> There has been confusion around whether streams from hot tubs are permissible under our current policies, and we understand why our rules as written have contributed to that confusion. Under our current Nudity & Attire and Sexually Suggestive Content policies, streamers may appear in swimwear in contextually appropriate situations (at the beach, in a hot tub, for example), and we allow creative expression like body writing and body painting, provided the streamer has appropriate coverage as outlined by our attire policy. Nudity or sexually explicit content (which we define as pornography, sex acts, and sexual services) are not allowed on Twitch.
I again ask, is wearing a bikini, facing away from a camera and touching your toes for $5 not a sexual service?
Surely you recognize that these things lie on a spectrum. Is charging admission for beach volleyball a sexual service? No matter your level of prudishness, you will be able to find something that is right in the gray area.
> Is charging admission for beach volleyball a sexual service?
This question actually perfectly articulates the difference. When you pay $5 to watch a beach volleyball tournament, you're paying for volleyball, and may as a side effect experience content that _some_ may find sexual. By Twitch's ToS, this should totally be allowed.
As for my example, is there a nonsexual reason to pay a woman 5 dollars to bend over in front of you? What is it?
So you've come up with an example that is clearly on one side of the line. Ok, but not sure what that proves. I don't think anyone has argued that there aren't any clear cut cases.
What you are missing is that whatever rule you make, people are going to try to push the limits, because it gets them viewers. If twitch says that someone bending over in a bikini has no non-sexual purpose and therefore is against the rules, the creators could change the stream very slightly.... just enough so they can claim to be about exercise, yoga, modeling fashion, or dance. They'd still have the same audience, with the exact same reason for watching, but now it sneaks by the rule.
Pole dancing is an art and takes athletic skill, sure, but most people (at least in the US) consider it is purely viewed for sexual gratification. But creators could claim its "main" purpose is to enjoy the dancing for its artistic and athletic merit.
Sports Illustrated has a swim suit issue, and it's not about swimming so how is that sports? It's just an excuse.
The majority of art channels on twitch are people drawing sexy (often anime-style) girls and women. You can learn to draw from them, but the sexier they make them, the more viewers they get.
So... I really don't get what you are trying to say. You seem to not understand that there is gray area.
It seems that you think I'm referencing a contrived example to prove my point, when in reality I'm referencing the actual donation gifts for the vast majority of Hot Tub Streamers (which, please note, is not "people that sometimes stream in a hot tub", but is now a specific genre of stream of which many people exclusively stream).
People have been sometimes streaming from hot tubs for years, and it's always been the exact grey area you're describing. Only very recently has it turned into a hypersexualized scenario, which is why Twitch is putting out more content condoning it.
> You seem to not understand that there is gray area.
I do. You don't seem to understand that the vast majority of the streams this change will encapsulate are not grey at all.
I again ask, is wearing a bikini, facing away from a camera and touching your toes for $5 not a sexual service?