censHERship Part IV: When Jokes Became Contraband
Power rarely announces itself with a gavel anymore. It whispers. Nudges. Redirects. Sometimes it says, "watch your mouth." Sometimes, no words are exchanged; it simply files you into a category you can't escape, and the filing system is your punishment.
We imagine censorship as prohibition, a hand clamped over a mouth. But most of the time it's reclassification. A quiet bureaucratic gesture with a scarlet health label dictating everything you're allowed to say.
What surprised me most in building a women's health brand was the fragility of the systems we're supposed to trust. The thin-skinned empire behind the blue checkmarks, trembling at the sight of a woman naming her urethra. That and these crap policies coined "protections."
This year, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr publicly warned Disney-owned networks after Jimmy Kimmel joked about the wrong politician. A government official deciding what counts as acceptable satire. Wrap it in bureaucracy if you want. It's daytime Sopranos level intimidation.
The strangest part was the silence. We all shrugged, too exhausted to register another line crossed. Outrage fatigue is the permanent condition now.
Meanwhile, a carousel of men livestream conspiracy theories from hotel ballrooms. They weaponize fear and monetize panic. They show violence without hesitation. Apparently, this is fine. But a woman saying vagina without apology? Absolutely not. A woman with ownership of her entire body? There are actual punishable laws.
The same fragility has been replicated and automated inside the algorithms that govern women's health. Same instincts, same silencing reflex.
When Instagram classifies you as a health and wellness brand, it contains you. The label sticks like residue. It comes with penalties you can't fix or appeal. A closed door insisting it's protecting you.
We were told to stop mentioning UTIs. Make it less "sciencey." Move to another platform.
This would be hilarious if the advice wasn't given to my cofounder, a Stanford-grad and medical-practicing doctor, with a top urogynecologist/female pelvic surgeon formulating our product. A medically trained team told to soften accuracy to appease a machine.
If this were about safety, violence would be flagged and information preventing infections affecting half of adult women would be spotlighted. But evidence-based women's health solutions and education is treated as misconduct. Taboo.
The FCC scolds comedians for pointing at hypocrisy. Instagram penalizes us for pointing at the human body. Potato, potahto.
Jon Stewart says "corruption" and gets labeled unpatriotic. We say urethra and get labeled inappropriate.
When Carr threatened networks over satire, John Oliver responded with the only reasonable line: fuck you, make me.
There's a reason that landed. Humor is the last pressure valve we've got. It lets society examine its absurdities without breaking.
When governments lose their sense of humor, something essential starts to rot. The FCC won't tolerate satire. The algorithm doesn't tolerate female anatomy. Together they've built a world where honesty feels dangerous.
Censorship survives because chaos serves the powerful. Overwhelm people and no one demands substance. Blur meaning into noise and leadership never has to sit with complexity. The same words can be weaponized or sanctified depending on the audience.
Perspective is a structure. And women's health, if it's meant to function at all, requires CEOs willing to be inconvenienced by nuance. To grapple with complexity rather than manage false safety protocols. But silence is easier. Just go away.
What censorship hides is never the thing it claims to protect. It hides the thought-provoking cultural commentary that might redirect us. It hides innovation that threatens outdated treatments. Censorship is a fog machine, and not the cool kind.
Comedy gets pulled off air while women's health gets pulled off feeds. Sometimes the censorship is dramatic. Sometimes it's logistical: a missing button, a restricted dashboard, a warning with no explanation.
What unites these moments is the hierarchy of discomfort. It's 2025 and mass violence is mundane yet women's anatomy is still unprintable.
Tucker Carlson can monetize fear. Hims can monetize erectile dysfunction. Meanwhile, misinformation flourishes unchecked. Mystical "vaginal cleansing waters," unproven "STI-killing" herbs, harmful "tightening gels"; dangerous advice spreads freely across every major platform. Sexual health educators get flagged. Breast cancer awareness charities get restricted. Menstrual health content gets removed. But search Instagram and you'll find accounts dedicated purely to sexualized content, no problem. Advice on spotting life-threatening women's health conditions? Gone. Nudity for sexual gratification? Approved. Make this make sense.
The system knows exactly who gets the velvet rope and who gets the broom closet.
Educated truth doesn't trend well. People who try to speak clearly start to whisper. Then rewrite. Or worse, quit. A thousand tiny compromises until truth is unrecognizable. An algorithm performing death by a thousand cuts, teaching us to silence ourselves.
The censors of comedy and of women's health aren't separate forces. They're parallel branches of the same nervous system, terrified of plain language and allergic to the unvarnished body. The message from digital giants is clear: women's health concerns are problematic, inappropriate and treated like porn.
Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Dick Gregory, Joan Rivers were shushed for being accurate or having power. For naming and pointing. For getting us to laugh at the absurdity, obscenities and all.
And here we are. Fully clothed, credentialed, grown adults being told not to say the names of our own body parts.
We can't out-shout the outrage industry. But we can speak plainly. Accuracy is our rebellion. Humor is our sanctuary. Why edit ourselves for safety when safety was never the point?
Late-night satire and UTI prevention seem unrelated, but they share a bloodline. We rely on naming things without flinching. We irritate power and get censored for telling the truth.
So to the regulators who police jokes, to the platforms that recoil at women's anatomy, and to the bots that blush like Victorian chaperones desperate to preserve their sense of order:
Fuck you. This is comical now.
Is it too much to ask for transparent moderation? We're not asking for a lawless landscape; just clearer rules, consistent enforcement, and an appeals process that lets brands like us actually learn from rejections instead of reverse-engineering the whims of an invisible moderator.
References & Further Reading
FCC Censorship of Comedy:
- How Brendan Carr helped take down Jimmy Kimmel - CNN, September 2025
- Suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! - Wikipedia documentation
- ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off the Air After FCC Chair's Threats - Notus, September 2025
- Kimmel suspension and self-censorship set dangerous precedent - PBS News, September 2025
- Jimmy Kimmel's suspension shows power of FCC's Brendan Carr - NPR, September 2025
Meta's Censorship of Women's Health:
- Center for Intimacy Justice Report on Meta's Ad Rejections - January 2022 study documenting 100% rejection rate
- Meta faces FTC complaint over blocking women's sexual health ads - Fierce Pharma, July 2023
- Advertising erectile dysfunction pills? No problem. Breast health? Try again - Coda Story, August 2025
- Advertising restrictions can have harmful effects on women's health - CNN Business, April 2024
- Meta rejected dozens of women's health ads. Democrats want answers. - Washington Post, July 2023
- Is Digital Censorship Silencing Women's Health Conversations? - HANX Official, March 2025
Meta's Official Policies:
- Meta's Health and Wellness Advertising Policy
- Meta's New Advertising Rules: Key Considerations - Foley Hoag legal analysis
Congressional Action:
- CIJ and US Senators Call on FTC to Investigate - Femtech Insider
- CIJ's FTC Filing - Full legal complaint
This is Part IV of the censHERship series documenting how social media platforms systematically censor women's health content while allowing male health advertising to flourish.
