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Article
“Business Inquiries are
Welcome”: Sex Influencers
and the Platformization
of Non-normative Media
on Twitter
Shuaishuai Wang1 and Runze Ding2
Abstract
By attending to the case of queer men’s sexual use of Twitter in China, this article
analyzes how mainstream platforms provide underrepresented groups with unique
opportunities in the erotic economy. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fourteen
queer male “sex influencers”—people who capitalize on their erotic practices on
Twitter and other platforms for economic and social perks—and a three-month
digital ethnography, we probe how Twitter shapes sex media production in China
and opens up multifarious modes of monetization. We suggest that Chinese queer
sex influencers’ monetization practices not only construct vibrant sexual cultures,
but also incentivize heightened cross-platform mobility, which serves as a strategy for
coping with China’s precarious legal environment. Consequently, there has been a
convergence of domestic and transnational platforms, which we argue showcases the
vitality and creativity of Chinese non-normative media production and consumption
in a globalized and platformized age.
Keywords
sex influencer, platformization, queer, short video, Twitter, China
1Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China
2Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Corresponding Author:
Shuaishuai Wang, Department of Media and Communication, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University,
Humanities & Social Sciences Building, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China.
Email: shuaishuai.wang@xjtlu.edu.cn
1077666TVNXXX10.1177/15274764221077666Television & New MediaWang and Ding
research-article2022
2 Television & New Media 00(0)
Introduction
“Business inquiries are welcome. PM (private messages) directly.” Since December
2018, when Tumblr announced its adult content ban, this phrase began appearing fre-
quently in the bios of Chinese queer men who use Twitter to produce and circulate
homoerotic sexual material. For gender and sexual nonconforming people, the use of
mainstream social networking platforms for sexual purposes is nothing new. For
instance, before its adult content ban, Tumblr created a vibrant space for LGBTQ+
sexual cultures (Duguay 2018; Molldrem 2018). Twitter also contributed to this trend
by allowing like-minded people to interact and connect in an overtly sexual way (Cao
2021; Wignall 2017). What stood out in our observation, however, were new patterns
in the production and monetization of sexual content on Twitter, on which an increas-
ing number of Chinese sex media creators were turning their sexual practices into
lucrative businesses and social advantages, such as enticing more sex partners.
Often known as wanghuang (literally “internet pornographers”), these creators
tapped into their erotic charisma by selling advertising tweets, repurposing their
Twitter videos as a work portfolio for attracting sex clients, or sharing content across
platforms to monetize their sex influence in a transnational mediascape. Examples
include migrating Twitter followers to China’s domestic live streaming platforms, on
which creators solicit virtual gifts, or to WeChat, where creators sell self-modeled
underwear and socks. This article conceptualizes wanghuang creators as sex influenc-
ers to underline their multifarious cross-platform strategies of self-representation,
which revolve around, but are not limited to, sex media production and monetization.
Sexual social media content has been defined as “practices motivated by sexual
pleasure” (Tiidenberg and van der Nagel 2020, 6). On top of this, we argue that sexual
practices performed using social media have become an integral part of platform econ-
omies, in which the clear distinction between recreational and transactional sex is no
longer tenable. Like Chinese gay male live streamers, who have gained a reputation as
internet celebrities or socialites by broadcasting their personal stories and sexual
appeal on gay dating platforms such as Blued and Aloha (Wang 2020b), sex influenc-
ers foreground their private sex lives in the economic and cultural spheres. The com-
bined affordances of short video and Twitter’s tolerant pornography policy facilitate
the rise of hard-core short sex videos as a recognizable cultural form in China’s queer
scenes, where sexual pleasure, social perks, and economic returns converge. By con-
ceptualizing sexual social media practitioners as sex influencers, we mean not to gloss
over queer creators’ sex work, but rather to provide an analytical lens to study how sex
media can engender new sexual subjects based on networked sexual agency and plat-
form-mediated sexual activities.
Given that they have made their private sex lives increasingly visible in cross-
platform practices, Chinese queer sex influencers offer an intriguing case through
which to examine platformization, sex media production, and monetization. These
issues are not only central to unpacking the dynamics of a thriving erotic economy, but
inform our understanding of the global platform economy more broadly. Delving into
the phenomenon of Chinese queer sex influencers, this article sheds light on the sexual
Wang and Ding 3
aspects of platform economies (van Doorn and Velthuis 2018; Wang 2020a, 2020b).
As we define it, the sexual platform economy incorporates users’ erotic activities,
which have become an indispensable, if not primary, part of digital platforms’ eco-
nomic success.
This article asks two questions. First, how does the proliferation of sexual content
fuel the economic development of mainstream social media platforms, on which sexu-
ally explicit content is disproportionately marginalized? Second, how do Chinese
queer creators monetize sexual content on a platform that is blocked in China, a coun-
try in which pornography is illegal? To address these questions, we employ a two-
pronged analytical framework. On the one hand, we situate sex media production in
China’s political-economic context, investigating how this type of content flourishes
despite China’s restraining media and cultural ecologies. On the other hand, we hone
in on the specific and nuanced strategies deployed by Chinese queer sex influencers.
