About two years ago, the adult industry was under attack. By banks. They were shutting down accounts of known adult performers. Last year, my local dungeon had to go cash only for a night because their credit card processing account had been shut down, despite it being a registered charitable organization. Why? ‘Cause of the adult activities going on.
Look, I’m gonna show my bias here. When he was alive, my husband was a high-level executive in the adult industry and a multiple award-winning adult filmmaker for many years. So, yes, during a non-zero portion of my life, I indirectly benefited financially from the adult industry.
But even if that weren’t the case, I’d still be biased. I’d be a biased adult.
Over the past few days, several fundraising campaigns created by an adult with adult interests for a cause that provides support to countless animal rescue organizations around the world were shut down.
This isn’t a rant about the people who reported the campaigns. You had your reasons, whatever they were. Other people are gonna rail on you.
This is about a system that gave a shit about those reports. A system that says “Oh no, we can’t help starving animals if the people who are helping them donaughty things in their bedrooms at night!”
That’s ridiculous. It’s RIDICULOUS.
I’ve got another bias. I work in the fundraising sector. I have for many, many years. Several years ago, my two worlds collided. At an adult convention, one of the owners of a toy company who’d heard that I do fundraising for a living told me they were having trouble finding organizations that would be willing to accept contributions from an adult toy manufacturer.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Like, my mom is the most prudish, naive and conservative woman I know and even she had a vibrator growing up. She might be the only woman in America who used it for her back, but STILL. She HAD one.
So I went back to work, where they knew what industry my husband worked in, and I asked…”Hey, so this company wants to do a fundraiser and give us the money. Are we okay with accepting it?”
And my boss wasn’t sure. I mean, part of her wanted to say yes but then she was all worried about what the other donors would think. So finally she said, “Only if can treat them as an anonymous donor.”
I wish I could have stood up to her then. I wish I could have convinced her that a legitimate, tax-paying business that wanted to show philanthropic spirit and give back to ANY cause should be WELCOMED to do so and not shoved under the rug.
So what if they make dildos?
We’ve come a long way as a society. Even though it was an atrocity, the fact is a book about kinky shit was a bestseller and turned into a major motion picture. People know this stuff happens, and they’ve KNOWN for a long time.
We’re all adults. I don’t see why we have to pretend we don’t care about animals or the environment or cancer or education or hunger.
If I want to donate $25 so that a reputable 501(c)3 can go out and save a whale, or clean up a beach, or give medicine to people with AIDS, then why the fuck is the financial sector telling me I can’t because I like it when my boyfriend spanks my ass before he sticks his cock in it?
Fucking hell. When is the world gonna grow up already?
#LetAdultsbeAdult
polyammering 
Saw this via @ferretthimself
I’m sure you’re not wrong about prudery being part of the problem. It’s certainly the obvious explanation for the fund-raising example you raised. But there’s something else going on on the credit card side, as I found out back when I was working for Mastercard International:
Adult-oriented businesses have a TERRIBLE charge-back rate. They’re just about the worst, even worse than some obvious scams, about customers fraudulently claiming that they didn’t authorize the charge. A fraud investigator I knew when we were both working at MasterCard told me that they were pretty sure that what was going on was that the customer’s spouse saw the sex-related charge on the credit card statement, and the only way the cardholder could escape the resulting argument was to lie and claim that it wasn’t them, that it must be a fraudulent charge.
If you look at the federal guidance that went out to the banks that discouraged handling credit card accounts for sex-related businesses, they’re specifically listed as high risk of fraudulent charge backs. Which sucks, but what made the banks reluctant to do business with lingerie shops, sex-toy shops, adult clubs, and so forth isn’t necessarily their own prudery; it’s primarily their customers’ prudery.
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Reblogged this on A Broken Space and commented:
I’ve experienced this when I worked for a club and a sponsor didn’t want to be involved because we were an adult club. ADULT being the key word.
Too many people who want to do good, get turned away because of stigma.
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