“Business Inquiries are Welcome”: Sex Influencers and the Platformization of Non-normative Media on Twitter

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.