Is Porn Becoming a Monopoly?

As the consumer internet becomes ‘sterilized and gentrified,’ alt-porn producers say they’re being marginalized

A still from the independent pornography project, Four Chambers. Photo courtesy of Vex Ashley

In June 2018, Patreon told Vex Ashley that it was effectively shutting down her page. Ashley’s independent pornography project, Four Chambers, had been on the funding site for a number of years, and the income it provided was her livelihood — and paid for the labor of her performers.

The shutdown was part of a wider flurry of suspensions toward adult creators on the platform. Patreon explained at the time that it had ramped up a “proactive review of content” due to pressures from “payment partners.” While Four Chambers had existed happily for four years on the site, Ashley was informed she couldn’t continue to use funds for work that involved nudity or sexually explicit material.

“This is an issue bigger than Patreon,” she wrote in a blog post. “It’s a worldwide, online and in-person crackdown on freedom of expression, on women, on marginalised people, on sex and sex work, on non-conventional forms of labor that counter the status quo: the domination of corporations and the patriarchy. On dissent.”

Six months later, Tumblr announced it would be permanently banning sexual content on its platform—a move at least partly motivated by the site’s issues with child pornography, but one that was widely criticized for pulling the rug from under sexual subcultures and marginalized communities. “The internet is for porn,” as Avenue Q once put it. No more, it seems.

Vex Ashley

“Instagram has censored hashtags relating to sex work and women,” says Erika Lust, an independent adult filmmaker. “Amazon has buried erotic novels. YouTube has shadow-banned and demonetized sex educators. Sexual slang is now ‘illegal’ on Facebook. Patreon and PayPal will not allow anyone to use their services if their business comes even close to sex.”

Lust tells me she has been personally kicked off Vimeo and PayPal and says YouTube removed her account last year because she uploaded a documentary series called In Conversation With Sex Workers…