In this way, we tease out the dynamics between platformized sex media production
and monetization.
Accordingly, we draw on two bodies of empirical data: 14 in-depth, semi-struc-
tured interviews with Chinese queer sex influencers and a three-month digital ethnog-
raphy conducted on Twitter and China’s domestic social media platforms. In what
follows, we first review literature on Chinese sex media and platformized cultural
production. We then conceptualize sex influencers in relation to their community-spe-
cific platform practices. After discussing our method, we present three analytical sec-
tions. The first analyzes how Twitter’s digital affordances for short videos transform
sex media production in China. The second examines strategies of monetizing sex
videos by Chinese queer sex influencers. The third analyzes the fluid and nomadic
character of these sex influencers’ practices by considering legal factors and platforms’
technical specificities. We conclude by discussing the study of sex media’s signifi-
cance in an age of platformization.
Platformized Sex Media in China
Although deplatforming sex has become a cultural syndrome on internationally oper-
ating social media platforms such as Tumblr and, very recently, OnlyFans (Molldrem
2018; Tiidenberg 2021), for Chinese queer men these foreign-based sites still offer a
markedly lenient space for pornography when compared with China’s strictly regu-
lated domestic mediascape. In China, pornography is illegal. Since 1988, homosexual
content has been censored and regulated as a category of pornography, obscenity, and
vulgarity (Wang 2020b), partly because gay sex media facilitate sexual transactions.
However, strict censorship has by no means prevented the proliferation of non-norma-
tive media in China (Bao 2020, 2021).
For Chinese queer people, the internet has been the dominant site where sexual
content is created, circulated, and consumed since the 1990s. Web portals, including
online forums and personal blogs, were prominent venues through which people con-
sumed porn until the early 2000s (Bao 2021; Ho 2009). Since male nude pictures and
advertisements for paid sex were common on these sites, they were subject to police
4 Television & New Media 00(0)
crackdowns, with some websites being forced to operate on overseas servers to avoid
being shut down by China’s internet regulators (Ho 2010; Jacobs 2012).
Nevertheless, the “Great Fire Wall” (henceforth GFW), which was initiated in 1996
but implemented in 2008, made these sites more difficult to access on China’s domes-
tic internet, if not blocking them completely (Chandel et al. 2019; Roberts 2018).
Under these circumstances, virtual personal networks (VPNs) offered a workaround
for sex media consumers based in China by allowing them to bypass the restrictions
imposed by the GFW. The widespread use of VPNs laid the foundation for Twitter’s
rise as a non-normative media platform in China.
In contrast to web portals and online forums where peer-to-peer downloads were
the primary mode of sex media consumption, advancement in internet bandwidth gave
rise to one-stop sex platforms. Kuaibo or QVOD, which was launched in 2007, was
dubbed “must-have” sex streaming desktop software. It gave Chinese individuals
access to pornographic materials regardless of their sexuality. Data suggests that in
2012, when the total number of Chinese netizens was only 540 million, QVOD had
been downloaded over 300 million times (Huang 2017). Although the service was shut
down by the authorities in 2014 and its CEO prosecuted (Huang 2017), QVOD’s pop-
ularity drew attention to an untapped market for sex media in China.
This upsurge of sex-oriented digital platforms created a fertile ground for diverse
sexual practices among Chinese queer communities. For example, semi-professional
gay male sex videos circulated widely online between 2010 and 2013 (Ding 2020).
Often distributed through social networking platforms such as QQ and WeChat, these
videos were broadly acclaimed, with some having a recognizable label/brand (Ding
2020). This trend continued to grow, with mobile live streaming emerging as a domi-
nant platform for sexual materials in 2016.
Mobile live-streaming ushered in a more interactive sex media format (Jacobs
2020; Wang 2020a, 2020b). For example, Peepla, a male-dominated queer live stream-
ing platform launched in 2016, afforded a wide range of erotic performances to attract
virtual gifts from viewers (Jacobs 2020). However, these sexually implicit practices
drew the attention of China’s internet regulators, leading to the arrests of several male
streamers for “lewd and obscene behaviors including genital displays, sexual inter-
course, and masturbation” (Wang 2020b, 552). Around the same time, the authorities
permanently closed two gay male live streaming platforms, ZANK and BlueSky.
Notably, these platforms streamed no hard-core sex scenes, only featuring men behav-
ing in sexually provocative ways (Wang 2020b).
