and cost savings.

But filling in the gaps online is still tricky when you face de-platforming and censorship on apps like TikTok. As sex educator Catiosaurus mentioned in an interview, many users have developed a euphemistic shorthand, or algospeak, to avoid getting automatically flagged for community guidelines violations.

Having to rely on euphemism is challenging, especially regarding things such as Moxie’s series of videos on recovering and reclaiming sexuality after sexual assault.

Even the name of the playlist, Getting ✨Spicy✨after SA, has to be couched in euphemism. “You can’t say the word rape. They’ll immediately take it down. If you say the word assault, they will hold your video for a long time. Sometimes it doesn’t even clear.”

Many people discussing these topics replace the word rape with grape or use the acronym SA, which presents a challenge to users.

First, it makes grave subjects sound unserious. Grapist sounds ridiculous. And if you’re unfamiliar with algospeak, it can take a while to understand what someone is saying.

The euphemisms are also an accessibility nightmare.

For example: Since creators who used the word lesbian saw their videos demonetized, suppressed, etc., they started replacing the s with a $. But when screen readers read that text, it sounds like le dollar bean. Which, without seeing it written out, could be confusing.

Le dollar bean has evolved into a term used in place of lesbian, which means you have to understand algospeak to understand what someone is talking about on TikTok.

It makes frank discussions about sex, sexuality, and sexual assault an exercise in aggravation.

The fact that we take all of that down because you said the word rape, you said the word sexual assault is frustrating. It’s not a dirty word, it’s an uncomfortable word because it’s an uncomfortable act that we don’t like to think about, but rape and sexual assault are not dirty words.

These hurdles are especially unfortunate when these discussions are so vital. Moxie is a survivor of sexual assault and presents this advice as things that worked for her, hoping it can help others.

And it has. Recently, a follower attributed Moxie’s videos as the reason she could enjoy intimacy again. “People are messaging me saying, ‘I’m 42 years old, I’ve been married for 20 years, and I’m just now doing the work to reclaim my sex life after sexual assault.’”

While that’s the plan, it still surprises her when it happens.

It’s just you putting out content into the web, sending it into this void of the internet. You put that content out there, and you work hard on making sure that that information is good and it’s worded right. I never really get to see the real-world impact. Meanwhile, there are people out there that it was everything to them. It changed their life. It saved their lives. It saved their marriage.

She says,

It’s very complimentary and also very sad to be told that you meant that to somebody. I love it, and I love that people feel comfortable enough to tell me that. But it breaks my heart that there were so many people in that comment section saying the same thing.

But no matter how many people her content has helped or how many linguistic hoops Moxie jumps through, her videos continue to be taken down despite obviously falling within the education exception in TikTok’s community guidelines.

Her primary TikTok account was recently banned for repeated community guidelines violations, even though nearly every individual video taken down was successfully appealed. Which shouldn’t happen if TikTok moderation matches its stated policy that penalties incurred for appealed violations “will be removed and will not impact the account going forward.”

Luckily, after a lot of back and forth with moderators, TikTok restored her account. How long it will last is anyone’s guess.

How Does TikTok Moderate Content?

The Washington Post recently attempted to trigger automatic censorship or suppression by using words and phrases that most often led to low views or banned videos, but it ended up being one of their most viewed videos ever.

And yet other users can mention certain words, and their video is labeled as a community guidelines violation.

Maybe the rules are different for verified accounts, or they’re more likely to be monitored by humans rather than AI. Who knows? Despite some people’s best efforts, the precise details of TikTok’s content moderation algorithm and methods remain a mystery.

The capricious nature of the app leaves users like Moxie in an extremely confusing and frustrating position.

I don’t care what people do on there [TikTok], as long as they’re not hurting themselves, hurting other people. I don’t have any issues with anything I see on there. But it is incredibly frustrating to constantly have my accounts banned or temporarily banned or my videos taken down or punished in some way for simply educating people.

Meanwhile, you have accounts that are like making jokes about sex, making it kind of the punchline, showing toys, shaking everything they’ve got basically exposed on camera, which I have no problem with, but I’d like the rules to all be the same.

One of the common justifications for TikTok’s brand of censorship is there are kids on the app. Moxie isn’t satisfied with that rationale.

It comes down to the parents and guardians watching that kid. It’s not my job as a creator to babysit your children. I have a child. I watch my kid. She only watches certain things because that’s what I control for her. I am not putting that onus on these other creators being like, “You can’t say that cuz there’s children here.”

If you think the app was meant for 13-year-olds, a newly minted teen who joined in 2016 would be 19 years old now. They’ve grown up, and depriving them of sex education doesn’t help them, especially since TikTok is overtaking Google as the go-to search engine, especially for Gen Z.

“There are adults here that had kids because they didn’t have information like I give out.” Often when Moxie makes a TikTok, full-grown adults will tell her that her videos were the first time anyone explained to them how the body works or anything on how antibiotics or activated charcoal can interfere with hormonal birth control.

But the idea that this is an app for kids and must be hostile to sex-adjacent content falls apart when you see other videos on the app.

“It’s ridiculous that we will allow people to say the word fuck left and right on that app, but you can’t say the word vagina or penis when it’s very clearly being handled in an educational way.” She also finds it bizarre that you can call someone a pussy and a video remains up, but referring to the vagina with anatomically correct terms gets her in trouble.

TikTok could take steps that would easily solve the issue of kids seeing inappropriate content. While Twitter may be going down in flames, pre-Elon, they implemented a system where users could flag content as sensitive or containing nudity.

While it’s doubtful that TikTok will allow someone to get their tits out, users able to self-label content as sensitive would go a long way to protecting users and content creators. They’ve already implemented a similar system with recent Halloween filters that contained fake blood, requiring users to opt-in to see the video.

Moxie has noticed a phenomenon that might indicate TikTok is attempting something like this. When she’s used a video to respond to a comment, “There are people that have commented on my videos and said, ‘I can’t see the original video. It’s telling me I’m not old enough.’”

This is similar to how things already operate on her YouTube channel. But if TikTok is attempting to roll out that sort of feature, it’s a little rough. “People are saying, ‘I’m getting an age restriction, and I’m like 33, and their account reflects that they’re 33.’”

Even as TikTok’s inconsistent moderation continues to be a source of frustration, Moxie isn’t slowing down her efforts to educate and reduce the shame around sex.

I think people need to ask themselves, ‘Why do we have such a weird relationship with sex? Why are we so uptight about this?’ The discussion around sex was never the problem. It was your relationship with sex.

She wants people to know there’s nothing to be ashamed about.

If everybody inside that shop knew how many of their friends and family went to the same shop, they’d never feel weird about going into that shop. They’d walk into that place like it was the fucking grocery store.