For the past week or so, it has become quite regular to see a NSFW creator go through the following stages on Twitter.

• Hey! My Patreon page has been suspended! And I don’t know why!
• I’ve asked for clarification, and I got it. I’m fixing the problems now.
• The suspension has been lifted. Whew!

The biggest problem seem to be that there are a number of issues that could flag a Patreon page for suspension — but there doesn’t seem to be a clear repository of exactly what those issues are. Worse yet, there doesn’t seem to be a warning phase. It’s straight to suspension with any pages that fall outside of the rules.

What are the rules?

Patreon’s Community guidelines regarding NSFW content include the following…

We ask creators to flag themselves as Adult Content if they create any content that has mature themes such as sexuality or graphic violence. When you are flagged as Adult Content your page is removed from our search. We also require that all public content on your page be appropriate for all audiences. Content with mature themes must be marked as a patron-only post.

…Lastly, you cannot sell pornographic material or arrange sexual service(s) as a reward for your patrons. We define pornographic material as real people engaging in sexual acts such as masturbation or sexual intercourse on camera. You can’t use Patreon to raise funds in order to produce pornographic material such as maintaining a website, funding the production of movies, or providing a private webcam session.

If you have doubts about whether to mark your page as Adult Content or not, we always recommend that you do so for the sake of precaution. This is especially important as Patreon welcomes different communities with different sensitivities. You can read more about the Adult Content flag here.

Patreon’s section on the Adult Content flag reaffirms the company’s support of adult content. It goes on to list a few areas of content that they will not allow — rape, sexual violence, bestiality and sex involving minors. Also, no incest, necrophilia or other “fringe” sexual content is allowed on Patreon:

First, we have a zero tolerance policy for content that sexualizes minors in any way. Second, there is no place for the glorification of rape, and sexual violence is not allowed. This includes beastiality. Finally, We also do not allow other fringe sexual fetish content, such as incest, necrophilia, or fetish content that is hard to distinguish from non-consensual sex. Patreon reserves the right to review and remove accounts that violate these guidelines.

We understand the topics of rape and sexual violence are a little bit more complicated because these situations are, unfortunately, part of real life. As a result, when reviewing this type of content, the Trust and Safety team will take into consideration context including personal, historical or educational narrative.

The unwritten rules

The problem is that NSFW content creators have seen their pages suspended without warning for issues that may not be directly covered in the Community Guidelines.

In an effort to address that, I am compiling a list of reasons given for suspending Patreon pages with NSFW content. They are as follows:

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