Censorship on sex media in China remains in place. Although some platforms have
been penalized as a result, this situation has also motivated non-normative content
creators to diversify the channels for sexual content production and distribution (Wang
2020b). For example, the comparatively open policies adopted previously by Tumblr
and now Twitter, have motivated queer users to establish a sexual presence on foreign-
based digital platforms. Even among China’s domestic streamers, it has become com-
monplace to migrate viewers onto more private platforms (e.g., WeChat), on which
they continue posting sexually suggestive materials (Wang 2020b). Despite being
legally precarious (the government shut Peepla down within a year of its launch), live
Wang and Ding 5
streaming platforms have nonetheless given rise to vibrant, albeit discreet, non-norma-
tive sex media cultures in China (Jacobs 2020).
Therefore, digital platforms, be they non-normative or mainstream, function as the
crucial knot connecting production and distribution, producers and viewers. By navi-
gating through different social media sites and regulatory contexts, cross-platform and
cross-border mobility becomes key to the success of sex media creators. It is in this
sense that we call Chinese non-normative media platformized practices: they simulta-
neously revolve around and are mediated by different platforms in different geograph-
ical locations.
In short, non-normative sex media in China develop in tandem with the continuous
evolving digital media platforms and mounting challenges from government regula-
tors. Platformization facilitates the development of non-normative sex media in cre-
ative and transnational ways. This article focuses on how Twitter, a platform that is
blocked in China but remains accessible through VPNs, transforms Chinese sex media
production and gives rise to a distinct category of queer sex influencers.
Conceptualizing Sex Influencers
Sex influencers resonate with a broader trend, the emergence of what Pezzutto (2020)
calls “porntropreneur”: porn performers marketing their sex work on social media
platforms. The concept of sex influencers, however, not only emphasizes their eco-
nomically motivated erotic labor. It also captures social, cultural, and even political
dimensions of their sexual practices. Although monetization now predominates, a con-
siderable number of creators use their Twitter fame to socialize and hook up with other
prominent creators. In practice, this social perk goes hand-in-hand with economic
rewards. For many creators, the number of online followers is an indication of their
sexual desirability, which propels them into monetization. Fans’ willingness to pay for
their videos in turn validates their sex influence. Therefore, the concept of sex influ-
encers offers an analytical tool to probe this diverse yet nuanced sex media production
culture, in which economic actors, “cultural norms,” “platform features, interfaces,
and rules,” and “people’s practices, relationships, and communities” interact and shape
one another in making new sexual subjects (Tiidenberg and van der Nagel 2020, 3).
Chinese queer people claiming fame online is nothing new. Prior to sex influencers,
a sizable number of Chinese gay men have gained prominence owing to a phenomenal
growth of the country’s live streaming economy. These gay streamers came to be
known as internet celebrities or socialites (Wang 2020b). “Fame and the performance
of sexuality [were] intimately bound” in the making of gay streamer celebrities in that
their sexual innuendos drew and sustained viewing traffic in live streaming (Wang
2020b, 553). Although sex influencers are clearly on a continuum with these queer
internet celebrities, they are also distinct in significant ways. For sex influencers, live
performances of implicit sexual appeal and intimacy have been replaced by recordings
of sexual intercourse. In this shift, physical sexual acts trump good or masculine looks
because creators rarely reveal their faces, which are increasingly rendered irrelevant.
6 Television & New Media 00(0)
Sex influencers also stand out from other types of influencers such as fashion,
beauty, and travel, in that their online followings rely less on trending styles, glamor-
ous looks, and conspicuous consumption (Abidin 2016; Duffy and Hund 2015;
Marwick 2015). In contrast to fashion and beauty influencers whose representations in
selfies and vlogs center on physical appearances, many queer creators hide their faces
by wearing a (playful) mask or positioning cameras in such a way as to crop out the
faces of participants in their sex videos. Instead, close-ups of their sexual intercourse
are prominent. Sex influencers therefore are recognized more readily by their bodily
identifiers (e.g., tattoos, the shape of body, and sex styles) than their faces. To make
their “brands” more identifiable, most sex video creators add a watermark displaying
their Twitter and/or WeChat accounts on their sex videos. In amassing a fanbase, sex
influencers use the body in different ways than fashion and beauty influencers whose
bodies are conceived as a site for decoration (Abidin 2016; Guan 2021). Rather than
glamor, queer sex influencers pursue sensuality and sexual fantasies (see also Pezzutto
2020; Wang 2020b).
In a nutshell, what makes this type of influencer’s practice unique is that it has
emerged as an enjoyable activity in which sexual pleasure and social perks cannot be
decoupled from economic opportunities, and vice versa. We will expand on this later
in the analytical sections.
Methods
This study combines semi-structured in-depth interviews with digital ethnography,
which was conducted between 16 January and 16 April 2020. First, we recruited four-
teen Twitter sex influencers through an advertisement posted on the Chinese gay news
outlet GaySpot. These fourteen Twitter sex video creators, aged 18 to 37, all self-
identified as Chinese gay men (for details, see Table 1). In the spirit of privacy and
anonymity, we have pseudonymized our respondents, whom we refer to as R1–14.
