The Digital Chastity Belt

I feel like we're going backwards on porn and sex advocacy, because why in the fuck is porn under attack from an unholy alliance of puritanical lobbyists and corporate bigwigs? A small lobbying TERF group have teamed up with your local payment processors to choke out adult content worldwide. I am beyond angry, and you should be too. Because these moral crusaders and credit card companies are basically deciding what consenting adults can do and sell.

Around the globe, websites that once allowed or outright embraced sexual content are being broken by monetary pressure. The result of all of this, of course is a sweeping, global crackdown on porn and erotic art. From game storefronts to fan subscription sites, the message is cut and dry; if Visa or MasterCard don’t like it, it’s as good as gone. This financial strangulation of sexual expression isn’t protecting anyone at all, it’s censorship, plain and simple. And it’s hurting real people in the process.

A Global Crackdown

Pornography is being censored worldwide, not through laws but through corporate back-channels. The effect is felt everywhere because the card companies operate globally. When they decide to target adult content, the reverberations hit creators and audiences everywhere.

The events in recent days show just how rapidly this scourge is spreading. In the past two weeks, two of the Internet’s most important gaming storefronts, Steam and itch.io; just suddenly removed or hid thousands of adult-themed games. Now why would they do that? It's not because those games were illegal, but because credit card companies threatened to cut off service if “porn games” remained on sale. If a game features any kind of non-traditional kink or fetish, it's gone. An Australian anti-porn lobby group applauded that it had successfully pressured payment providers to essentially blackmail Steam and itch.io into compliance. Overnight, a ton of games just up and vanished from search results.

And this isn’t an isolated incident, It’s part of a pattern of repression that’s been getting worse over the last few years. Like in 2018, where Patreon began banning certain adult creators due to demands from payment partners. Sex workers and adult artists were suddenly pushed out, abruptly cutting off incomes in the name of “policy.” The site that once proudly hosted erotic artists was suddenly drawing these arbitrary lines, and censoring content like consensual BDSM roleplay and sexual fantasy fiction. Creators were left scrambling as their pages were deleted for nebulous “community guideline” violations, where in reality, the moral veto of the card processors’ was operating behind the scenes.

Or when rather than working with the platform to target the actual illicit content, (which the site was already removing and tightening policies on), the credit giants yanked payment services entirely from Pornhub. Thousands of people, most of whom were women and queer folk making legal content, were suddenly unable to sell videos or get paid. The site purged over 80% of its content and imposed strict verification rules to earn back trust, but processors’ message was clear at this point. They could destroy your business on a whim.

And in the past two weeks, under coordinated pressure from a lobby group and payment processors, Steam quickly delisted hundreds of adult games and imposed new vague rules against undefined “certain kinds of adult only content.” A week later, itch.io “shadow banned” essentially every NSFW game on its store, making them invisible in searches and browse pages. This extreme measure was taken with zero notice to creators in both situations.

The catalyst in both gaming crackdowns was an Australian pressure group called Collective Shout that had orchestrated a campaign targeting the payment providers for both Steam and itch.io. Using a horror-themed porn game as a scapegoat, these activists effectively used financial corporations start policing all adult content on the platforms.

Around the world over, these banks and credit card monopolies seemly dictate terms, and online platforms have to bow to keep the money flowing. Entire areas of sexual expression, are enviably deemed expendable, and cast out to appease a tiny base of supporters.

When Banks Become the Morality Police

In today’s world, they’ve become the unelected arbiters of what we’re allowed to create and consume online. By controlling the flow of money, they can decide which websites live or die. Now, they’ve appointed themselves the morality police, targeting anything related to sex.

Like think about this, no matter how popular or legal a piece of content is, if people can’t pay for it, it vanishes from legitimate channels. The credit card bigwigs know this, and hate groups know it too, which is why pressuring payment companies has become the go-to tactic to censor porn. Why bother with messy democratic processes like passing a law when you can get MasterCard to do your bidding in one conference call? It’s the ultimate shortcut to censorship, and it seems to be very effective so far.

