Let’s Talk About Hot Tub Streams
I think there&#x27;s a significant amount of nuance in this situation. On the one hand, I don&#x27;t object to people steaming and monetizing suggestive (or even explicit) content. These content creators should be able to produce and monetize this content without stigma.<p>On the other hand, I do think the <i>juxtaposition</i> of this content with the rest of Twitch content is problematic. I think putting this content in the same category as gaming content unintentionally conveys the message, &quot;Men garner popularity by exhibiting their skills, women garner popularity by exhibiting their bodies.&quot; I suspect this juxtaposition of the most popular male streamers&#x27; content with that of some of the most popular women&#x27;s content on the platform and exposing this young people ends up fostering non-productive attitudes among boys and young men. Other women on the platform have complained about their audiences pressuring them into producing similar content. I&#x27;ve also heard from women and girls that it&#x27;s off-putting to see the prevalence of women in bikinis, not playing any games, on a platform that ostensibly about gaming. I think Twitch is in the right to see this as a problem.<p>But what&#x27;s the solution here? On the one hand, I think it&#x27;s giving these streamers the short end of the stick to have ambiguous policies and issue unexpected demonetizations or bans. Maybe a more effective approach would be to have stronger separation between &quot;just chatting&quot; content and gaming content, to retain this content but mitigate the problem of that juxtaposition. I suspect this is what the &quot;Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches&quot; category will probably be, but maybe it&#x27;d be better to spin this off into sister platform that isn&#x27;t explicitly tied into gaming.