melmagazine.com Open in urlscan Pro
2606:4700:20::681a:dc1  Public Scan

URL: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/paypal-is-bringing-sexy-back
Submission Tags: phishing malicious Search All
Submission: On August 20 via api from US

Form analysis 2 forms found in the DOM

GET https://melmagazine.com/

<form role="search" method="get" class="search-form" action="https://melmagazine.com/" autocomplete="off"> <label class="text-hide" for="header-search">Search…</label>
  <input type="text" class="search-field" id="header-search" placeholder="Search…" value="" name="s">
  <button type="submit" class="search-submit btn-icon">
    <span class="text-hide">Search</span>
    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="26" height="26" viewBox="0 0 26 26">
      <path fill="#FFF" fill-rule="evenodd"
        d="M1.468 10.267c0-2 .68-3.845 1.812-5.325a8.796 8.796 0 0 1 6.09-3.429 8.77 8.77 0 0 1 4.735.847c2.934 1.427 4.967 4.43 4.967 7.909 0 4.853-3.95 8.803-8.802 8.803-2.417 0-4.61-.98-6.202-2.565-.006-.006-.013-.009-.019-.018-.01-.008-.017-.017-.026-.027a8.78 8.78 0 0 1-2.555-6.195zM26 23.927l-7.513-7.516a10.206 10.206 0 0 0 2.054-6.143C20.542 4.599 15.944 0 10.272 0 6.777 0 3.698 1.746 1.842 4.41A10.21 10.21 0 0 0 0 10.267C0 15.943 4.6 20.54 10.269 20.54a10.2 10.2 0 0 0 6.142-2.053L23.927 26 26 23.927z">
      </path>
    </svg>
  </button>
</form>

GET https://melmagazine.com/

<form role="search" method="get" class="search-form" action="https://melmagazine.com/" autocomplete="off"> <label class="text-hide" for="header-search">Search…</label>
  <input type="text" class="search-field" id="header-search" placeholder="Search…" value="" name="s">
  <button type="submit" class="search-submit btn-icon">
    <span class="text-hide">Search</span>
    <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="26" height="26" viewBox="0 0 26 26">
      <path fill="#FFF" fill-rule="evenodd"
        d="M1.468 10.267c0-2 .68-3.845 1.812-5.325a8.796 8.796 0 0 1 6.09-3.429 8.77 8.77 0 0 1 4.735.847c2.934 1.427 4.967 4.43 4.967 7.909 0 4.853-3.95 8.803-8.802 8.803-2.417 0-4.61-.98-6.202-2.565-.006-.006-.013-.009-.019-.018-.01-.008-.017-.017-.026-.027a8.78 8.78 0 0 1-2.555-6.195zM26 23.927l-7.513-7.516a10.206 10.206 0 0 0 2.054-6.143C20.542 4.599 15.944 0 10.272 0 6.777 0 3.698 1.746 1.842 4.41A10.21 10.21 0 0 0 0 10.267C0 15.943 4.6 20.54 10.269 20.54a10.2 10.2 0 0 0 6.142-2.053L23.927 26 26 23.927z">
      </path>
    </svg>
  </button>
</form>

Text Content

Menu

Search
Search… Search
+
MEL Magazine Cart
Close MEL Magazine Search
Search… Search
 * Culture
 * Entertainment
 * Health
 * Relationships
 * Money
 * Food
 * Wellness
 * Video
 * NSFW
 * Oral History
 * True Crime
 * Rankings
 * Dicks
 * Shop

MEL Magazine
 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Instagram

 * About
 * Terms
 * Privacy
 * Press
 * General Contact

© 2021 MEL Magazine

    * Culture
    * Entertainment
    * Health
    * Relationships
    * Money
    * Food
    * Wellness
    * Video
    * NSFW
    * Oral History
    * True Crime
    * Rankings
    * Dicks
    * Shop

 * 

 * Culture
   * Digital Culture
   * Policy & Politics
   * Gender
   * LGBTQ
   * Sports
 * Entertainment
   * Movies
   * TV
   * Music
   * Books
   * Gaming
   * Comics
 * Health
   * Physical Health
   * Fitness
   * Mental Health
   * Sexual Health
   * Healthcare
 * Relationships
   * Dating
   * Marriage
   * Friendship
   * Family
   * Pets
 * Money
   * Business
   * Work
   * Debt
   * Personal Finance
 * Food
   * Drink
   * Drugs
 * Wellness
   * Travel
   * Style & Beauty
   * Astrology
   * Self-care
   * Religion
 * Video
   * Deep Dives
   * MEL Films
 * NSFW
   * Sex
   * Porn
   * Tasha Reign
   Oral HistoryTrue CrimeRankingsDicksShop


Work Lynsey G 5 years ago
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via email



PAYPAL IS BRINGING SEXY BACK

The payment processor will no longer blacklist adult content creators on the
crowdfunding platform Patreon

When subscription-based crowdfunding platform Patreon announced to the adult
content creators on its site July 12 that, for the first time in over two years,
they would be able to accept payments using PayPal, the news came as a welcome
surprise.

