Women's Wellness, Sex, & Misogynistic Censorship In Marketing | with Anna Walsh

So Crisp with Jay Crisp Crow

So Facebook has a bit of a marketing conundrum.

It’d like sex not to exist.

It seems racism and sexism are fine, cyber-bullying, not so much a problem.

But sex? Nope.

(Oh, don’t feel too left out, sex, FB also doesn’t like breastfeeding images, breast cancer images, or sometimes even classical art if a nip is involved!)

Facebook’s guidelines for Adult Products or Services state, “Ads must not promote the sale or use of adult products or services, except for ads for family planning and contraception.”

And they’re not the only ones. When was the last time you saw anything advertising healthy sexual relationships anywhere online?

Anna Walsh is like so many of us – frustrations turned into a spark of a business idea. Sick of engendered stereotypes and attitudes towards women and sex, Anna created happymash as an online space where women can feel comfortable learning about and discussing their own sexual wellness.

Bonus: happymash sells pleasure products for women – as her tagline says – get to know yourself!

Recently, my opt in FB ad was rejected because I told readers their new copy would make their own reader want to lick the screen. I was out for about 3 weeks while my FB ads expert sweet talked the couple FB people still working there during lockdown.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to run a business like Anna’s, so helpful to modern women, but so totally censored on every platform.

In fact, when we first booked this podcast episode, Anna’s Instagram had been shadow banned – couldn’t find her for love nor money.

And it’s that kind of consistent censorship we’ll talk about on this episode, amongst a couple other fun things!

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Use the discount code SOCRISP20 for 20% off the Know Yourself Range from happymash. YAY!

Shownotes for this episode are here.

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This episode was brought to you by The Good Bite.

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