The Pub Discussion Board

Here is the relevant section of Patreon's "Community Guidelines".  It appears right after the section that tells you pornography (real people filmed having real sex) is absolutely prohibited:

Patreon wrote:

Offensive and graphic creations:
We understand that artists sometimes have to push boundaries to create thought-provoking art, so we don’t review offensive and graphic creations with strict black and white guidelines. We instead review creations in the context of the whole creator page.

However, we have zero tolerance when it comes to the glorification of sexual violence which includes bestiality, rape, and child exploitation (i.e., sexualized depiction of minors). This is true for illustrated, animated, or any other type of creations. Patreon reserves the right to review and remove accounts that may violate this guideline.

We also do not allow other fringe sexual fetish creations, such as incest, necrophilia, or fetish creations that are hard to distinguish from non-consensual sex.

We understand that some topics on this list such as incest or rape are a little bit more complicated because these situations are, unfortunately, part of real life. As a result, when reviewing these types of creations, the Trust and Safety team will take into consideration context including personal, historical or educational narrative. For example, survivor stories or fiction such as Lolita are allowed on Patreon.

I had a back-and-forth discussion with customer service to try to clarify this section, because, as you can tell from reading it, it is clear as mud.  The ultimate answer is, "We'll remove it if we feel like it."

It was made clear, however, that anything with minors engaged in sex was absolutely prohibited.  (Except, apparently, that they would allow Lolita, which is about the molestation of a twelve-year-old girl...)  Incest is not acceptable if it is a primary focus of the work.  I was told that Game of Thrones (as an example) would be allowed, because the point of the story wasn't the incest.

And, I find this sentence particularly amusing: "We understand that some topics on this list such as incest or rape are a little bit more complicated because these situations are, unfortunately, part of real life."  Every single item they mentioned in this section is part of real life for someone.

This is why many creators of adult material avoid Patreon.  Patreon doesn't want us there, and they have created their rules in such a way that you cannot know whether your material is in violation or not.  I have heard horror stories from game creators who have had their accounts locked with no warning.

I don't know how the authors you are following have managed.  Perhaps they're simply flying under Patreon's radar for the moment.  Patreon cannot read everything that gets posted, I'm sure they have algorithms to catch most of it, and depend on complaints for the rest.  If your authors have managed to avoid the algorithm, and no one is complaining, then...  *shrugs*

All I can tell you is, Patreon is not worth the risk.  If they close your account, they keep your money.  It is in their business' best interest to wait until you have many followers, and then "violate" you, closing your account and taking the money in that account.  (I cannot confirm that they're doing this.  I'm just saying that it makes them money if they do.)

Eric Storm

Kalderza wrote:

Subscribestar is the same as Patreon but they are a bit more lenient in what they allow.

While this may be true in a practical sense, SubscribeStar's Terms of Service are even more worrying than Patreon's, as SubscribeStar's ToS is far more nebulous.  SubscribeStar gives no specifics about what they consider unacceptable.  They only use the words "pornographic" (usually means real people on camera having explicit sex, but could mean anything...), and "obscene".  Now the term obscene is so completely nebulous as to mean absolutely anything you want it to mean.

The funny part to me is that, at least as I understand the word obscene in its legal sense, it cannot be applied to the Internet.  The reason being that whether or not something is obscene is dependent upon the moral standards of the community in which the material is presented.

The Internet does not have a moral standard, thus nothing can be obscene when viewed here.

Of course, SubscribeStar doesn't even need to apply either of those standards.  Their ToS explicitly says:

SubscribeStar wrote:

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

All of these services are beyond sketchy, in my opinion.  I use them because if I tried to force people to use Zelle, I would lose a lot of donations.

Eric Storm