My Publication Was Barred From the Editor Partner Program

Because we publish essays about human sexuality

To be really honest, I was very much looking forward to the onset of the Editor Partner Program that the Medium Staff just rolled out. I started assigning myself stories in the publication that I run, *Sensual: An erotic life*, last month because I wanted it to be second nature by the time the program went live. I work hard to edit and maintain the standards of any submissions, and I was excited about finally being compensated for that time and effort.

Yesterday, when I went to see what if anything was in my Editor Partner Program folder, I was confronted with the surprising news that my publication did not qualify. The apparent reason: we publish things that are “NSFW.” It seemingly doesn’t matter that we publish serious, informative, personal essays, including from a clinical sexologist, or that nobody is obligated to read anything on the Medium website on company time.

Honestly, I think that part was really just a euphemism for sexual content, but if it’s OK to publish on the platform, and Medium is happy to make money off of it, why then should such content be excluded from the program? Do they think editors of those publications don’t work hard? Sensual actually stopped publishing erotica several years ago because it was taking up too much of my time and effort to edit it for quality and publication standards. All editors put in time and effort. Why should some be excluded from this program?

Sexuality is a fundamental aspect of human experience. It’s not inherently smutty or pornographic, and treating it as shameful and inappropriate out of hand is both disappointing and maddening. Again, if Medium is fine with making money off of these stories, why aren’t editors eligible to be compensated?

When I realized that I wasn’t actually going to be compensated for my editorial work after all, I felt very deflated — in part because this was the first time I’d seen anything about the “NSFW” caveat and it took me by unpleasant surprise. I read everything I could come across about the roll-out of the new partner program before it went live, and had not seen anything about that being an issue before, so I was taken aback by it.

I have perhaps an overdeveloped sense of fairness. It’s the thing I most complained about as a child, and my mother’s inevitable response that “Life isn’t fair,” never satsified me. Of course, not everything is going to turn out to be truly fair, but shouldn’t we at least attempt to make it that way? At least that’s my way of thinking about it.

The second part of that disappointment is not truly knowing why they chose to exclude publications with sexual content. I’ve made assumptions above about why I guess that might be, but it’s really nothing more than assumptions. Naturally, Medium has the right to make any rules that it wishes, but to not really explain why they made this decision is to disregard part of the community aspect of the platform.

I feel shut out, and unfairly shut out at that. I’m financially secure, so it’s less about the money except as that is an indication that my time and effort to help create an engaging place for writers and readers to interact is valued.

I’ve heard from enough readers through the years to know that Sensual has indeed been an important place for many to feel seen and heard, to learn something new, or to simply have a sex-positive community. It’s been very gratifying and I see every reason to continue to have that be a place that meets those needs. But it still smarts to be excluded from the Editor Partner Program for what feels like arbitrary reasons.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2026