The future of CHYOA (or at least the funding)

Labeling non-con as a BDSM between consenting adults is a very old loophole.

I find it hilarious when, for example, in quite hardcore BDSM comics they have a page with - "all characters depicted there are consenting actors and actresses"

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Imo, site of chyoa format must have a degree of non-con, many fantasy\sci-fi stories simply don't work without an option for non con branches.
 
Whaaaaat? No non-con? That just... I mean, isn't that like the main draw for 95% + of the audience?
Sure is real funny that restrictions keep getting tighter and tighter, and it's always the same group of blue nosed prigs making the call.
Oh well, was fun while it lasted, because... yeah, this creates issues for much of my writing. Where goes one payment processor, so goes them all, eventually. (Gotta love monopolies on power...) But, nothing lasts forever, even on the internet.
So with that in mind, I would like to say thank you for the years of support, readers, and good vibes all around. This has been a great community, and I always enjoyed the feedback, both positive and negative.
However, If in a couple years I see a "New Trend In Interactive Storytelling" being actively promoted by the Mainstream Media, I'm going to be extremely suspicious.
 
brevdravis said:
Whaaaaat? No non-con? That just... I mean, isn't that like the main draw for 95% + of the audience?
Sure is real funny that restrictions keep getting tighter and tighter, and it's always the same group of blue nosed prigs making the call.
Oh well, was fun while it lasted, because... yeah, this creates issues for much of my writing. Where goes one payment processor, so goes them all, eventually. (Gotta love monopolies on power...) But, nothing lasts forever, even on the internet.
So with that in mind, I would like to say thank you for the years of support, readers, and good vibes all around. This has been a great community, and I always enjoyed the feedback, both positive and negative.
However, If in a couple years I see a "New Trend In Interactive Storytelling" being actively promoted by the Mainstream Media, I'm going to be extremely suspicious.
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Thanks for your feedback! Nothing will change about CHYOA. You can continue to write NC stories here. The rules will apply to the proposed new website to accept payments. I think the approach is good because when in doubt we can move stories from site A to site B without having to delete them.

@Dissonant Soundtrack @Hvast @brevdravis (and others) Can you send me examples of an NC story arc so I can coordinate with the payment provider? Non-consent is equated with rape. But I'm sure you don't always mean rape by that. There are certainly different levels. I want to find out if certain levels are allowed. Ideally examples that would not clearly violate the Mastercard rules.
  • Forced / Non-Consensual Sexual Activity
    • Oral, anal or vaginal penetration by sex organs, objects (dildo, strap-on,etc.) or fingers and includes wording or actions indicating lack of consent: rape, force, asleep, drugged, passed/blacked out, chloroformed, unconscious, hypnotized, drunk, intoxicated, inebriated, drugged, stoned sex, etc.
    • Someone who is drunk, sleeping, hypnotized, etc. cannot give consent, and is therefore classified as a violation.
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raziel83 said:
I am again wondering, how is it that Literotica deals with the same issues. Do they just get so much more traffic and ad money?
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according to similarweb.com, Literotica gets about 60 Million views per month. Chyoa gets about 3-3.5 Million views. so yes, they do just get so much more traffic and ad money.

lit-vs-chyoa.png


I'm not sure how accurate those numbers are, but it should at least give some idea of just how much more of a giant Lit is compared to Chyoa.
 