The credit card companies innocently claim they’re acting to combat crime, but nuking all adult content is a fucking cowardly cop-out. It’s cheaper and easier for them to blacklist entire categories than to distinguish bad actors from millions of lawful users. That scorched earth approach saves them a PR headache and a bit of compliance cost, while also dumping the fallout onto countless creators.

A site that explicitly deals in adult content will become an easy target, even if that site is diligently monitoring for the same crimes. The banks apply a double standard, where any sexual content is stigmatised as “dirty” and inherently suspicious, whereas other content that might also host bad actors, doesn’t trigger that same all-out financial war. It’s just moral panic and prejudice, plain and simple.

Once credit companies dictate content, we know we’re on a real slippery slope. At first, Steam only removed the most extreme porn games, but what are we saying with this move? Are we saying that these so called “children” that they’re lobbying for, are willingly looking for this kind of content under a parents’ watchful eye? I honestly don’t trust it, because it was only a matter of time before it hit even milder visual novels and arty erotica. Who draws the line next? Will a game about coming out as trans be flagged because it has sexual themes? Will a sex education podcast lose payment processing because it discusses kink or polyamory? Will romance novelists get dumped by PayPal for writing spicy scenes? This is not paranoid speculation, it’s literally happening right now. MasterCard’s hellish rules, which rolled out in 2021, forbade broad categories of sexual content and require pre-approval of every explicit video, a practically impossible standard that has already driven sites offline. We are outsourcing our collective morality to a handful of corporations that care only about avoiding bad press and chargebacks, not about our rights or communities.

No one elected these CEOs, and there is no transparency or appeal when they make their decisions. It’s financial feudalism, and we’re all beholden to the credit card lords, who can decree at any time which forms of expression are banished from the realm. We've reached the point where billion-dollar companies are acting as censors, skirting the law and due process entirely. This should send a chill down the spine of anyone who cares about artistic freedom, civil liberties, or hell, basic fucking choice.

The Puritans Behind the Curtain

Who’s pulling these strings? An alliance of religious fundamentalists, right-wing “family values” advocates, and yes, TERF activists masquerading as feminists. These groups couldn’t agree on much politically, but of course they found common cause in an old enemy, pornography (and often, by extension, anything queer or sexually progressive). By learning they could lobby credit card companies and tech platforms, they found a way to impose their narrow ideology on the entire world.

The main group right now is the Australian group Collective Shout, which proudly takes credit for the recent Steam and itch.io censorship sweep. They position themselves as fighting the “objectification of women” and sexualization of girls, goals many of us might support in principle, but their methods really show a fanatic, anti-sex agenda. This is the group that called video game consumers “porn sick brain-rotted pedo gamer fetishists” in a triumphant victory lap when Steam caved to their demands (yes, they really talk like that lol). They seized on a single game as their leverage, then painted all adult games as tantamount to promoting abuse. Collective Shout’s campaign mobilised barely a thousand people, yet through strategic pressure on payment processors, this tiny fringe managed to dictate content policy to platforms used by millions worldwide.

The playbook is always the same, you claim you’re saving women and children, then use that as a weapon to attack queer communities. As a trans woman, I recognise this tactic very well; it’s been used to justify censorship and oppression for ages. (Think of the cries of “Save the children!” to rationalise anti-gay laws in the past, or the current far-right panic about “grooming” whenever queer folks just simply exist publicly.) Today’s anti-porn crusaders invoke the worst crimes, just to cast a net of suspicion over all sexual content and those who create it. It’s a smokescreen, a damn charade. Real survivors and vulnerable people are best helped with education, resources, and nuanced policy, not by gutting an entire industry and community that often includes those survivors and vulnerable people.

And let’s be absolutely clear. We also want real abuse stamped out as much as anyone, probably more, since it harms the integrity of an industry we love. But these lobby groups conflate everything together. They’ll point to an instance of criminal content as justification to ban something completely unrelated. It’s dishonest and harmful. By that logic, if someone used Youtube to share revenge porn, we should shut down the whole site. It’s frankly fucking absurd, yet that’s exactly the logic the card processors’ applied to Pornhub (a couple of verified bad videos meant millions of legal ones got banned), and what they threaten to apply everywhere else.

