The Peach Butt Emoji Is Dead. Long Live the Peach Butt Emoji!

Before Apple released a preview of its iOS 10.2 update on Monday, the Internet had two questions on its mind: What emojis would be included in the update, and how could they be incorporated into our sexting routines?

While Apple’s update includes some exciting new additions to its emoji library, including a long-awaited avocado, the answer to the second question remains somewhat uncertain. That’s because the first developer beta version of iOS 10.2 includes one significant (and highly controversial) update: The peach emoji, the symbol favored by sexting enthusiasts and Kim Kardashian West, looks a lot less like a butt and more like, well, a peach.

Here’s what the peach emoji looked like in the previous version of iOS or BCPE (Before the Common Peach Emoji). As you can see, it’s fleshy, taut, and curvaceous, much like the human gluteus maximus.

And here’s what the peach emoji looks like now:

https://twitter.com/freckledbutt/status/793298101456867328?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

It doesn’t look like a butt. It doesn’t even look that much like a peach. It looks like one of those foamy Fisher Price balls your teachers made you use in gym class because they were afraid of getting sued by the parents. It is orange, spherical, and totally innocuous.

Naturally, sexting enthusiasts are outraged, with many taking to Twitter to protest the alteration of the peach emoji:

the peach emoji was the closest i ever got to seeing nudes noooooooo

— brandon swagson (@sexualjumanji) November 1, 2016

K the emoji peach changing to resemble an actual peach is just devastating

— Ian Zelaya (@IanDavidZelaya) November 1, 2016

They released a new peach emoji and now I have to redesign all my filthy peach fan art pic.twitter.com/3BzvoN4rmV

— Jen Lewis (@thisjenlewis) November 1, 2016

While it could be argued that the updated peach emoji is part of Apple’s broader move to make its characters seem less cartoonish and more realistic, the truth is that Apple has a history of discouraging its users from using emojis for sexting. In 2014, for instance, the Apple store banned Flirtmoji, which offered more explicit sexting symbols such as breasts and an anatomically correct erect penis.

Whatever Apple’s intentions behind eliminating the more butt-like qualities of the peach butt emoji, the loss of the symbol clearly represents a blow to frequent sexters, who’ll now have to resort to other emojis to adequately convey their interest in anal play. (FWIW, the tomato is also a solid option.) Thank God we still have the eggplant emoji or else we’d all be forced to become celibate.