Between December 2019 and January 2020, semi-structured in-depth interviews were
conducted with these fourteen Twitter influencers via WeChat, either using text mes-
sages (n = 9) or voice calls (n = 5). We chose how to conduct the interviews based on
where the respondents were when we invited them to speak to us. People living with
their partner, in a university dormitory, or a public place opted for text-based inter-
views, because textual interaction makes them feel safe and comfortable in talking
about sex. One of the merits of conducting interviews by text is that respondents can
send images and videos to support their accounts when they cannot put their sexual
experiences into words. When transcribing the interview data, however, we found that
respondents interviewed via voice call tend to share more details about their sexual
encounters on Twitter. In text interviews, we had to ask more follow-up questions to
complete their answers.
In the interviews, we asked respondents why they produced sex videos for Twitter,
how they recorded their sexual activities, what types of sex media they have produced,
and what benefits they have received through their erotic practices on Twitter.
Wang and Ding 7
To gain a more complete picture of Chinese queer men’s sex media practices on
Twitter, this study undertakes an “immersive cohabitation” oriented digital ethnogra-
phy. As Bluteau (2021) argues, digital technologies are no longer separate from every-
day practices but enmeshed in them. For this reason, classic ethnography’s insistence
on observing from a distance has become inadequate to capture the nuanced dynamics
of digital platforms, which mediate user activities in intricate ways both on and off
platforms. Given that ethnography is inherently adaptive, able to refigure itself in
response to newfound research conditions (Hine 2015), Bluteau (2021) proposes that
researchers shift their role, moving from that of a participating observant to that of an
observing participant. This reversal allows researchers to create a research account to
engage with the content produced by research subjects. It also offers researchers access
to the community under study, bonding researchers and research subjects. Dubbing
this approach “immersive cohabitation,” Bluteau explains:
[T]he digital landscape is no longer merely a research tool, but a field in its own right, and
one which fundamentally repositions the person of the researcher, giving them a more
nuanced subjective understanding of the processes conducted by one’s informants and
the space in which these actions are carried out (Bluteau 2021, 5)
To observe a wide range of Chinese queer sex influencers, we set up a research
profile on Twitter in January 2020. In three months, we used this research account to
follow 205 queer sex influencers, including the fourteen whom we interviewed. This
digital ethnography offers critical insights into how Chinese queer sex influencers
monetize their non-normative media content by energizing cross-platform and cross-
border mobility. For example, when sex influencers made their WeChat, OnlyFans,
Table 1. List of Participants (Number of Followers Counted by 20 January 2020).
Pseudonym Age Occupation
City of
residence
Number of
followers
R1 25 Fashion designer Guangzhou 699
R2 37 Civil servant Changsha 28,4K
R3 31 Personal English tutor Shanghai 2798
R4 20 University student Beijing 19
R5 19 University student Beijing 495
R6 23 Unknown Beijing 17,3K
R7 20 University student Qingdao 96,2K
R8 24 Social media specialist Guangzhou 38K
R9 24 Investment risk analyst Beijing 3
R10 25 Social media specialist Beijing 184
R11 20 University student Xi’an 28,5K
R12 18 Self-employed Chengdu 69K
R13 23 University student Qingdao 318
R14 23 Mechanical worker Changzhou 63,2K
8 Television & New Media 00(0)
Douyin/TikTok, and Aloha/Blued (gay dating apps) accounts public, we added them
so as to trace their cross-platform practices and activities. In this process, we initiated
chats with the account owners to collect further details of their sexual practices.
Engaging Viewers Through Playful Challenges: Short
Video as Sex Media Format
The emergence of short videos featuring non-normative sexualities on Twitter repre-
sents a continuation of earlier sex media formats such as live streaming and amateur
gay sex videos (Ding 2020; Wang 2020a, 2020b). Twitter allows for videos up to
140 seconds in length, with exceptions for its paying advertising partners (Twitter
n.d.). The majority of our interviewees considered 140 seconds a feature, rather than a
limitation. For them, the short length inspired creative editing, through which they
present the highlights of the recorded sex. As R3 (31, personal English tutor) said, “It’s
boring to watch videos shagging an ass for 140 seconds non-stop. I have similar mate-
rials. But I’d edit them with some spins to foreground the most exciting parts.” The
sexualized Twitter culture thrives precisely on this brevity, which concentrates on
short clips of sexual activity deemed most stimulating.