The truth is, the anti-porn activists don’t want any distinction between illegal abuse and consensual porn, because recognising that distinction would mean admitting most porn is consensual and that sex workers are just your regular person just like anybody else. But that would undermine their entire crusade, wouldn’t it? So they prefer these scorched-earth policies where if a bunch of queer games or erotica projects get annihilated along with the violent porn they hate, so be it. In their mind, those were probably immoral too. To zealots, nuance is just an inconvenience.

The people cheering on this porn purge aren’t heroes. They’re using censorship and stigma as their weapons. They vilify the very communities they pretend to defend, by destroying the platforms that allow those communities to share their stories and make a living. We should call them what they are; extremists, bigots, and authoritarians. Whether they come from the religious right or radical-feminist left, if they’re teaming up to smash sexual expression, they deserve our scorn.

Collateral Damage

Every single time a platform bans adult content, regular people pay the price. And no, I’m not talking about predators, I’m talking about sex workers, independent creators, educators, artists, and yes, consumers (who are mostly regular adults with desires). The crusaders claim to be saving us from something awful. But ask the communities affected, and I guarantee you’ll hear a very different story.

Let’s start with the most directly hit, the sex workers and adult content creators. These are people who consensually produce porn or erotic services. For many, especially my fellow trans and queer individuals facing discrimination in traditional jobs, online adult platforms have been a lifeline. Sites like OnlyFans, Patreon, Fansly, ManyVids, and Pornhub allowed sex workers to earn income safely from their homes, set their own boundaries, and reach clients easily. Cutting off payment processing or banning adult content doesn’t magically make their need for income go away, it just shoves them back into the shadows. After Patreon’s purge and FOSTA-SESTA in 2018, countless sex workers were unable to pay rent, some driven back to in-person work without the digital safeguards they once had. One study found over 70% of sex workers suffered increased economic instability in the two years after FOSTA-SESTA’s passage. By eliminating online platforms that offered screening and safety (like clients’ review boards, advertising forums, etc.), the law actually made sex workers more vulnerable to trafficking and violence, not less.

We’re seeing the same pattern with financial censorship. When MasterCard announced its new adult content policy in 2021, sex workers were screaming from the rooftops that it would harm them. The policy requires every piece of adult content to be pre-reviewed and every performer’s identity documented; a costly process. Sites that couldn’t comply would ban amateur content or shut down entirely. And lo and behold, immediately after MasterCard’s changes, some smaller clip sites did close, and others kicked off thousands of models to reduce “risk.” For sex workers, that meant lost income and fewer safe options. The ACLU flat-out calls these financial bans “financial discrimination” that “stigmatises sex work and endangers safety by pushing the industry deeper into the shadows”. Sex workers (especially those who are already marginalised, like Black and trans women) become unbanked, unemployable, and unseen, which is the perfect recipe for exploitation. And right now, those livelihoods hang by a thread controlled by faceless suits in boardrooms.

It’s not only full-time sex workers who suffer. Artists and small creators of all kinds get caught in the crossfire. Take indie game developers who explore erotic and queer themes. Many of them aren’t raking in huge bucks; they’re usually just telling personal stories or creating experiences for their adult audiences. When Steam and itch.io pulled the rug out, these devs lost their distribution and income overnight. Importantly, a majority of those games were by and about marginalised identities, the same voices that are already underrepresented in mainstream media. Censoring them under the vague label of “NSFW” or “porn” is just straight up lying. Who exactly is being served by erasing these narratives? It’s certainly not the marginalised voices who have finally found a platform.

