They probably have ridiculously good engagement. Very tough for twitch to give that up more than likely.
Their rule is that it can't be "overtly or explicitly sexually suggestive", and they acknowledge that it lies on a spectrum. They have to draw the line somewhere. To some people, for instance the Amish or fundamentalism Muslims, the line is very different from that of typical Westerners.
I again ask, is wearing a bikini, facing away from a camera and touching your toes for $5 not a sexual service?
Surely you recognize that these things lie on a spectrum. Is charging admission for beach volleyball a sexual service? No matter your level of prudishness, you will be able to find something that is right in the gray area.
This question actually perfectly articulates the difference. When you pay $5 to watch a beach volleyball tournament, you're paying for volleyball, and may as a side effect experience content that _some_ may find sexual. By Twitch's ToS, this should totally be allowed.
As for my example, is there a nonsexual reason to pay a woman 5 dollars to bend over in front of you? What is it?
What you are missing is that whatever rule you make, people are going to try to push the limits, because it gets them viewers. If twitch says that someone bending over in a bikini has no non-sexual purpose and therefore is against the rules, the creators could change the stream very slightly.... just enough so they can claim to be about exercise, yoga, modeling fashion, or dance. They'd still have the same audience, with the exact same reason for watching, but now it sneaks by the rule.
Pole dancing is an art and takes athletic skill, sure, but most people (at least in the US) consider it is purely viewed for sexual gratification. But creators could claim its "main" purpose is to enjoy the dancing for its artistic and athletic merit.
Sports Illustrated has a swim suit issue, and it's not about swimming so how is that sports? It's just an excuse.
The majority of art channels on twitch are people drawing sexy (often anime-style) girls and women. You can learn to draw from them, but the sexier they make them, the more viewers they get.
So... I really don't get what you are trying to say. You seem to not understand that there is gray area.
People have been sometimes streaming from hot tubs for years, and it's always been the exact grey area you're describing. Only very recently has it turned into a hypersexualized scenario, which is why Twitch is putting out more content condoning it.
> You seem to not understand that there is gray area.
I do. You don't seem to understand that the vast majority of the streams this change will encapsulate are not grey at all.