illustration by River Juno, published in "Tumblr" (2021, Tiidenberg, Hendry and Abidin)

Rethinking sexuality: A geopolitics of digital sexual cultures in Estonia, Sweden and Finland

(2020 - 2023, funded by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies). 

The Internet has for decades been imagined as a safe space for sexual exploration. But with the current popularity of social media, platform politics moderating sexual content are growing increasingly tight. In December 2018, Tumblr issued a ban on adult content, joining Facebook and Instagram in their strict policies. While motivated as actions against child pornography and human trafficking, these purges also result in a dismissal of LGBT, queer and kink communities who rely on digital networks for sexual self-expression and belonging. It is thus crucial to ask how human sexual rights—including the rights to bodily integrity and sexual pleasure free from discrimination—can be reconciled with a social media economy ruled by conservative, U.S.-specific notions of appropriate content, as well as what other avenues may remain available.

Our project thus aims to investigate digital sexual cultures on three local online platforms in Estonia, Sweden and Finland devoted to communities around nudity and kink from three co-constitutive perspectives:

 (1) digital platforms as intermediaries shaping and constraining sexual cultures and their public visibility, 

(2) negotiations of sexual norms and hierarchies, 

(3) national self understanding and discourses of sexuality. 

In which ways do these platforms shape marginalized or non-normative sexualities? How are notions of sexual liberation and oppression; normalcy and deviance; privacy and publicness; pleasure and play embodied and imagined in these digital sexual cultures? How are these emergent sexual cultures experienced in relation to hegemonic (neoliberal, national, Nordic, post-soviet) self-understandings?

TEAM: 
Jenny Sundén, Project Lead, PI Sweden
Susanna Paasonen, PI Finland
Katrin Tiidenberg, PI Estonia

Events organized:

  • Workshop: “Sexual histories in Estonia, Finland and Sweden” 2020
  • Workshop: “Geographies of digital sexualities” 2021
  • Symposium: "Rethinking Sexuality in Nordic and Post-Soviet Contexts" 2022

Books:

Sundén, Jenny, Susanna Paasonen and Katrin Tiidenberg (forthcoming) Hot connections: "Why sexual platforms matter." Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Peer-reviewed journal articles Tiidenberg, Katrin,

Articles:

Susanna Paasonen, Jenny Sundén and Maria Vihlman. (2023). “Vanilla normies and fellow pervs: Boundary work on sexual platforms.” Sexualities. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231215763.

Sundén, Jenny. (2023a.) “Digital kink obscurity: A sexual politics beyond visibility and comprehension.” Sexualities. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607221124401.

Sundén, Jenny. (2023b). “Tracing sexual otherness in Sweden: The opacity of online kink.” Lambda Nordica 28, no. 1: 76–100. Open access: https://www.lambdanordica.org/index.php/lambdanordica/article/view/868/687.

Paasonen, Susanna, Jenny Sundén, Katrin Tiidenberg and Maria Vihlman. (2023). “About sex, openmindedness and cinnamon buns: Exploring sexual social media.” Social Media + Society 9, no.1. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221147324.

Sundén, Jenny, Susanna Paasonen, Katrin Tiidenberg and Maria Vihlman.c2022). “Locating sex: Regional geographies of sexual social media.” Gender, Place & Culture. For the special issue “Remapping desire: Bringing back sex within geographies of sexualities”. Guest editors: Cesare Di Feliciantonio and Valerie De Craene. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2022.2122410.

Sundén, Jenny, Susanna Paasonen, Katrin Tiidenberg & Maria Vihlman (2022) “Locating sex: Regional geographies of sexual social media”. Gender, Place & Culture. For the special issue “Remapping desire: Bringing back sex within geographies of sexualities”. Guest editors: Cesare Di Feliciantonio and Valerie De Craene. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2022.2122410.

Are, Carolina and Susanna Paasonen (2021) “Sex in the Shadows of Celebrity.” Porn Studies, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268743.2021.1974311

Paasonen, Susanna & Jenny Sundén (forthcoming) “Objectionable nipples: Puritan data politics and sexual agency in social media”. in Patrick Keilty (eds.) Queer Data. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.  

Tiidenberg, Katrin (2021) “Sex, power and platform governance”. Porn Studies. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268743.2021.1974312. Open access version: https://katrin-tiidenberg.com/papers/2021-sex-power-and-platform-governance-1

Spišák, Sanna, Elina Pirjatanniemi, Tommi Paalanen, Susanna Paasonen and Maria Vihlman (2021) “Social Networking Sites’ Gag Order: Commercial Content Moderation’s Adverse Implications for Fundamental Sexual Rights and Wellbeing.” Social Media + Society, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051211024962 

Sundén, Jenny, Katrin Tiidenberg, Susanna Paasonen & Maria Vihlman (2021) “Space, place and location in sexual social media”. Panel presentation at AoIR2021: Independence. The 22nd Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Virtual Event, October 13-16. Retrieved from http://spir.aoir.org. 

Sundén, Jenny, Katrin Tiidenberg & Susanna Paasonen (2020) “Platformed sex lives”. Panel presentation at AoIR2020: Life (online): The 21th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Virtual Event, October 27-31. Retrieved from https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/11151/9784.

Pilipets, Elena and Susanna Paasonen (2020) “Nipples, Memes and Algorithmic Failure: NSFW Critique of Tumblr Censorship.” New Media & Society, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820979280.  


Book chapters:

 
Paasonen, Susanna. Forthcoming. “‘In a sea of dicks’: On the limits of porn.” In Handbook of Adult Film and Media, edited by Peter Alilunas, Patrick Keilty & Darshana Mini. Exeter: Intellect.

 
Vihlman, Maria and Susanna Paasonen. Forthcoming. “Alastomassa Suomessa: Seksuaalisuus ja sosiaalinen media.” In Tiedon paikantuminen. Menetelmät ja reflektio feministisessä tutkimuksessa, edited by Marjo Kolehmainen, Leena-Maija Rossi & Jaana Vuori. Tampere: Vastapaino.

 
Paasonen, Susanna and Jenny Sundén. 2024. “Objectionable nipples: Puritan data politics and sexual agency in social media.” In Queer Data Studies, edited by Patrick Keilty. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.