The Manufacture of Soft Eroticism in Complicit Edge Ball Games: Platformized Bodies and Relational Moderation on Chinese Live-Streaming Platforms

Eroticism has surged across social feeds as a lucrative trend. In China’s hyper-monitored digital landscape, however, it not only survives but thrives in unexpected, diverse forms. To explore this alternative platform-based cultural creation, this study examines the risky yet prevalent soft eroticism known as cabian (擦边 content and practices that hit the edge of rules). Drawing on online and offline participatory observation, we investigate how soft eroticism is manufactured through the interplay of content production and moderation. The findings demonstrate that cabian reconfigures “platformized bodies” by weaving semiotic, technical, and moral bodies into subjective eroticism situated in a regulatory liminal zone. Accordingly, content moderation has evolved from relevant content filtering into “relational moderation,” targeting the networks among users, platforms, and the state that sustain monetized eroticism production. The co-construction of content production and moderation reveals that embodiment not only embeds within but actively reshapes the logic of platformization.