Patreon issues (long post, NSFW discussion)

Hey all! This is a bit of a long read, but it details something that happened to me this past week regarding Patreon's Community Guidelines team. I really recommend you read this post if you're an artist yourself and use Patreon for your work.

This post took me a few days to make, largely because this issue is so confusing, and also because I just didn't have the mental energy to delve deeper into the issue. I admit that I'm the type of person that doesn't handle confrontation well, so it's difficult to stand up for myself in situations like this.

Early morning on August 7th, I got an email from Patreon saying there was an issue with my account, and that I had violated Community Guidelines. This initial email didn't tell me anything about what the problem was, nor did it point out any rule-breaking posts, so I emailed them back asking what the problem was and which posts were in violation.

This was their response:

They indicated four posts they deemed "depictions of sexualized minors." Three of the images have been deleted, but you can view those images in this tweet I made about the issue (NSFW). Obviously, these images were never intended to be depicting minors in any way, but I had no idea why Patreon decided they were. I worried that maybe my art style was the problem, so I provided some context for each image in my response.

It's worth noting that in response to my tweets about this issue, the official account for Studio Elan (which is responsible for the game Heart of the Woods) responded to me confirming that their heroines are all over the age of 20. Some fans of the Fire Emblem series also told me that Lucina can be confirmed to be over 18 in canon through official game materials, but since I'm not in that fandom and can't find an online source for this, I can't say for sure.

However, that's not the main issue here. Even if one of these characters was not canonically over the age of 18, there is nothing in Patreon's rules stating that an artist cannot draw a character as an adult. If that was Patreon's stance and it's not written in their guidelines, then creators would need to actually know about this rule in order to follow it.

I attempted to probe this team member for confirmation if that is the case, but I'm not sure if they really understood my question - or if they just didn't have an answer for me and dodged it. This was their reply:

In it, they seem to say that if an artist declares that a character is over 18, it's fine for them to be drawn in an NSFW piece, but Patreon must deem that they do not look like a minor. I was still really confused about what made them think the characters in my art did not look like adults; again, I was concerned that art style was an underlying issue. Still, I don't personally feel that my art style is the most cutesy or young-looking example that you could find among artists who post on Patreon, and the images they were specifically calling out as problematic are not even the most cutesy among my own work.

Both of the Heart of the Woods characters depicted have pubic hair and large breasts, and Lucina is depicted as a trans woman with some muscle definition and somewhat larger hands than average. These features are intentional details to show to the viewer that these are adults.

I attempted to explain some of that in my reply:

It took them several hours to reply to me, so in the meantime, I deleted the images they were requesting me to delete, as I was afraid of them deciding to ban me outright. Eventually I did get a response confirming that the warning on my account was being lifted.

I was extremely disappointed with this response. I tried my best to communicate my questions and probe for information about what rule I was breaking and what their guidelines actually are, but I still have no idea. In this reply, they introduced something completely new into their reasoning - that school clothing was an issue. The image they're referencing is the picture with Hajime Hinata, who was wearing only a white shirt and a tie. I honestly have how a white shirt and a tie is supposed to be sexualized school clothing, but again, if that was a rule then creators need to know this.

That was my last correspondence with the Patreon support team for now. I didn't get any answers to my questions; each time I got a completely different explanation for what the issue was, and I have no idea if they'll decide to put another warning on my account arbitrarily again.

I do think that I deserve a second opinion, and would like to contact Patreon again, but I'm not sure how to go forward with it at this point. I don't have a direct email to contact them without potentially reaching the same person, and the forms they provide in their help section don't really have an option for "another Patreon employee didn't answer my questions." I'll have to look deeper into this issue when I'm feeling prepared for it.

In the meantime, nothing is changing with my account, and there are no problems with it from Patreon's perspective for now. However, I've definitely lost confidence in posting all of my work here, and I'm not happy with how they've handled this issue at all.

Thank you so much for reading this far. If/when I have any updates, I'll be sure to let you all know.