Bizarre site of the day

[Trixie]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Furrygirl, have you considered that, maybe, just maybe, your choices are self defeating?

Trixie's boyfriend giving up billing rather than removing a link seems to be a very "high moral stand / low business sense" move. Perhaps he feels he was "making a point", but that point and $3 will get you a good coffee at Starbucks.

CCBill (and other adult sex sites processors and merchant account providers) are held to very tight standards by Visa and Mastercard. There are rules, and the rules are enforced. The rules enforced by CCBill and other are arbitrary because the rules forced on them are arbitrary as well.

In each and every one of the cases you listed here, a single link could have been removed and things would have been better. In each case, a bad business decision appears to have been made in order to "protect a cause", but in reality income was lost, and that loss of income could cut down the amount of money available to keep websites online to promote awareness of those causes or situations.

Adult porn sites should not link to sex information for minors, it shouldn't link to anything to do with pedophilia, and it shouldn't link to anything to do with rape. Visa and Mastercard have made it clear to CCBill and others that all of those are unacceptable as part of the rules for retaining their processing. It isn't CCBill randomly picking on certain causes or whatever. They are applying arbitrary rules imposed on them.

You are free to speak about whatever you want. You are free to run an adult website. There are rules regarding running an adult website and being able to accept credit cards. Unless you end up in a position in your life to change those rules (say like taking a lead position in Visa's policy department), you have to work with them, or work without income.

As FG pointed out, we didn't give up our billing when CCBill told us we had to take down the link to Margaret Cho's blog. We finally asked to speak to someone who could actually look at the site and see that it was a mistake.

From what I understand, CCbill blacklists sites by doing keyword searches for the "bad" words, and in so doing blacklists non-porn sites with political commentary where the bad words are used in a context that's not PROMOTING activities like CP, bestiality, etc. but is merely discussing them. I know -- it's CRAZY! Why would we link to a free site with absolutely no possibility of making a sale? We are SUCH bad business-people!

Some of us have actual content on our site. You know, content that we wrote ourselves, shot ourselves, etc. Content that we're invested in politically and personally as well as financially. Content that is not ALL porn. Content that makes people bookmark our sites. Content that engenders loyalty and establishes trust with surfers. Content that sets us apart from other sites. Content that gets published in books and magazines. SO STUPID OF US!!

I know it's just MIND BOGGLING to some people in this industry to actually offer more to surfers than some bought content of strangers (or promo content laden with so many ads you can't find the photos) with the occasional misogynistic remarks and maybe some really fantastic organizational methods with everything broken down into handy (but ultimately deceptive and random) categories like MILF porn and Amateur Porn. And you think people with who offer surfers more than ads and FREE PORN! FREE PORN! are the ones bringing down the industry by "rocking the boat"!!

I totally agree that running sites like yours would be easier and more efficient business-wise than anything I have ever done. Running personality-driven sites requires . . . you know . . . PERSONALITY. No wonder so few people in the industry take this route!!

What you're suggesting (simply removing offensive words and links without pointing out the context) is a bad business idea for some of us who actually WRITE about rape, bestiality, and the issues and laws affecting the porn industry, etc. from a political, newsworthy standpoint. If CCBill bans sites based on the use of blacklisted words without looking at context at all, that means none of us can write on our sites about the laws that affect our industry . . . that's a pretty fucked up situation, no?

Essentially what you're pushing for is for porn sites to be devoid of EVERYTHING except porn. I think that's a bad business move . . . unless of course you have no imagination, no life, no social conscience, and no personal involvement with your business at all.

More power to you if you like seeing the internet littered with shallow, repetitive, cookie-cutter porn sites, but don't act like the rest of us are simply bad businesspeople for wanting to do something different with a little more depth and like to link to sites that are more substantive than a long-ass list of tgp after tgp after linkdump after linklist.

It may seem self-defeating to you that some of us would like people to realize that it's healthy for people to have sex or masturbate when a woman is menstruating, but forget about the fact that calling menstruating women obscene is discriminatory and rooted in some very fucked-up ignorance. Forget about all of that and look at it from a business standpoint . . . why should I only be able to shoot content and do shows when I'm NOT menstruating? That's very inefficient, business-wise. You call it "rocking the boat" but you're not the one being told your totally natural pussy fluids are obscene. Even old Dr. Ruth was on tv in the eighties talking about how natural and nice and totally healthy it is to have intercourse when a woman is having her period. I don't expect you to give a shit, but don't expect us to appreciate your fantastic business advice or to respect billing company's "high standards" which are nonsensical, discriminatory, and allow for guys to piss and cum all over people's faces, to double penetrate people's assholes, to rape people when they're sleeping . . . but NOT to show a women menstruating. Those aren't "high standards". It's just plain bullshit.