The Red Pages of Digital Intimacy

Introduction

Once, 'red pages' were part of phone directories. Discreetly marked, slightly forbidden, but known to all. Today, red pages no longer have paper, phone numbers, or fixed addresses. They have moved into the digital space – scattered across platforms, algorithms, private messages, and payment systems.

Digital intimacy has become the public secret of modern society: everyone uses it, few admit it, and almost no one wants to regulate it.

Intimacy as Content, Not a Relationship

Digitalization has turned intimacy into a format. Content that can be clicked, rated, shared, and monetized. What was once a relationship is now often an interaction. What was private is now conditionally visible – depending on settings, platform, and algorithm.

The red pages of digital intimacy are no longer limited to the adult industry. They spill over into social networks, dating apps, subscription models, and the attention economy. The only difference is the degree of open admission.

But the more intimacy is digitized, the more it loses the protective mechanisms that once guarded it with invisibility.

Algorithms as the New Editors of Intimacy

In the past, red pages were edited by people. Today, they are edited by algorithms. They decide what is allowed, what is hidden, what is promoted, and what is deleted. This editorial power is not neutral. It is based on the interests of platforms, advertisers, and regulators – not on the needs of the people who participate in this intimacy.

An algorithm does not understand context, consent, or vulnerability. It only understands metrics. And where intimacy becomes a metric, it also becomes interchangeable. One piece of content replaces another, one face disappears, another appears. The human factor is lost in the flow of data.

The Double Standard of the Digital Space

Digital society lives in a paradox. On the one hand, it encourages exposure, self-expression, and the monetization of privacy. On the other hand, it punishes those who do it openly, consciously, and professionally. Sexual content is everywhere – until it is named as work.

The red pages of digital intimacy are therefore also a map of social hypocrisy. Everyone knows where they are. Everyone knows how they work. But when it comes to questions of rights, safety, and protection, responsibility evaporates.

Who Bears the Risk?

In digital intimacy, the risk is not evenly distributed. Platforms take commissions. Payment systems decide on access. Users spend anonymously. The greatest risk, however, is borne by those whose body, voice, or image become content.

The risk is not just financial. It is social, legal, and psychological. Identity disclosure, blackmail, digital lynching, the permanent trace of content – all these are side effects of a system that treats intimacy as a disposable commodity without responsibility.

From Red Pages to Secure Infrastructure

If red pages once meant an entry point, today they mean a structural question: will digital intimacy remain a gray area, or will it get its own infrastructure of safety, rules, and protection.

This does not mean censorship. It means recognizing that intimacy in the digital space needs more, not less, structure. Clear rules, transparent processes, identity protection, and mechanisms for dealing with abuse.

Initiatives like Dobra Družba are trying to fill this void: not with moralizing, but by building systems where digital intimacy is not left to chance or faceless algorithms.

The Year 2025: Intimacy as a Political Issue

By 2025, it is becoming clear that digital intimacy is no longer just a personal choice. It is becoming a political issue. An issue of rights, labor, access to financial services, and freedom of expression. Whoever controls the infrastructure of intimacy also controls the power relations.

The red pages of digital intimacy are not a problem to be hidden. They are a mirror of a society that enjoys the fruits of intimacy but evades responsibility for it.

The question of the future is not whether red pages will exist. They will. The question is whether they will remain an unregulated labyrinth of risks – or become part of a mature digital society that knows how to treat intimacy as a human reality, not a system error.