PayPal, the most recognized name in online payment processing worldwide, had
been off-limits to those producing sexy content on Patreon since March, 2014,
when PayPal vowed to stop all payments to the crowdfunding website because it
allowed creators on its platform to profit on adult-themed content — largely
erotic comics, games, hentai and the like. Patreon, backed into a corner by
PayPal’s unexpected and time-sensitive threat, alerted its adult-oriented users
that their accounts would be flagged as NSFW and blocked from search results,
and their payments restricted to credit cards only, in order to avoid
catastrophe for everyone using the site. Patrons who had been using PayPal to
support adult content creators were required to change their payment methods, or
payments would be frozen and ultimately lost.

Though PayPal is only one possible payment method, its popularity made losing it
a tough prospect for many creators. “I had just joined up when the Paypal cutoff
happened, and almost overnight I had lost more than 75 percent of my patrons
because [of] Paypal,” said Patreon user Infected Colors, who makes homoerotic
illustrations.

But Patreon wasn’t the first to feel pressure from PayPal about adult content.
In 2003, PayPal announced that it would no longer process payments for adult
content of any kind. Since then, it has become notorious among adult merchants
for freezing accounts — sometimes refunding payments and sometimes freezing them
and imposing lifetime bans on users who transgress its murkily worded Acceptable
Use Policy, which forbids activities that “relate to transactions involving…
items that are considered obscene…[or] certain sexually oriented materials or
services.”


RECOMMENDED READING


I WAS THE MALE STAR IN A ‘DANCING BEAR’ PORN

Work


THE ECONOMIC BREAKDOWN OF A BOXING PURSE — WHO GETS WHAT?

Culture

“PayPal has such vague terms,” adult content producer and porn performer Kitty
Stryker said. “It could mean so many things!” And PayPal has used that vagueness
as it pleases. Merchants and crowdfunding hopefuls around the world — sex
workers, porn stars, filmmakers, artists, even “sexy” garment sellers — have
drawn PayPal’s wrath for getting erotic online and asking for compensation,
sometimes even when the payments in question had nothing to do with sex work or
adult content.

Stryker was using Patreon to fund her writing and related activities — but not
the films she stars in and produces — when PayPal dropped the hammer back in
2014. As she wrote for The Frisky, her ability to pay her bills was in question
“simply because I’m a porn performer, and some people decided to donate money
for my non-pornographic writing via PayPal instead of directly from their
credit cards.”

But it’s not just PayPal that punishes NSFW content. PayPal’s prohibition on
adult merchants has become the norm for most other payment processing companies,
but the fear of adult business is a trickle-down effect from the rest of the
finance industry, which is, in a word, contemptuous of adult content. The early
days of the internet owe a lot to porn, but porn itself — along with most other
adult businesses — was lumped in with “high-risk” merchants like gambling
websites and loan consolidation in the early 2000s, when porn sites were plagued
by high rates of chargebacks, in which consumers deny having made purchases that
appear on their bills and demand their money back. Although most adult merchants
today receive few chargebacks, they are still considered high-risk, which means
they are subject to higher charges on transactions and yearly fees to credit
card companies. Most payment processors, like PayPal, simply won’t do business
with them, and those who will often charge extremely high fees — over 10 percent
per transaction.

Naturally, crowdfunding platforms need to stay on payment processors’ good
sides, so most of them refuse to work with adult merchants. A few adult-focused
crowdfunding websites have popped up to fill the void, but there again, the
reluctance of payment processors to get involved creates a major obstacle. All
things told, the internet can be a very difficult place for adult content
creators — especially small, independent ones — to make a buck.

Not so at Patreon, which has welcomed creators of adult content since its
inception in 2013, even after its run-in with PayPal the following year. With
Kickstarter outright forbidding pornographic material and GoFundMe prohibiting
“sexually explicit material, sexually suggestive material, adult services or
products,” and “pornography of any kind,” Patreon’s comfort with
non-photographic smut is a veritable beacon of possibility for adult content
creators. As hentai artist Norasuko told MEL, “I think Patreon is very
accommodating as far as crowdfunding platforms go. Most of them are strictly
against porn.”

