Porn Sites Blame Mastercard for Crackdown on Non-Human Dildos

Some people like to fuck dildos shaped like the penis of a glittery purple dragon. Some people like to watch others fuck dildos shaped like the penis of a glittery purple dragon. But if you would like to sell footage of such a sight, or perhaps purchase this footage yourself on any mainstream clip market website as a legal, consenting adult, you are simply not allowed. Why? Because Mastercard said so.

As various creators have reported, sites like IWantClips have prohibited them from uploading and selling anything featuring a “non-human” dildo because of Mastercard’s terms of service. On August 11, dominatrix Lady Vi shared a screenshot on Twitter of a notification from IWC stating that her video, “Satanic Seduction: Sacrilegious Strapon,” was denied from being uploaded due to it violating the credit card company’s policy. “Demon dildos are apparently not allowed,” she said. Back in March, pornstar GGummi shared a similar screenshot from the site for a video featuring a tie dye blue and green tentacle dildo.

“Non-human looking dildo content is not allowed on the site in any form and is a serious Mastercard TOS violation,” both screenshots from IWC say. IWC’s list of prohibited content further states that “No animals or animal-like dildos” are not allowed. “Animals are not allowed in any content on our platform,” the website says. “This includes animals that may appear in the background of any content, as well as any animal or non-humanoid/animal-like dildos and/or fantasies.” IWC specifically cites Mastercard as the origin of these rules in a note at the end of the list, which says, “Please note that we believe in giving Artists as much freedom for creativity and expression as possible. Please know that we do our best to ensure Artists can do just that and these are only the rules we must enforce by Visa/MasterCard.”

In October 2021, Mastercard began enforcing an updated set of policies for adult content. In order for a merchant to continue to accept Mastercard for payments, they’d be required to follow these new rules that broadly pertain to enhanced identification measures of performers, preventing abuse and trafficking, and prohibiting the depiction of anything hinting at non-consensual or illegal activity. That’s all well and good, but as performers immediately began to discover, the vague language of these policies has proven to be a problem for various types of fantasy play and consensual kinks, too—including those related to mythical creatures and monster dongs.

Notably, however, a press contact for Mastercard told me via email that the specific term “non-human dildos” is “not mentioned in our rules” and that it may be a policy in place with iWantClips and the bank that connects the site to Mastercard’s networks.

Despite this, many creators have seen an increase in content restrictions of this kind since Mastercard’s updated policies were put in place. According to a February 2022 study from Valerie Webber, PhD, board chair of adult performer health nonprofit PASS, 90 percent of performers involved in the study experienced detriments to their adult platform accounts, such as having their account or content removed or payment interruptions as a result of Mastercard’s policies. Those who produced content incorporating kink/fetish or fantasy/roleplay were 1.4 times more likely to have their content removed, while queer performers of any variety were 1.5 times more likely.

Webber associates Mastercard’s policies with a growing movement by religiously-motivated right-wing lobbyists such as Exodus Cry, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and anti-sex worker feminists whose ultimate goal is to restrict porn entirely. “They’re taking the fringe off first, and slowly moving into the center,” Webber told me over Zoom. “Because some of these fetishes are considered ‘weird’ or ‘icky,’ it’s hard to get people to stand up for the fact that they are being targeted.” These groups have openly pressured Mastercard and other payment processors to divest from porn and celebrated Mastercard’s policies when they were announced.

In short, groups like NCOSE have been successful in making it more difficult for porn sites to conduct business, while using Mastercard as an excuse. “MasterCard always had rules and special requirements for adult content, it’s just that they really intensified them and put more pressure on the platforms to police it,” Webber continues. “It’s a two tiered thing — MasterCard is pressuring the platform, and the platform is policing the actual performers. And depending on how risk averse or not the platform is, they’ll crack down on anything that could be interpreted as violating those rules.”

And thus, here we are prohibiting adult content creators from riding neon ogre dicks in the comfort of their own homes, on camera, to sell to fellow adults. Experts like Webber are concerned that it’s only going to get more restrictive from here. “I’m always half jokingly telling people to download the porn you want now,” they say. “Anything remotely non-vanilla-heteronormative is on the chopping block.”