Apart from motivating creators to strategically highlight their recorded sex in the
published videos, the short length also results in an abundance of brief clips, which
encourage user interactions and prolong engagement on Twitter. For example, R13
(23, university student) usually recorded sex for ten minutes and then divided it into
three to four clips featuring the highlights. He cut out parts that he considers disruptive
(e.g., sections that are out of focus or with camera shake) and left in only what he
deems the best moments. These videos were posted separately on Twitter at managed
intervals, as opposed to being released all at once. Using Twitter’s like and share func-
tions, sex video creators tantalize viewers into interacting with their videos in ways
that can generate traffic. In engineering engagement, some creators initiate a “chal-
lenge” (tiaozhan) for viewers, asking them to push a certain post’s like/share count to
a preset number (e.g., 1,000), before they “unlock” (jiesuo) more videos. Sometimes,
creators send the full version as a reward to selected viewers who have participated in
the challenge. Creators also post polls to survey what their fans want to see in their
next sex videos. Options often include having sex with fans, co-producing a video
with another sex influencer, and masturbation.
To make video creation even more playful and engaging, a novel challenge called
“bet-on agreement” (duidu xieyi) becomes viral. It means two sex influencers start a
tweet announcing their collaboration on a sex video, but the sex positions (penetrative/
penetrated) are decided by a race of who reaches a certain number of followers first.
Once their followers hit the set number, they make the video, release a trailer, and
direct fans to other platforms to purchase the full version. The challenge’s appeal lies
in how it playfully appropriates the stereotypes of gay sex positions: tops are usually
considered more masculine and sexually aggressive, whereas bottoms are seen as fem-
inine and submissive (Cao 2021). Giving viewers control over their sex positions,
Wang and Ding 9
creators strategically exploit fans’ curiosity and sexual fantasies to aggregate attention.
As such, non-normative sex media production on Twitter becomes highly participa-
tory and interactive. As viewers become increasingly engaged by and attached to the
platform, it is common for them to leave comments requesting that creators post new
sex videos.
The brevity of short videos prompts Chinese queer creators to produce a large
amount of diverse content. Twitter’s easy-to-access and interactive affordances con-
tribute to a highly participatory process of media production and consumption. With
the help of VPN services, which have become more affordable and widely available,
sex influencers tap into China’s domestic market for non-normative sex media, which,
as we pointed out earlier, has long developed discreetly in China’s restricted media
environment (Jacobs 2012; Wang 2019). In this way, Twitter provides Chinese queer
people with a key space for sex media cultures and sexualized interactions.
As far as production is concerned, the respondents usually used a smartphone’s
built-in camera to record sex. Some added a tripod or a selfie stick to enable multi-
angle recording, which produced a variety of “raw” sexual materials for editing. Some
respondents thought that a sex video could be only enjoyable when all participants
were genuinely having fun. When asked what would motivate creators to document
sex, R8 replied:
It depends. When you enjoy the sex, you are very eager to record it. And the videos are
usually delightful to watch. But if you do not enjoy the sex at all, the video will certainly
not look good (R8, 24, social media specialist, Guangzhou, 38K followers).
R1 (25, fashion designer) echoed this comment, saying “If I don’t enjoy the sex at
all, I will be offended if the man I have sex with started to record it.” Normally, con-
sent is obtained before they initiate the sex. R3 (31, personal English tutor), for exam-
ple, sends the edited version to all the participants for review before it is put on Twitter.
This is not always the case, however: during our digital ethnography, we observed sex
clips recorded using hidden cameras. Although Twitter specifically bars non-consen-
sual sex media (Twitter 2019), such content still circulates widely in the Chinese-
written tweets. This calls into question the adequacy of the platform governance in
places where Twitter is banned, but remains accessible with VPNs.
Monetizing Sex Influence in the Platform Economy
As an increasing number of Chinese gay men become “Twitter famous”—fame stem-
ming from their erotic practices on Twitter—they have come to be known as wang-
huang or sex influencers. As discussed in the previous section, Twitter creators’ sexual
practices differ from studio production, in which practices, tastes, and distribution are
more established and institutionalized. Chinese queer sex influencers, by contrast,
blend pleasure with media production. This gives them more agency than those work-
ing in the traditional porn industry, in which actors often fake intimacy and pleasure to
deliver a sexually entertaining scene (Burke 2016). Nor are sex influencers akin to
10 Television & New Media 00(0)
conventional erotic practices that have been characterized as DIY or user-generated
pornography (Jacobs 2012; van Doorn 2010). Online prominence and networked sex-
ual agency are central to sex influencers, as manifested in their engagement with their
followers (e.g., playful challenges) and other creators (e.g., bet-on agreements), as
well as their ability to migrate fans across platforms and national borders to ensure
social interaction and monetization. In other words, their sex influence comes with
sexual pleasure, social perks, and economic rewards. Accordingly, although their pro-
duction is amateur, this does not mean that Chinese queer creators are not “profes-
sional” in the economic aspect. Monetizing sex influence has become a trend, although
many creators may not have anticipated it when they began using Twitter.
The most common strategy for monetization is that of selling full-length sex vid-
eos. Many queer sex influencers use short Twitter videos as trailers to promote the full
versions, which are made available on other platforms such as OnlyFans and WeChat.