Well, there's numerous stories (Stepford Wives immediately springs to mind) wherein the main character blackmails or uses an application to influence those around them.
Technically, they are all "Consenting" as the app makes them consent or they are "Forced" to act consenting via contract. By a strict reading of the rules, they have been manipulated via mind control, so therefore it counts as rape. (If they wanted to be REALLY strict about the rules, technically buying the girl a drink first seems to count as rape according to the exact definition in use here.) However, in the story, everyone is happy because the app makes them happy, so they would never claim they were raped, and even if they were, they completely wanted it and begged for more the whole time.
So, Does Stepford count as a rape village, even though everyone is "Consenting?" What if it's just the person's ultimate fantasy and a GOD made it happen? Are they still being mind controlled when it is the will of the literal god of the story for them to live in worshipful obedience? If people are not even capable of refusing sex, ala the "Free Use" stories, does it count as rape, because of societal pressure? (Technically Not able to refuse is equal to not able to consent) If the society says a certain group are more dominant and thus naturally dominant in bed, does that count as a rape story because the society is exerting pressure via media, thus mind controlling them, thus rape? Is a story where a woman enjoys watching her husband sleep with another woman technically count as rape because the woman has no job and thus has learned to love her submission and humiliation, and fears for her own safety?
What if somebody is just REALLY good in bed? I mean, so good that people will drop everything for them. Love them, give them gifts, follow them everywhere. You know, "Your Life as a Celebrity". Technically, if you sleep with a woman who is desperate for your attention, are you raping her, because she has been mind controlled by other women into screwing you? Manipulated by your Sex-Fu into worshiping you? Doesn't that count as Rape according to these rules?
Essentially, these rules are so broad that they can be interpreted against TONS of stories that aren't really rape stories.
 
Friedman said:
Can you send me examples of an NC story arc so I can coordinate with the payment provider? Non-consent is equated with rape. But I'm sure you don't always mean rape by that. There are certainly different levels. I want to find out if certain levels are allowed. Ideally examples that would not clearly violate the Mastercard rules.
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Sure. These are paywalled, obviously.

https://www.kink.com/shoot/21167
"Ash Hollywood is a delusional patient who escapes from her room and pretends to be a nurse. She is captured by the orderlies and restrained in a padded cell where Dr. Deen treats her in the most sadistic way. Corporal punishment, bondage and rough sex has Ash begging for forgiveness and cuming like a dirty slut!"

https://www.kink.com/shoot/19673
"When “Reverend” James Deen and Isis Love come proselytizing, their victims get a taste of a different sort of religion.
After Ava Devine and her step daughter Remy LaCroix leave their house for soccer practice, Isis Love and James Deen break into the house and start fucking on the stairs.
Isis decides to be a MILF soccer mom for the day, and tries on all of Ava’s slutty clothing. When Ava gets home from dropping off her step daughter, she gets jumped, bound, and fucked by James, with her face in Isis’s pussy. All of her holes have been pounded raw by the time her step daughter gets home.
Her attackers stuff her into the bedroom closet, with James’ huge cock down her throat to keep her quiet. While Remy is slipping off her panties to shower, Isis grabs her, takes her to the next room, and makes her watch James fucking “mommy’s” mouth.
Ava begs them to leave her step daughter alone and use her instead, but James and Isis prefer to use both of them."

https://www.kink.com/shoot/15825
"At a secret facility in the desert, a supervillian - the mysterious Doctor - and his henchmen infiltrate the defenses to gain access to the world’s only supply of Kryptonite: the only substance that can weaken the superpowers of Earth’s superheroes. An epic battle ensues, but Powergirl (Darling), is defeated and taken prisoner. Military top brass have only one option left: call in Supergirl (Lily LaBeau) to rescue Powergirl from the evil supervillians. It’s a perilous mission, but she has no choice but to accept. What ensues is one for the books. Watch your favorite superheroines defeated, restrained in unforgiving devices, sucking on hard cocks and fucked mercilessly."

https://www.kink.com/shoot/12742
"In this fantasy roleplay update Samantha Sin plays a sexy prison warden who accidentally drops her keys on the way to the restroom. When she gets back the prisoners grab her and have their way with her, in every hole she has! Locked in a cell without pussy for so long these boys are ready to have their revenge!"

The interviews make clear that the performers consent, and the gloss of the descriptions sometimes hide behind "role play" but in the scenes themselves it's clear the characters do not consent. There are many, many more examples.
 
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elmer7780 said:
Yeah, I wouldn't even attempt to set up a page yet. It's still too risky, even if they're more tolerant because it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN someone decides to lodge a complaint because they can.
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Yeah, I suspect SubscribeStar is happy to look the other way and take your money as long as it doesn't harm them, but as soon as they come under scrutiny, they'll drop you like a stone, just like Patreon has in the past.