When Patreon was compelled to restrict its NSFW creators’ payments to credit
cards, it strove to keep creators’ accounts functional and to protect their
interests. Stryker said that when she was worried about her income after the
PayPal cutoff, Patreon even “sent me an advance on the next month’s payment so I
could pay rent.” Patreon resolved not to abandon adult content creators, and, in
December, 2014, the site amended its community guidelines to specify: “We allow
nudity and suggestive imagery, as long as it is marked NSFW.” When Norasuko
asked for clarification, Patreon responded, “We do not allow photographic
pornography, but we do allow non-photographic (drawn, sculpted, or computer
generated, for example) sexual imagery.”

Over the following year and a half, it appears, Patreon has been hard at work on
behalf of its adult content creators, trying to win back what they lost. And on
July 12, Patreon sent an email to users announcing a PayPal about-face: “We were
able to convince PayPal, or more specifically their subsidiary Braintree, that
Adult Content creators on Patreon are not a serious risk. Our content policy,
and the nature of subscription payments, means that Adult Content creators on
Patreon are less risky than most creators making adult content.” Patreon’s adult
creators, both PayPal and Patreon believe, will generate few chargebacks or
fraud allegations, making the financial hazards to the payment processor
negligible. Furthermore, the e-mail stated, “We also have a very diverse mix of
content types, so even if our Adult Content creators are higher risk than other
types of creators, Patreon as a whole is less risky.”

When MEL contacted Patreon for details, associate marketing manager Taryn Arnold
was only able to say, “Unfortunately, our team is not giving any further info on
it other than the announcement that was sent out to all creators.” But, she
added, “We are really excited about [the agreement] and the way it can benefit
our creators and help self-expression through art take all forms possible.”

PayPal may not be exactly opening its arms wide to smutty businesses — as of
this writing, the company was declining to answer press inquiries — but their
agreement with Patreon could be the beginning of a shift that might open the
doors to profitability for small adult content creators. Norasuko says, “I’m a
bit afraid now because who knows when they rules might change again.”

Patreon seems to feel the same trepidation. As their email to adult content
creators put it, “We are very happy about this victory, but the payment industry
does not provide much transparency around payments for adult content… We will
continue to work towards more certainty around these issues, but for now we feel
that the benefit of allowing PayPal payments for Adult Content creators
outweighs any hypothetical risk that it may change in the future.”

Patreon runs payments at the beginning of every month, so it’s not clear yet how
well this process will work for adult content creators processing payments
through PayPal. But this could signal the beginning of a shift in payment
processing for adult content online. “It’s the first chip in the idea that adult
material is high risk,” Stryker said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


LYNSEY G




RECOMMENDED READING


STIFLER’S MOM HAS STILL GOT IT GOING ON

Movies


PEOPLE WON’T STOP SAYING JOE ROGAN DIED

Digital Culture


POPULAR

 1. Real Italians Put Hot Dogs and French Fries on Their Pizza
 2. The Other Drug War: Inside the World of Counterfeit Viagra
 3. The $65 Million Art Heist That Put ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ to Shame


FEATURES

 1. When Does Perfectionism Become a Personality Disorder?
 2. ‘Harold and Kumar’ Did More for Asian-American Representation Than
    ‘Shang-Chi’ Ever Could
 3. The Desolate Horniness of Nextdoor’s Lonely Hearts


MANOSPHERE

 1. How Red Pill Bros Misunderstand Their Favorite Films
 2. Suspended, Banned, New Account Created: Can Incels Ever Be Silenced?
 3. Redditor Says She Reported Plymouth Gunman to Reddit 6 Days Before Mass
    Shooting


TRUE CRIME

 1. Who Put a Hit Out on Azul the Peacock?
 2. Congresswoman, Gospel Singer, Murder Suspect: The Wild Story of Flordelis
 3. When the Mob Expanded Into Small-Town America


ORAL HISTORY

 1. An Oral History of Adam Sandler, Pickup Basketball Legend
 2. An Oral History of ‘Pretty Bird’ from ‘Dumb and Dumber’
 3. An Oral History of the ‘Leprechaun’ Films


RANKINGS

 1. What’s in This?: Candy Canes
 2. What’s in This?: Mountain Dew


POPULAR

 1. There’s Only One Reliable Way to Make Your Loads Bigger
 2. ‘The Sopranos’ Belongs to the Gays Now
 3. What It Feels Like When a Penis Nuts Inside You


LATEST

 1. The Weed-Growing Timeline, from Seed to Smoke
 2. A Retched Regurgitation of the Science Behind the Boot and Rally
 3. What’s on a Supreme Pizza — And Whose God Complex Made It So?

More Stories from MEL
 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Instagram

 * About
 * Terms
 * Privacy
 * Press
 * General Contact

© 2021 MEL Magazine


Do Not Sell My Personal Information

×