What’s Going On

Tags

censorship, erotica, paypal, writing

I’ve taken something of a break from erotica lately to focus on some other projects and life opportunities, so I’m a bit low on inspiration at the moment. There’s an erotic long story due in April that needs to be finished, so I’ll probably do that next week. Then this summer I’ll be editing WOLF GIRL.

On the PayPal front, we’ve kinda won. I say “kinda” because erotic visual arts that may still be legal but on the questionable side of things are still not permitted (underage pornography is illegal, even non-photo depictions with no victim, so none of that, but violent sexual images that are legal are still not allowed), and PayPal still reserves the right to go after individuals who sell what they think is something that violates their policies. Hopefully, they follow their own policy to send notice rather than shut down an account before the individual can argue their case. Anyway, the problem is that PayPal still has the power to make things difficult for the fringe erotica writers out there who write legal fiction that PayPal considers “obscene.” Still, four steps forward and two steps back is still in the right direction.

However, there still needs to develop alternatives and proper competition to PayPal in order to keep them from having so much power to decide what’s okay and what isn’t, regardless of what’s legal. Everyone talked about just leaving PayPal, as though that were the easiest thing in the world to do. But I use PayPal for other endeavors, not just writing, and not having PayPal – or PayPal shutting down my account – would cripple me and many other financially. And 1) a company shouldn’t have that much power, especially with legal commerce, and 2) whether or not they should, they do, and I can’t give it up at this juncture.

As a member of Banned Writers, I encourage you to check out these links:

Payment Services and their Policies – This gives you a good idea of how hard it is to find an alternative payment service to PayPal that would step up for sexual content commerce.

Publishers/Presses and Their Content – And this is good for erotica writers who want to find the right publisher, if they’re having trouble finding a place for their legal fringe erotic fiction.

I also have some other news that I can’t quite share at the moment, but it’s of the good kind.

The Changing Dystopian World of Erotica

Tags

censorship, erotica, link, news link, paypal

If you’re not familiar with the crackdown on certain kinds of erotica, this article gives a good breakdown of what’s happening: Slippery Slope: Erotica Censorship

I don’t have many words for this because it makes me feel sick and ashamed, and I don’t think I deserve to feel that way.

I will say one thing – the refusal to support rape stories will be surprisingly tricky for PayPal to enforce with any sort of fairness (although whether PayPal cares about fair…). Writing about illegal acts isn’t illegal. It’s fiction. And the world of erotica as well as the romance genre (considered tame by most media sellers) is full of dubious consent and non-consensual sex used to titillate. Master/slave and ravishment fantasies are some of THE most common fantasies for both men and women, including some people who have experienced the very illegal and very terrible act of rape themselves.

I think PayPal needs to check its moralizing at the door. And I think another company needs to step up and start challenging PayPal on their platform, on which they have a disturbing almost-monopoly (like Amazon, which is a whole ‘nother kettle of unethical fish).

Read this other article from Adventurotica for why the difference between fantasy and reality is important. It’s a sensitive issue, and I think she addresses it well.

ETA: Turns out the culprit here might be credit card companies like Visa, who charge payment processors an extra $500 a year for every business they deem high-risk, which includes porn and erotica sites (high-risk because people contest their payments when they get “caught”).

This doesn’t make it okay. Are PayPal’s margins so slim that they cannot afford to pay the annual fee and rake in the amount of money that adult content gets them?