Twitch’s rules largely state that sexual content is not allowed, with some “educational, scientific, artistic, newsworthy, or academic” exceptions aside. And yet, for years, the platform had its own category called “The Joy Of Sex.” Now it’s gone, and one popular streamer and his fans are in mourning.
“The Joy Of Sex” category’s existence is ironic given Twitch’s fraught relationship with moderation of nudity and supposed “boobie streamers.” However, the platform creates categories for all but the most obscure games so that streamers can mark down what they’re playing, and back in 1993, there was a game for the ill-fated Philips CD-i called The Joy Of Sex. So, that’s how the Twitch category came to be. The back of the game’s case describes it as “a wise, entertaining, uninhibited guide to lovemaking, containing a sparkling combination of video, illustrations, commentary, and music made easily and instantly accessible,” which I guess means it’s technically educational?
Despite the fact that hardly anybody actually played The Joy Of Sex on Twitch, a handful of streamers still used the category for laughs or to test out their streams. The biggest streamer among these, easily, was Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris, who has nearly 2.5 million followers. Over the weekend, he was heartbroken to discover that Twitch recently zapped The Joy Of Sex category out of existence.
“What? They removed The Joy Of Sex on Twitch,” he said during a stream while preparing to play an indie game. “I’m gonna fucking riot. Shut the fuck up. Do you have any idea how fucking proud I am that the majority of my hours streamed is under The Joy of Sex? I have worked for that! And to randomly have that taken away from me, I swear to fuck... Why? That was my section.”
Sodapoppin used Joy Of Sex as a stand-in category when the indie games he was playing on stream hadn’t been scanned by Twitch’s not-quite-all-seeing eye. According to third-party site TwitchTracker, he’d been regularly using the category since 2017 and had streamed a total of 122 hours in it. During a July 2018 stream, he pulled nearly 50,000 concurrent viewers into his web of sex-free Joy of Sex streams.
Now that category is gone, and he’s not the only one in mourning. Some fans, too, have expressed surprise and sadness that the longtime oddity is finally gone. I fear, however, that their impassioned pleas will fall on deaf ears. How will people learn to have sex now, Twitch? Where will they go?