Oli Lipski
Vague community guidelines on “fringe” sexual fetish content, has allowed the banning of various adult content creators from Patreon in a continuous barrage of online censorship.
Late last month, @AnotherMeekOne was warned by the Trust and Safety team to remove all erotic hypnosis content from their Patreon page as it violated community guidelines by falling under “coerced consent” and therefore “sexual violence”.
A spokesperson from Patreon told Ana Valens, a trans sex columnist for the Daily Dot, that “they work 1:1 with the creator to bring them back within guidelines”, and after multiple attempts to query the decision to censor, the content had to be removed.
Alongside other hostile platforms such as Tumblr, which saw the ban of all adult content last December, leading to its subsequent demise, Patreon has in fact been much more pernicious in its censorship. @FascinationUniformed claimed that Patreon has even started policing what you post on other sites and networks: “on MCForum some creators have started being reviewed.”
Vague Sexual Guidelines
Even though it used to be considered a relatively adult-friendly space, and is currently a major source of income for adult entrepreneurs, Patreon updated its community guidelines on October 17 in 2017 to crack down on such content. Nevertheless, it’s guidelines remain vague enough to target literally any adult content they deem “fringe” at the time, leaving predominantly queer and kink content creators vulnerable to random attack.
The Community Guidelines state they don’t allow pornographic material, which they define as “real people engaging in sexual acts such as masturbation or sexual intercourse on camera.” In this regard it is clear that audio pornography is not concerned.
However, they also have zero tolerance for glorification of sexual violence and fetish creations that are “hard to distinguish from non-consensual sex”. They claim this is “true for illustrated, animated, or any other type of creations”. Hence, subjectively, audio hypno-erotica content violates these terms.
When Valens spoke to an anonymous hypno-erotica Patreon creator, they asserted that “hypnosis as a kink isn’t inherently violent or non-consensual. Like all good kink, hypnosis is a form of voluntary power exchange that takes place after all parties have consented, negotiated, and established safety measures. Getting hypnotized is no different to getting tied up, but no one would say consensual bondage is a form of “sexual violence” that needs to be censored.”
SEXTECHGUIDE contacted Patreon but had received no response at the time of publishing.
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The reason why Patreon is cracking down on erotic content creators is still unclear. But the crowdfunding site has been fighting this battle for two years. In 2017, Patreon attempted to ban sex workers and adult content of a sexual nature because of pressure from its payment platforms.