Despite spending the last 2 days working through over 3,000 photos dating back to 2018 with the Patreon trust and safety team I’ve failed to get my Patreon account unsuspended.

End of the day, Patreon (like many other platforms) has changed their guidelines to a point where my work no longer belongs, so I’m making the move to re-upload ALL of my work to DeviantArt.

I’ve been a bit down about it all, won’t lie, and have thought about giving in entirely, but I don’t see myself ever getting back into Graphic Design, and as an Artist, I still NEED to flex my creative muscles, and photography still fills that void.

A sincere thanks to all who have supported me over the years. I’m hoping you’ll continue to support me on DeviantArt.

Visit/Support/Thank You (NSFW warning): https://www.deviantart.com/justinfoxphoto

According to Patreon, this is pornography.

4 days ago my Patreon account was suspended. Turns out the guy who was in charge of helping me to get my Patreon reviewed was out of office, and now I’ve got a lady looking after me.

The silence was killing me (I thought they were simply going to delete my account like Instagram has), so it’s nice to finally be in contact with someone.

I had already spent massive hours going through my entire Patreon (I post daily and it dates back to 2018) and deleted all photos and posts which I thought could potentially go against their guidelines, but even so, she still let me know that there is still pornography on my account.

Patreon allows full nudity, but I can’t seem to figure out exactly what they deem as pornography and what is an OK art nude. I posted a few links to images which feature my point of view (POV) style, but with a model in lingerie, to ask whether she thought these images were pornography, and thank fuck she replied to confirm that they were not, and were AOK.

She then replied with 3 links to images which she suggested were pornography and had to be removed. The above image being one of them. IMHO this is not pornography and does not go against their rule of “spreading or otherwise emphasizing genitals in a sexual way such as focus or cropping of the image falls under pornographic material and is outside of guidelines.”

Creative angles? Yes, but I don’t think I am emphasising genitals in this shot, nor are her genitals in focus. End of the day it’s not black and white. I understand that, and much of my luck lies in who is reviewing my account.

I’ve been looking into other platforms, or potentially starting my own site with a paywall, but I respect Patreon for supporting Artists over using a platform that supports pornography.

I feel deflated, but I’m still not about to give up just yet.

It always sux to be rejected.

I’ve never been too interested in starting an OnlyFans (OF) account, mainly because OF is more related to pornography than art. Despite having more relaxed rules around nudity and potentially making a lot more money on OF than Patreon, I prefer having a smaller number of more loyal and respectful patrons at a higher price vs. the idea of selling my work at a much lower price, but having more trolls that could cause me more trouble down the line (like stealing my images and re-uploading to OnlyLeaks style web sites).

I had a few people suggest that I start an OF account. I figure I’d get the process going. I created an account, but quite soon into the process I got an email to say that not only has my account been rejected, it’s also been completely disabled! According to their Terms, they do not allow accounts set up on behalf of photographers. The account holder personally has to participate in more than 50% of all profile content.

Ultimately I’ve got to get my Patreon unsuspended. 3rd day in now without a reply. Fingers crossed they get back to me soon.

It comes in waves.

Today I got an email from Patreon to say that I’m in violation of their Community Guidelines.

Patreon does not allow pornography, which is defined in our guidelines as real people engaged in sexual acts such as intercourse or masturbation. This definition includes genital play, signs of arousal, or play with sex toys and the like.

Additionally, spreading or otherwise emphasizing genitals in a sexual way such as focus or cropping of the image falls under pornographic material and is outside of guidelines.

For the record I DO NOT create any photos depicting intercourse, penetration or masturbation, but I have shot more erotic photos for models who have OnlyFans accounts (genitals in focus), and I have posted these images to Patreon. So, once again, it’s their platform, their rules and ultimately I have to be OK with that!

I’m now making the moves to delete the offending images off my Patreon in order to get it reviewed and back online (if possible). Going forwards I’ll have to decide whether I want to create an OnlyFans account, or just not shoot more graphic content at all.

PS: I’ve had a few people private message me to suggest that perhaps there’s a hater out there that’s reporting me. Whilst this could be true, I’m not about to get paranoid about it and potentially lose my shit over it, because end of the day I’ve broken both Instagram and Patreon’s rules.

About a week ago I found a web site “scraping” content from my Patreon and uploading it to their website. Being copied has always been a part of being a creative and I’ve always learned to let it be as opposed to putting in the shitload of energy it takes to take the culprits down, but for some reason, last week I decided to send this website a legal DMCA Takedown.

My gut tells me that these trolls are the reason as to why Patreon has reviewed my account, but I can’t prove this, so again, rules are rules. I broke them. Fair call! There’s no one to blame but myself and I’m 100% OK with that.