Etsy to Ban Sales of Certain Sex Toys, Explicit Content

Online retailer Etsy plans to prohibit the sale of most sex toys on its platform as well as content that depicts sex acts or genitalia as part of an effort to ensure content on the site is appropriate for a “wide audience.”

As Mashable reports, Etsy’s new Adult Nudity and Sexual Content Policy prohibits pornography, adult toys and sexual accessories, and sexual language. That means that Etsy won’t allow most sex-related products and language on its site, effective July 29.

In terms of adult toys and sexual accessories, the company is prohibiting the sale of toys that are meant to be inserted into the body, applied to the genitalia, or designed for genitals to be inserted into them.

The company will allow “the sale of non-insertable and non-penetrable adult toys and sexual accessories, as long as they meet our requirements for sale on Etsy. This includes items such as restraints, handcuffs, nipple clamps, body harnesses, sex furniture, and BDSM accessories.”

All permitted toys and accessories can’t be shown in use or worn by human models on the site.

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The pornography rules include “printed or visual materials that explicitly describe or display sex acts, sex organs, or other erotic behavior for the purpose of sexual arousal or stimulation,” but also include magazines like Playboy, including vintage magazines and films.

The site is also instituting new rules for the mature content it does allow on the site. Specifically, “When listing an item that has mature content, the first thumbnail image in your item listing should be adequately obscured. Additional images in the listing may show the item in its entirety.” Listings containing mature content must also be tagged with the word “mature.”