Content Creation Platforms vs. Custom Websites

The Construct’s lovely Miss SaccharinePurr plays with stainless steel shackles and o-rings in preparation for a chain restraint scene.

VIP and Premium Content

There are many VIP and premium content platforms out there, such as OnlyFans and ManyVids, but this fragments your content out onto multiple platforms that each need to be maintained individually. You might consider consolidating all of your subscription content on a single website with a custom domain name that you own and control. Doing so simplifies both the end-user experience and your content creation workflow because all content is now available in one place.

For example, ReifyJoie.com is my website with a custom domain name that I own and control, while OnlyFans.com/ReifyJoie is my profile on OnlyFans’s website with a domain name that OnlyFans owns and controls.

Platforms vs. Websites — What's the Difference?

Content creation platforms are analogous to social media platforms. You have a profile on someone else’s website where you can post content, but many other creators post content on that same website. These content creation platforms may have limited features — for example, you can post photos, videos, and erotica stories on OnlyFans, but it’s just a single stream of consciousness in chronological order like Twitter. You can add tags, but there’s no way to organize content into individual sections or fully customize the look and feel.

But, if you run your own website with a custom domain name, you have almost full control over how content is posted to that website. Unless you invite guest contributors, your content exclusively appears on that website. And with your own website, you can customize the look and feel, and organize content into sections, virtually however you wish.

Custom Adult Websites and Payment Processors

FOSTA-SESTA laws in the US have gutted the online adult entertainment industry, and US-based payment processors and website providers shy away from any content that could be conflated with sex trafficking. If enough abuse reports are sent to a provider regarding “obscene” content, then the provider can land in hot water if they don’t act.

This is what makes hosting adult content overly complicated. It can cost thousands of dollars per year to build, maintain, and host a fully-customized adult website, with adult-friendly payment processing and no adult content restrictions, designed and coded from the ground up on dedicated servers. And that’s a low estimate.

In comparison, there are simpler and more economical managed website providers out there, such as Squarespace with their intuitive website builder interface. But virtually all US-based website providers must conform with FOSTA-SESTA, and go a step further to intentionally distance themselves from adult-themed content creators.

Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy

Every website provider, social media platform, and content creation platform has their own Terms of Service (TOS) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) which dictates what content is or is not allowed, and most of these policies are written intentionally vaguely.

Think of these policies as the provider’s risk profile, similar to the BDSM concept of Risk-Aware Consensual Kink (RACK). In other words, how much hot water is a provider willing to wade into by shielding you from abuse reports or obscenity complaints before terminating your service.

Take Squarespace, for instance. Many sex workers, BDSM pros, and adult content producers rely on Squarespace as a website provider. Great care must be taken to mindfully dance up to the line drawn in their TOS and AUP, but to never explicitly step over that line.

Frustratingly, Squarespace’s policies are intentionally vague with no actual definition of what constitutes sexually explicit or obscene material.

Excerpts from their Acceptable Use Policy:

6. Other Improper Or Illegal Conduct
6.3. Don’t publish sexually explicit or obscene material.
6.6. Don’t violate any laws through the Services, including without limitation all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.

If we conclude, in our discretion, that you have misused the Services, we may take action against your Account or Your Sites. We try to ensure fair outcomes, but in all cases we reserve the right to remove any content or suspend or terminate your Account or Your Sites, without any refund of any amounts paid for the Services, without liability or notice to you, at any time and for any reason (except where prohibited by applicable law). We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, this Acceptable Use Policy in our sole discretion.

And excerpts from their Product Specific Terms:

1.2. eCommerce Restrictions. You may not offer or sell any products or services which, in our sole discretion: (a) we consider hazardous, counterfeit, stolen, fraudulent, abusive or adverse to our interests or reputation; (b) are prohibited for sale, distribution or use; or (c) otherwise fail to comply with any applicable laws or regulations, including without limitation with respect to intellectual property, trade secrets, privacy or publicity rights, consumer protection, shipping or transportation, product safety or trade regulations or export controls, regulations or sanctions.

1.3. eCommerce Suspensions. While we’d prefer not to, we may, at any time and in our sole discretion, and without any notice to you, suspend, restrict or disable access to or remove your Account, Your Sites or Your eCommerce, without any liability to you or to any End Users, including without limitation for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill or other intangible losses (except where prohibited by applicable law). For example, we may suspend Your eCommerce if you violate our Terms of Service.

1.4. eCommerce Payment Processors. To accept payments from your End Users in connection with Your eCommerce, you may integrate Your Sites with third party payment processors (“eCommerce Payment Processors”). Your relationship with such eCommerce Payment Processors is governed by those eCommerce Payment Processors’ terms and policies. We don’t control and aren’t liable for any eCommerce Payment Processors, or for any transaction you may enter into with or through any eCommerce Payment Processors.

As a content creator, this is where you must make a decision, not as to what constitutes sexually explicit or obscene material, but what you think your website provider or payment processor constitutes sexually explicit or obscene material. I am not a lawyer, but here’s the rough thought process that I adhere to when posting content on my Squarespace site:

• There are many posts and comments on /r/SexWorkers and /r/SexWorkersOnly claiming that some Squarespace employees have unofficially said that sex workers are mostly tolerated, as well as multiple sex workers claiming to have contacted Squarespace support for help on their Full-Service Sex Worker (FSSW) websites with no adverse repercussions.

• I’ve lost count of the number of artistic nude, sex worker, and BDSM websites I’ve seen hosted on Squarespace.

• I have not personally heard of Squarespace terminating the website of any sex worker or BDSM pro.

• I’ll unabashedly post any artistic content that might appear in an artistic nude, BDSM, or LGBTQ+ coffee table book or calendar from Amazon.

• I’ll post content with visible breasts and genitalia, as long as there is an artistic or aesthetic vision.

• I will not post pegging or digital penetration content, or any content that requires 18 U.S.C. § 2257 record keeping (an actual human…portrayed in a visual depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct). This content instead gets posted to OnlyFans or ManyVids.

• Subscription content posted to Squarespace Member Areas is not immune to policy violations. The same mindfulness should be adhered to when posting to Member Areas.

• I do not yet have physical products for sale on any of my artistic nude websites, however, all physical products must abide by policies of both the website provider and payment processor. The same mindfulness should be adhered when offering used, unwashed garments.

Prepare To Have Your Website Terminated at Any Time

This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but there is no economical, simple, risk-free adult website solution in the US. Unless you’re paying thousands of dollars per year for risk-free adult hosting, there’s a chance that your website may be terminated at any time due to a Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policy violation.

Steps should be taken to make sure that all photos, videos, text, and product catalogs are backed up should your website abruptly be taken down. This will be the topic of a future article.

Caveat Emptor

I have happily used Squarespace for many years, but am fully aware that I need to be mindful of the content I post. I wrote this article as a resource for anyone considering using Squarespace for artistic nude, sex worker, or BDSM websites.