And let’s spare a thought for the fans and users as well. The consumers of adult content are not some deviant minority; they’re the majority of adults. Denying them legal and safe avenues for porn doesn’t stop anyone from wanting or seeking it, it just forces them to far more sketchier corners of the internet. If OnlyFans had fully banned explicit content, a huge swath of its 130 million users would simply go elsewhere (or pirate content). In fact, many already migrated to alternative platforms during that tumultuous week of indecision. Fans will always find a way to get their content; the tragedy is that the creators they loved might not find a stable new home because so many services are under the same financial pressures.

What about the supposed beneficiaries of these crackdowns, trafficking victims and minors? There is zero evidence that wiping out legal porn areas reduces the prevalence of child sexual abuse material or trafficking, in fact there is evidence that allowing legalised pornography reduces it. Taking away safe platforms from consensual adults does not magically divert resources to catch criminals. Pushing porn off mainstream platforms might actually make it harder to police, because now it’s driven to offshore sites with little oversight.

Meanwhile, the promised protections often don’t materialise. MasterCard’s policy was ostensibly to fight underage and non-consensual content. But forcing OnlyFans to hire an army of censors to manually approve content doesn’t realistically stop a predator, it just slows down the posting of legal content. Requiring age from all performers sounds good to prevent underage actors, but performers were already verifying age under existing law. Shit’s redundant and punitive, creating new databases of sex workers’ identities (which, if leaked, could expose them to doxxing or stalking). Once again, the people these rules hurt most are the very ones they claim to protect, and they take money and stability away from vulnerable groups under the guise of safety.

Imagine a trans woman of colour who earns a living selling adult videos online, a demographic with an already extremely high discrimination in traditional jobs. She follows all the rules, verifies her age, consents to everything, and has a loyal fanbase who supports her. She uses her income for rent, transition-related healthcare, and maybe to support her loved ones. Now imagine one day MasterCard declares her content too “risky.” Overnight, the platforms boot her off to keep their payment processing. She not only loses her income but possibly access to banking if her account gets flagged as “sex work related”. She might try to start over on a smaller site that accepts crypto or niche payment methods, but her fans don’t all follow, and those payment methods take huge cuts or are hard to use. Maybe she pivots to full-service sex work (in-person) to make ends meet, exposing her to potential physical danger and legal risk, all during a time when trans women are already big targets of violence. This is the real cost of “moral” campaigns, you’re just pushing an already marginalised person into a worse situation, all because some prudish executives or activists disapprove of her existence.

The casualties keep building, things like consent and sex education, harm reduction discussions, communities where people share experiences about sexuality, all get silenced. We lose an opportunity for adults to have honest conversations about sex on mainstream platforms, forcing them to either stay silent or retreat to isolated forums.

In a broader sense, our society loses when sexual expression is pushed underground. We lose art,  innovation in adult entertainment (which, let’s not forget, has driven many technological advances from VCRs to online payments). We entrench stigma, telling everyone that sex is shameful and must be hidden, which only perpetuates ignorance and hypocrisy. And the biggest joke of all is that porn isn’t fucking going away. The oldest profession and its offshoots have survived centuries of crackdowns.

Fighting Back

It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of such vast powers, but you know me. I’m not leaving on a sour note. There is hope, in fact despite it all, the pushback against this new wave of censorship is growing.

Let’s talk about the OnlyFans reversal. The collective scorn from creators and the public was so intense that a major bank-backed platform had to retreat in humiliation. Sex workers took to social media, journalists shamed the banks’ cowardice, and advocacy groups were ready within days. We have to be loud, organised, and completely unashamed in defending erotic content. When we make enough noise, even billion-dollar companies start looking our way. It also remains a cautionary tale, we saw that they showed their willingness to toss out sex workers at the drop of a hat, but it also proved that sex workers have power when they stand together. Many creators had already started diversifying to fan sites like Fansly or creating their own websites, reducing reliance on any one fickle platform. Decentralisation is key, because the more options and competition we have, the harder it is for a single act of censorship to erase our community.

