What Patreon is doing isn’t new, it’s an expansion of their previous policies about off-site content and ‘objectionable’ nsfw. But nobody listened when it was just the really out there kinks. That’s how this censorship works. They ban the super niche stuff first.

Nobody cares if loli/shota is banned. Most people think it’s disgusting anyway. Sites ban that to appease advertisers and see that it generates zero outrage. So they move on to something more ‘normal’ like noncon or guro. Again nothing happens and the advertisers are happy.

Slowly they target tamer and tamer content. Vore, hypnosis, transformation... If you speak up, you’re admitting you have weird kinks and opening yourself up to public shaming. And hey, it’s just how the rules work now. It’s what you should expect. If you don’t like it, leave.

By the time they reach the big fish, they have an excuse to rely on. Oh, you didn’t realize you were breaking TOS? Too bad, we always ban objectionable content. You should have seen this coming, furry. You should know you don’t belong here, queer artist.

And by now, they’ve set a scary precedent. If you’re banned from the site, you must be a dirty kinkster. Probably even a pedo. So you can’t make it public because you don’t want to be smeared as just another predator whining about not being able to post gross shit.

For an indie artist relying on commissions, that reputation is a death sentence. Sure, you’ve lost a major income stream, but you can’t afford to lost the rest. So you shut up and move on, one more site crossed off the ever-dwindling list of places you’re welcome.

Why do sites do this? Because there’s money in it. Patreon doesn’t care about small creators, they care about keeping their corporate overlords happy. They care about PayPal liking them and where Google puts them on search analytics and big companies using them for crowd funding.

Corporations hate controversy more than anything else and nothing generates controversy quite like weird sex stuff. If Patreon is a hub for indie nsfw artists who make weird queer art, it can’t be a respectable platform for corporate interests. The two are mutually exclusive.

So if you’re defending Patreon because “those artists are bad anyway”, you’re part of the problem. You’re helping Patreon sanitize their image so they can make more money. And they /will/ turn on you when the time comes. The ultimate goal is zero nsfw and thus zero controversy.

I legitimately don’t care if you think the art in question is gross. The point is that banning it is part of a larger trend, one we’ve seen across multiple sites like Tumblr, Livejournal, etc. Hell, this even happened to TvTropes. Don’t let them get away with this again.

One more thing people need to realize is that these sites aren’t oblivious to the discourse. They pay attention to what content gets hate and put it on the ban list. The whole point is causing the least outrage possible while still getting rid of anything nsfw.

It’s not a coincidence that people have turned against previously common terms like ‘yaoi’ and suddenly Patreon bans it too. They know it’s fallen out of favor and are using that opportunity to get rid of some queer nsfw. The same with the other banned kinks.

Hypnosis porn is problematic? Vore is weird and cringey? Even furries hate feral? Guess what’s on the chopping block next. They’re not stupid, they know what people aren’t willing to defend in public. And if nobody will speak up, there’s no consequences for banning it.

This is why it’s important to go hard for weird gross shit, even if it’s not your personal thing. Because pro-censorship discourse is being monitized and used to slowly ban any and all nsfw, especially queer content.