Except for some photographs of me – YouTube have just disabled three of the videos that I put together as a self promotion because they breached the ‘community guidelines’.

 

As an aspiring writer and author trying to get a book deal in a competitive market I’ll use whatever I can to get attention. In my case it’s my ass and YouTube.

 

My breach of the ‘community guidelines’- I can’t tell you what it is, they haven’t told me. And under the ‘terms of use’ they don’t have to.

 

I have my suspicions as to why. In the videos were a few provocative images of me, a couple with my panties around my legs and ankles – I’ve attached a couple of the ‘offending’ images to this post. In them I was wearing a second g-string, but the angle of the shot means you can’t see them, so I wasn’t nude, it was just ‘suggested’ by the image, see for yourself, the links are below.

 

I was telling another tranny friend about this, and she had another theory; here it is: she thinks it’s because I’m a transsexual.

 

I kind of dismissed this at first, but when I thought a little more it seemed to make some sense.

 

Women seem to be able to kiss and show their g-string clad arses and scantily clad breasts and it seems to be fine with YouTube. But a transsexual being just as provocative as a ‘real’ woman? Maybe they don’t like that. Maybe they don’t know how to deal with that – and my images are mild in comparison to what’s out there. 

 

I hate to sound like a cranky, whining, trannny, complaining about ‘homophobia’ or whatever , I’m really not that kind of girl – but her theory really makes sense, a lot of heterosexual men and women are ‘confronted’ , ‘uneasy’ or ‘intimidated’ by transexualism (if you know what I mean). There’s a lot of discrimination out there. Maybe this is the case here.

 

So perhaps they didn’t know how to deal with my images, so they decided to disable them on the basis of some poorly defined ‘community guidelines’. Have a look at the images and make up your own mind. Is she right? Could it be homophobia (or whatever the transexual equivalent is called) Maybe they do breach the ‘standards’ or maybe she’s just a little ‘over sensitive’ about being a tranny, I really don’t know – as I said, look at the images and judge for yourself.

 

You can bet that I wasn’t happy about being ‘disabled’ by YouTube, so I didn’t leave it there. I’m such a trouble maker.

 

I’ve upped the stakes a little and posted a couple more videos that really push the boundaries – just to see what happens.

 

One has me smearing whipped cream all over myself. The other has me in the shower wearing nothing more than a red string bikini.

 

If you told me a week ago that I’d be making a video of me rubbing whipped cream onto my belly to get my revenge upon YouTube I’d politely ask if I could share what you had been taking… it’s interesting really, can you actually make a point by rubbing whipped cream onto your belly and wiggling provocatively? A nice warm shower in a red bikini as revenge?

 

Take that YouTube.

 

God only knows how they’ll deal with those videos. You can check them out by following these links if you like:

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcPSuj0d2do

 

 

Watch them, better yet forward them. Make them a YouTube sensation – success is always the best revenge, let’s see what they do when they make the ‘most viewed today’ page. My bet is that they suddenly decide that these videos also breach ‘community standards’.

 

Let’s just see what they do.

 

It drives me crazy. On-line ‘mainstream’ ‘communities’ and media can be so conservative. This has happened to me before – Slide Share deleted my account. Authonomy rejected my profile and my profile image… the list goes on. It’s tedious. This is 2010 right?

 

I’d be interested to hear your stories on homophobia in digital communities. Maybe it is real. Let me know if you have one, email me: laviniadarling@gmail.com

 

Anyway, being even more provocative is my way of protesting. I’m not sure what else to do. If you have any ideas let me know, I could do with some advice as I’m not sure covering myself in whipped cream will really prove anything to YouTube, (so I’m open to ideas) - I’m sure the entire transsexual community would be grateful.

 

Any marketers, PR people, gay activists or digital people out there?

 

Hope to hear from you, let me know what you think.

 

Thanks

 

X

 

Lavinia Sonderberg-Beck

Sydney Australia

 

Twitter: @darlinglavinia

 

 

P.S. You’ll find YouTube’s e-mail to me below:

 

 

“Regarding your account: laviniadarling

The following video(s) from your account have been disabled for violation of the YouTube Community Guidelines:

 

Intimate with me.wmv - (laviniadarling)

 

Your account has received one Community Guidelines warning strike, which will expire in six months. Additional violations may result in the temporary disabling of your ability to post content to YouTube and/or the termination of your account.

Sincerely,

 

The YouTube Team”