We’re also seeing legal and political challenges to the financial gatekeepers. In 2023, a coalition of advocacy groups including the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation launched campaigns against financial discrimination. They even filed a petition to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, urging investigation into MasterCard’s policies that cause “unavoidable harms to sex workers”. It’s really great to have heavyweight civil liberties organisations finally listen to what sex workers have always been saying along, that these payment rules violate rights. Lawsuits may follow, and while the outcome is uncertain, just dragging these practices into the light is progress. We need lawmakers to realise that “high-risk” labeling of adult businesses by banks is often just prejudice. Financial services should be a public utility accessible to all lawful transactions. If we can get even a single jurisdiction to ban discrimination based on lawful occupation (including sex work), that could set an example.

Importantly, we’re seeing solidarity and increased porn positivity in cultural discourse. The days of automatically equating porn with shame are fading among younger generations, despite what it may seem online. Many feminist and LGBTQ activists today are proudly pro-porn and pro-sex-work, recognising them as valid work and expression. They are calling out the TERF hypocrisy and pointing out that you can’t claim to fight patriarchy by punishing women (and queer folks) who choose to engage in sexual labour or art. This better view of sexuality is making its way into college discussions, and even some policy circles, and it needs to spread further. We must keep normalising the idea that consenting adults have the right to share and enjoy sexual content, and that doing so can be healthy, fulfilling, and even artistic.

Public petitions and campaigns are gaining momentum. The current ALCU petition demanding Visa and MasterCard end their “moral panic” and stop censoring sexual content has already gathered almost 150,000 signatures already. Essentially telling the credit giants that we see what you’re doing, and we reject it. It might seem optimistic to think a petition can sway a corporation, but large companies are sensitive to their public image, and 150k people labeling them prudish censors puts a crack in their PR armour. In addition, some creators and consumers are boycotting platforms that cave to the pressure. (For example, when Patreon started arbitrarily banning adult creators, many supporters canceled their pledges or moved with those creators to different services like SubscribeStar.) Economic consequences speak their language, and if we can shift our dollars to platforms and payment methods that respect us, we build an ecosystem that is harder to break.

Perhaps most importantly, sex workers and allies are sharing their stories and educating others. The outrage I feel, the outrage you hopefully feel by now, comes from hearing the truth of what these bans do to people’s lives. More people are covering these issues with empathy, highlighting voices of those harmed rather than just parroting the “think of the children” narrative. When the average person realises that their favourite indie game developer or that friendly cam model on Bluesky is being victimised by corporate fuckery, they might think twice about cheering on the porn ban.

This is ultimately a battle for basic freedoms and dignity. I’m not asking everyone to love porn; I’m just asking for reason and humanity. You don’t have to enjoy adult games or OnlyFans to understand that others have the right to, and that right matters. Sexual expression is a fundamental part of human life. Consenting adults engaging in erotic media is not a scourge, it’s something that has always existed in every culture, and when done ethically, it can be celebratory and affirmative. On the other hand, the attempt to eradicate sexual content has always been the hallmark of oppressive regimes and moral panics.

I believe porn, erotica, and sex work are great, and that society should accept and integrate them rather than shun them. I refuse to see people who make or enjoy porn as “bad” or “dirty”; the real dirty secret is how much abuse these folks take from a world steeped in hypocrisy. It’s fucking 2025, and I’m absolutely furious that we’re still fighting Victorian-era nonsense in the Internet age. ...But fight we shall.

To everyone reading, get angry, yes, but also get active. Support sex workers and adult creators openly. Call and email your representatives and demand they hold payment processors accountable for this censorship. If a platform bans adult content unfairly, vote with your wallet and leave. The more we speak up, the less cover these fuckwits have to operate in silence.

Our sexual freedom is not a bargaining chip. It is not up to a credit card company’s “brand reputation” or a fringe lobby’s demands. It belongs to us, the people. Porn and adult media, in their vast diversity, aren’t going anywhere, and it’s time to stop pretending that purging them will create some utopia. Instead of shaming and banning, let’s focus on education, consent, and choice. Let’s trust adults to make their own decisions about what they watch and create.

The war on porn is really a war on bodily autonomy, free expression, and on marginalised communities’ right to tell their stories. And those waging it have shown themselves to be utterly unworthy of our obedience.