(This is long, sorry) Hi Tony. I'm the Joe Biden smut girl. What happened is one of my posts came up under his account as suggested reading while demonstrating the POTUS account.
They, of course, rebooted or whatever, and immediately another one came up. I wish Biden had never seen it because the reaction cut many of us off at the knees. I not only dropped like a stone, overnight, but I lost ALL of my top writer tags, and they had to re-establish them. So, we were individually manipulated to kill our posts.
I was also curated once under family (the story had a day care teacher in it, big mistake.) and when this was relevant, (no longer seems to be since medium got rid of some pubs) I got curated into relationships.
Once upon a time, I had tens of thousands of views (curation did it) and out of them I got 4 people who wrote scathing reviews. I banned them from my posts, so I no longer upset them or the readers that went to war with them.
After Biden, (like 3 days later) I struggled to get a fraction of read I had. I know, first world problems. But then I got 50,000 reads/views a day for a little while... So, what changed, did your readers instantly stop liking the stories in one month because Biden was outraged? (from what I heard it was never seen by POTUS only staff that got the demo) Sure, it's a fraction of your readers that number in the millions, but it's clear a change was made that suppressed us instantly, our content was targeted.
Meanwhile, I have a question... The erotica guide popped up written by your staff not long ago (a collection). Now, I have written for some of these pubs, and this collection is very lack luster. Where is my publication? How did these get selected? There seems to be some effort to showcase erotica in some small way, how do we get in? (I googled "Medium Erotica") https://medium.com/collections/b5e3d1279b5
Medium is awesome, even now, with the changes that suppressed us and our writing, we have survived because of our followers. It's still the #1 platform for monetization of a writer in my genre (Very Short Fiction), it has the best engagement tools anywhere and as it's relevant to mainstream we, the steamy writers, get them as well. But it used to be MUCH better when people could find me easier (somehow they should be able to opt out/in)
I posit that writing of a steamy or adult nature is not the only sort I might opt out of.
Now, I don't want to read about Murder, War, Biden, whatever, I get told, well just don't click on the story. Ok, should I be outraged by this lack of give a squirt about my sensibilities. I'm not. I do just that. But those tools could be better for everyone.
I specifically use the Kicker, title, blurb prudently, so you know exactly what I am offering, and it helps a lot, I let an adult make a choice.
I do agree with the "Just don't read it." the hardship for the reader is they get halfway into a story and suddenly, they are triggered because they didn't know what they were getting into. I have eliminated almost ALL of my negative reviews by using them. And I do also appreciate that if I do get a weirdo that uses me as a soap box, I can opt him out so that they never see me again or anything I write. For their own good, I don't want them upset, nor my readers upset about them.
Why can Game of Thrones (which is at once sexual and brutal), Carnival Row, The L word, and countless other VERY sexually charged stories exist in mainstream culture (and could arguably do without the sex in some cases. Erotic stuff sells the series, I think, no?) on all sorts of platforms, but medium is shy about it. Seems out of character. An over correction.
We are the turd in the punch bowl precisely because of this, a feature set that guides readers to us and or lets them manage our presence in their feed is a priority (Which they can do by banishing us individually now), As well as other content that might not be "Acceptable" by the individual. Understand, these tools should be in the hands of the individual reader, not a blanket decision by a few at the top. Feel free to disagree, but I think it's the foundation of freedom.
An erotica author, that does not want to be known as a top writer in erotica, it's a rare beast, but make a tool to allow them to turn that honor off in display.
As for the reader your quote... "Engaging in erotica ends up being public, and that makes readers shy." Yes, absolutely, totally agree, allow the user to remove that metric from public view. I am a conservative (politically) but I don't want you knowing that. Erotica has always been shipped in a brown wrapper. But there are other things people don't want the public to know about them. Give them that control. For all the tags (behind the scenes it's still collected.)
And for some, that feature that you have that bans an author/reader from seeing content exists already, let them ban a tag. And MAKE adult content creators use the tag or get the article banned. And this is not just for a given tag, like erotica, All of them. So, I don't see atheist articles if I don't want. But I have the right to turn it on should I evolve.
It seems like the features are there. Freedom of speech is great, and is one of mediums greatest strengths. And the individuals right to not see something is also valuable. Again, give that choice to them, for anything.
P.S. I think a huge number of your people are dudes... Young dudes, so, yeah, you're a one-stop content shop.