That might not seem like a big deal: when it happens, you just move to another service, right? Except every time this does happen, you lose all your subscribers, and even if they're all willing to follow you from service to service, it takes time for them to complete each move, and so you suffer a severe dip in income every time. And of course, people aren't willing to sign up to a new service every time you get banned, so not only do you suffer a dip, your income also just degrades with every move. Therefore, it's important to get this decision right.

Friedman said:
However, the law looks at these two things differently. One is seen as art, while adult literature touches on criminal law with explicit scenes and possibly positive portrayals. It's a gray area.
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In the US specifically, there's the famous phrase "I know it when I see it", which dictates the difference between erotica (covered by the First Amendment) and obscenity (not covered).

That's not the problem CHYOA is running into, though. We're not dealing with freedom of speech here, neither in the specific sense protected in the US by the constitution, nor in a broader sense where governments (in the West) are generally prohibited from obstructing people's speech. It's not the government or court of law that's banning incest and non-consensual fantasies. It's the payment processors, (regulated but still) free enterprises that can pick and choose their customers. Companies are not required to facilitate free speech.

In many countries, many classes of people (sexual, religious, ethnic, etc) are protected from discrimination by non-government authorities. For example, payment processors may not ban black people, or gay people, or married women. Unfortunately for us, incest porn writers are not a protected class anywhere.

(IANAL.)

Zeebop said:
The non-adult sister-site to CHYOA seems like the best option.
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I agree. What remains is determining how loosely connected the two sites must be to pass muster. I'd argue in favour of erring on the side of caution, because even if the service says something is OK now, there is zero guarantee it'll stay OK in the future.
 
I think crypto could work as a side solution with something else, especially if you could pay for several months in advance. I'd probably be willing to buy $30 worth of crypto then immediately give it to chyoa in exchange for a year without ads. A hybrid option would also be less susceptible to the whims of one company.
 
I'm currently waiting for feedback from the payment provider regarding the "forced/non-consensual sexual activity" rule.

Additionally, I also contacted RocketGate and Segpay as suggested by insert.

The CHYOA SubscribeStar page is still under review. However, I'm not entirely sure if this is the right way to go.

Zeebop said:
The non-adult sister-site to CHYOA seems like the best option.
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I would like to do both, an acceptable adult site and a mainstream site. As long as the codebase is the same, maintenance should be minimal. I think we should take a slightly different approach to the CHYOA site. More top-down, and no public mode on stories. When accepting payments, we need more control/moderation over the content.

grimbous said:
In the long run Chyoa needs something stable though. Trying a work around or loop hole will probably only fly for so long.
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I only see crypto as a real possible solution to accept payments directly on CHYOA. Everything else would have to be off-site. We could offer SubscribeStar alongside crypto, even if it's only temporary.
 
This is a real unfortunate position, but CHYOA is a site with a huge potential for size expansion. User-generated content on this scale naturally eats up a lot of space. The thing I don't get is, why do these sites have an issue with CHYOA's content if it's not being hosted on their sites? There are plenty of sites that get by just fine such as SoFurry.com that even have much more liberal permissions on content. Alas, I'm certain it would all go over my head to try and comprehend it.
 
From what I understand, selling anything for the site is problematic. The only reliable way would be crypto,but that comes with its own problems. However as long as you use crypto as a payment and not as an investment things should work out. 20$ of bitcoin will still be 20$ if you exchange them back to $ immediately. Sure,if you keep them for a month before giving them to CHYOA they might not be worth 20$ but that shouldn't be a problem for what you intend to use them.
The other way I see is to support you, the owner, individually and not the site. You can be the cloud guy who sells pictures of clouds every week. Make a YouTube channel with 3 sec videos of clouds. Want more? Subscribe to patreon or whatever. And then you can come here and inform us of your new passion. Who knows, we might all be into clouds. This basically accomplished the same thing as a clean CHYOA, just without the hassle of policing the 2nd site.
 
Update: After the payment provider wanted to cancel the cooperation due to our questions, I managed to change their minds.

Payment processor:
As you can imagine, the extended scope of your business has made things a bit harder to define and after several checks and discussions, the conclusion is that for fictional stories, the treatment is exactly the same as the rest of media offered elsewhere (clips, photos, etc) and exceptions cannot be made.