Access to these videos typically requires a monthly subscription fee, which is paid
either to the platform or directly to influencers (in the case of WeChat). The lack of
direct payment affordances on Twitter is the primary reason for this cross-platform
monetization practice, especially since monetary transaction functionalities are conve-
niently embedded in WeChat and OnlyFans
To attract buyers, Chinese queer sex influencers exploit their sexual competence by
sharing a range of sexually exciting materials. For example, their video captions often
contain titillating descriptions of above-average penile length, long sexual stamina,
and ability to perform flexible and diverse sexual postures. Creators even invent slang
to exhibit sexual competence. “Pile drivers” (dazhuangji) is especially representative;
it refers to gay men adopting a top position who is capable of performing like an
intense penetrating machine during sex.
With China’s domestic platforms offering more possibilities for monetization, more
diverse and creative ways have been found in cashing in on sex influence. For exam-
ple, migrating Twitter followers to their personal WeChat is a common practice among
sex influencers. Using the WeChat’s “Moment” feature—a timeline that allows users
to share posts, pictures, and short videos among contacts—these influencers sell sex-
related products such as poppers (used for practical purposes to facilitate anal sex),
lubricants, and condoms. To solicit buyers, they also tap into holiday sale concepts,
such as the summer sale and New Year sale, during which they offer fans discounts. In
organizing sales, sex influencers also group fans into WeChat groups. With each group
accommodating up to 500 members, they usually create multiple fan groups to maxi-
mize the value of their sex influence.
R8 (24, social media specialist), an active sex influencer on Twitter, told us that
selling sex-related items was prevalent among influencers with a sizeable fan base. At
the time of the interview, he had over 10,000 followers and had reached WeChat’s
limit of 5,000 friends after migrating his followers from Twitter. Using WeChat’s
Moments function, R8 marketed and sold condoms, lubricants, and poppers to a gay
niche clientele. When business was good, he was able to earn enough income to pay
off his monthly housing mortgage in Guangzhou.
Wang and Ding 11
Sex influencers with gym-trained bodies also model male underwear or sex toys
used in their sex videos. As such, sexual fantasies toward these influencers become a
commodity. R13, for example, a university student based in Qingdao, only had 318
followers when we interviewed him in January 2020. At that stage, monetization had
never occurred to him. But when his Twitter following increased to 14,500, he started
selling his used underwear at 99 RMB a pair (approximately 15 USD). According to
R13, although 97 followers have added his WeChat, he has only sold six pairs, with the
majority of these contacts seeking to have sex with him. R13’s story is typical of our
interviewees in that, as their sex influence grows, social perks are always coupled with
economic benefits. Therefore, although many fans add sex influencers’ WeChat in the
hope of hookups or friendship, they often find that their sexual attachment to the influ-
encer is commoditized.
Finally, some queer sex influencers use Twitter as an online sex portfolio to solicit
sex clients. Social media have profoundly reshaped the contours of sex work by open-
ing up new methods of advertising and venues for solicitation (Cai 2021; Ryan 2019;
van Doorn and Velthuis 2018). For example, Instagram transforms male sex workers
from disembodied subjects into “real” people with friendships and family relation-
ships as well as distinctive dining, clothing, and fitness styles (Ryan 2019). In a way,
social media offers intimate access to male sex workers’ everyday lived experiences
(Ryan 2019). Twitter’s immediacy and multimedia affordances enable queer sex influ-
encers who are interested in sex work to update their locations and travel schedules to
find nearby clients. What is more, Twitter allows them to put together an archive of
photos, sex videos, and client “testimonials” to enhance their profiles and boost their
business.
Our observations indicate that a one-time sex service can cost up to 8,000 RMB
(approximately 1,250 USD). Queer sex influencers are therefore incentivized to main-
tain a desirable image by repeatedly showcasing their erotic capital. What makes
Twitter sex influencers stand out amid the wider digital erotic economy, though, is the
fact that their labor is highly flexible. Although sex video creation is the primary
source of income for some queer sex influencers, many get into the business on a
whim. For many, being a queer sex influencer is seldom a full-time job. Some never
pursue it as a professional venture; making sex videos is seen instead as an enjoyable
activity, conducted outside their day jobs. This trend resonates with the case of China’s
money boys: men who sell sex to men. As Cai (2021) observes, dating apps have
emerged as the preferred platform for transactional sex, for they allow money boys to
choose their customers, having sex exclusively with those they find attractive. The
fusion of pleasure and money shows how private sex lives have become integral to the
global platform economy, blurring the boundary between recreational and transac-
tional sex.
Although the proliferation of monetized sex content through varied channels has
expanded queer sex influencers’ income streams, allowing them to construct alterna-
tive erotic cultures and economies beyond a single platform’s digital affordances and
economic model, it also brings challenges. In the next section, we investigate these
challenges by discussing the fluid and nomadic nature of sex influencers on Twitter.
12 Television & New Media 00(0)
The Convergence of Chinese and Global Platforms:
Nomads in a Platformized Media Landscape
Twitter sex influencers often maintain multiple accounts on several social media sites
to increase their cross-platform sex appeal. Influencers operating across platforms are
nothing new (see, e.g., Abidin 2018; Marwick 2013; Wang 2020b); what makes
Chinese queer sex influencers distinct is that Twitter is not their main monetization
platform due to its lack of direct payment affordances. Twitter’s own monetization
scheme remains vague and convoluted to those who are unfamiliar with its economic
ecology. In attempting to cash in on their sex influence, Chinese sex video creators
divert their Twitter followers to other platforms, most of which are domestically based
(Figure 1). Our digital ethnography identified five major cross-platform flows. Some
platforms, such as Instagram and QQ, are not included in the chart presented here
because the creators we observed mentioned them on relatively few occasions.
Chinese queer sex influencers take up different affordances offered by different
platforms. Some traffic their followers to Blued and Aloha, on which they can live
stream and receive paid virtual gifts (Wang 2020a, 2020b). Some flock followers to
WeChat, on which they can operate micro-commerce ventures, such as selling self-
modeled underwear or simply their full-length sex videos. Queer sex influencers can
also monetize their viewing traffic on Douyin, which operates as an intermediary that
connects prospective advertisers with video creators. Queer sex influencers who want
to monetize sex videos with viewers’ subscription fees use OnlyFans. Notably, this
cross-border and cross-platform mobility goes in two-directional: not only do they
migrate fans from international to domestic platforms, they also advertise their Twitter
Figure 1. Chinese queer sex influencers’ cross-platform mobility between Twitter and
other social media platforms.
Wang and Ding 13
handles on domestic platforms such as gay dating apps (e.g., Blued and Aloha),
Douyin, and WeChat. This means that queer sex influencers can grow their Twitter
fanbase as well.
However, such cross-platform mobility is not solely driven by economic incen-
tives. The principal motivation for Chinese sex influencers to become nomads in the
global platform economy is the precarious domestic legal environment. In May 2020,
a Weibo post by the National Work Group for Combating Pornography and Illegal
Publications (henceforth the NWGCPIP), a multi-department task force regulating
sexual materials, disclosed that four men in China’s northern city of Tianjin had been
taken into custody for disseminating self-made pornographic videos. Although it did
not mention the creators’ sexual identities, the post detailed that the four men had
published 58 videos and generated 200,000 views using the same Twitter account
(NWGCPIP 2020). Around the same time, three verdict documents of men pleading
guilty for producing sex videos on Twitter were made public on the official website.
The verdicts, which were each issued by the same court in China’s eastern city of
Qingdao, publicized the Twitter accounts of the three men, all of whom had posted
videos featuring two men having sex. The creators were handed prison sentences of
six, eight, and nine months respectively (China Judgement Online 2020a, 2020b,
2020c).
In response, Twitter users flocked to the NWGCPIP’s Weibo post to express dis-
content. A highly engaged comment (with 731 likes), for example, read: “Fuck, are
you gonna arrest all Twitter sex influencers?” Another popular comment (with 349
likes) provocatively asked: “What the heck, anti-porn campaigns abroad? Does the
anti-porn task force have a target quota for international arrests?” Others posed ironic
questions asking how the NWGCPIP had gotten around the GFW, suggesting that the
organization should arrest itself for trespassing.
These arrests and criminal convictions alarmed China’s queer sex influencer com-
munities. Some immediately emptied their Twitter videos, leaving a message that they
would rein production in for a while and wait for this crackdown to blow over.
However, others announced that production would continue unaffected, given that
these cases were prosecuted at the regional rather than the national level. Regardless
of the decisions that they prompted, these incidents have hastened an “inward” mobil-
ity of sex influencers, who migrate to domestic platforms to sustain their influence.
Some have started distributing their sex videos in a much more discreet manner by
establishing a private-membership system coordinated through WeChat. Some have
departed Twitter and begun focusing on accumulating sex influence on Douyin through
subtle sexual performances such as muscle-flexing and activities featuring same-sex
eroticism.
According to our observations, however, these criminal charges have not annihi-
lated this erotic practice entirely. In our follow-up interviews with sex influencers,
many told us that they considered the police crackdown “a temporary thing,” which
would eventually end. For example, R10 (25, social media specialist) told us that
although he deleted a sex video revealing his face in the wake of the NWGCPIP’s
Weibo post, he did not take down all of his sex videos. R10 correlated the incidence
14 Television & New Media 00(0)
with the advent of the Two Sessions—the National People’s Congress and the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference. It is only to be expected that censorship
would tighten before the two most important political assemblies, he explained, for the
timing of such events is highly sensitive. Given that many sex influencers with large
Twitter followings remained active, he concluded that the crackdown was a temporary
raid on the internet.
This observation seems accurate. Chinese government regulators often choose sex
media in general, and arguably homoerotic sex media in particular, as a site to exert
power (Wang 2021). But since China’s domestic politics is subject to changes in inter-
national politics, it affords both limitations and opportunities. Take for example
Danlan, Blued’s predecessor: despite being subject to government crackdowns
between 2000 and 2007, the official mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency use it to pro-
mote China’s inclusiveness before the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Wang 2019), thereby
granting the gay site a certain recognition. Eventually, in 2020, the company became
the world’s first gay social networking app listed on Nasdaq (Wang 2020c).
This goes to show how Chinese queer sex influencer culture has proliferated in a
precarious environment. Legal repercussions have given rise to a cross-platform
mobility that bridges foreign and domestic platforms. Publicizing Twitter accounts on
Douyin, for example, has become a trend among Chinese queer sex influencers. In
circulating screenshots of their Twitter profiles, sex influencers take full advantage of
Douyin’s digital affordances, which include soundtracks as well as visual (e.g., blur,
stars, fireworks) and transition effects (e.g., rotating, zooming in and out) to amass
Twitter followers. Unsurprisingly, Twitter has now joined the “must-have” app catalog
for Chinese queer men, taking its place alongside domestic platforms such as Blued
and Aloha. Indeed, if one types tuite (the Chinese translation of “Twitter”) into
Douyin’s search box, queer content creators tend to rank near the top of search results.
The convergence of domestic and foreign platforms opens up new opportunities for
Chinese queer sex influencers in the global platform economy. In the face of legal
restrictions in China, queer sex influencers perform nomadic practices to negotiate
precarity. These creative tactics keep sexual cultures and economies alive, helping sex
influencers to assert agency by taking advantage of digital affordances of both domes-
tic and international platforms.
Conclusion
This article has shown how the mainstream, global social networking platform Twitter,
despite being blocked by China’s GFW, has transformed sex media production and
facilitated the emergence of queer sex influencers and vibrant erotic economies in a
country in which homosexuality remains heavily censored. By probing Chinese sex
influencers’ production rationales, multiple monetization strategies, and nomadic
practices, we have discussed how platformized sex media provides Chinese queer
people with unprecedented opportunities to creatively—and sometimes perversely—
carve out a space for homoerotic representations and lucrative businesses on suppos-
edly mainstream social media platforms. We argue that in and through this process,
sex video creators have emerged as a fundamentally new type of influencer whose
Wang and Ding 15
fame hinges upon their private sex lives. In the practices of Chinese queer sex influ-
encers, the boundary between recreational and transactional sex has become increas-
ingly blurred. Consequently, their sexual pleasures, social rewards, and economic
returns continuously intertwine.
By bringing sex media into conversation with various issues in platform studies
(including digital affordances, monetization, and state regulations), we hope to have
expanded the scope of the study of sex media in an age of platformization. As we have
shown, sex media is no longer limited to DIY and amateur pornography produced for
an underground niche market. Indeed, it has developed into a much more mainstream
and globalized phenomenon in which influencer practices, monetization, and digital
sex work intersect in complex ways. The ability to move virtually across national bor-
ders, regulatory contexts, and platforms empowers queer sex influencers to assert
themselves, whether by defying a single platform’s grip on production and distribution
or diversifying their sexual presence, influence, and monetizing practices.
Although restrictions such as censorship have by no means prevented sexual cul-
tures and economies from emerging and indeed thriving, we think that the issue of
precarity—be it material or legal—should be taken seriously. First, given the boom of
sexual cultures on Twitter, private sex lives have become a new site of exploitation by
the platform and other stakeholders. R8, a sex influencer who operates a small online
shop on WeChat, for instance, criticized the lack of principles in the monetization of
sex influence. As the market value of queer sex influencers is increasingly recognized
by business actors, it has led to unverified and unregulated services such as overseas
surrogacy and surveillance cameras in their paid tweets. According to R8, this may
hurt the nascent sex influencer community, especially if sex influencers continue mon-
etizing their fame without proper vetting and coaxing their followers into scams.
Moreover, legal uncertainties also mean that queer sex influencers need to constantly
readjust their strategies to deal with changing circumstances. Future research on plat-
formized sex media in an increasingly globalized context needs to consider these plat-
form-mediated and state-imposed conditions of precarity.
Acknowledgments
A draft of this article was presented at the workshop on Webcam Sex Platforms at the University
of Amsterdam in June 2021. We thank the workshop participants for their constructive criti-
cism. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a seed grant from Global Digital
Cultures, the Research Priority Area of the University of Amsterdam, under the project “The
Algorithmic Configurations of Sexuality on Social Media”.
16 Television & New Media 00(0)
ORCID iD
Shuaishuai Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9691-3976
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Author Biographies
Shuaishuai Wang (PhD, University of Amsterdam) is an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Media and Communication, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. His research areas include
platform studies, critical algorithm studies, and queer media. He was a Lecturer in New Media
and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam.
Runze Ding (PhD, University of Leeds) is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of
Media and Communication at Shenzhen University.