Also, from your examples and queries (family ties, CNC, etc) we have concluded that gray areas and fine lines would be the norm, making the risk for content violations greater than with other niches.

We cannot comment on how other websites and their PSPs apply Mastercard's requirements; however, funnily enough, in the 4 video captions you copied from Kink, I found NOT ONE violation; and of course it is way easier and effective to detect violations on written texts than images. Detected violations can lead to suspension and repeated occurrences lead to high fines and the termination of the account, whose standing status affects the merchant's business as well as ours.

For all of the aboves reasons, sadly, it has been concluded that we will not proceed further with your application. We apologise for any trouble caused and for the time that this review has taken but we wanted to make sure our decision was fairly based on the right considerations.

In regards to the paid fees, they will be returned to the payment method originally used.
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My reply:
I accept your decision, but I have to ask what it relates to.

We didn't want to monetize our CHYOA website because we said there was too much content that violates the Mastercard rules.

Instead, my proposal was to create a new website that would enforce the Mastercard rules. I envisioned this release as a top-down approach, not a community solution. Basically as a bookstore where merchants can post their stories and customers can buy the stories. This would give us better enforceability.

My questions were specifically aimed at fringe issues to understand what is and isn't allowed. I have no problem not allowing these topics.

Any chance the new site will be approved? Or can I no longer use you at all? Or should I report back when the new website is ready?

Alternatively, I had the idea of opening an adult writing community where no stories would be posted, just a place for authors to communicate. Would that be something I can do with you?
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Payment processor:
if you agree, I am very happy to review your new website once done! I have not started any procedure yet, so we're very much on time for anything.

I understand your need for clarifications and therefore, the best advice I can give you is to adhere to the guidelines and the prohibited glossary as strictly as you possibly can. Another suggestion: maybe give up from offering categories that could lead to the production of violating contents, like Family or mind control; and leave the authors to write stories that although include those elements are not centered on them (I hope I could make myself clear but that's what you've also proposed).
Anyhow, to summarize: when in doubt, leave it out :)

In regards to the community, I don't see why not, as long as the rules are respected in the same way :)
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I'm not at all surprised by this. The credit cards/banks/paypal really allow very little wiggle room on this stuff. The wild west days of the internet are truly dead, we've done gone civilized. :( As a last resort you might want to contact Smashwords and see how they get away with offering the taboo content that they do. Maybe they know something the rest of us don't.

You could definitely think about a "new and improved" relaunch of Chyoa that is smaller in scope and readership yet payment friendly, and I would be here for it, but policing such a site would be a big job I would think.
 
I accept your decision, but I have to ask what it relates to.

We didn't want to monetize our CHYOA website because we said there was too much content that violates the Mastercard rules.

Instead, my proposal was to create a new website that would enforce the Mastercard rules. I envisioned this release as a top-down approach, not a community solution. Basically as a bookstore where merchants can post their stories and customers can buy the stories. This would give us better enforceability.

My questions were specifically aimed at fringe issues to understand what is and isn't allowed. I have no problem not allowing these topics.

Any chance the new site will be approved? Or can I no longer use you at all? Or should I report back when the new website is ready?

Alternatively, I had the idea of opening an adult writing community where no stories would be posted, just a place for authors to communicate. Would that be something I can do with you?
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But why does it have to be related to chyoa? Sex in itself is taboo. Well kinda. Today is mind control and incest, tomorrow it can be religion, gay, enf, sph or whatever. Anything can be offensive and therefore deemed unmonetizable. Becoming a publisher would be even worse for you.
I got the impression that you could sell t shirts and mugs on a second business, completely unrelated and a simply "If you want to support me buy something from here" would fix things. Is that not the case?
 
What do you think about starting a new website where the product/service is the community itself?

In one of my recent Patreon posts, I talked about building the Fiction Network, which spans multiple websites. Due to the difficulties with credit card companies and the need to separate mainstream and adult, we could make the Fiction Network (and Faye) the Fiction Community.

I could imagine that as the next step before we start a modified version of CHYOA.

The Fiction Community would be part of a world where people organize themselves into groups based on shared values and interests. It would be a place for people with a passion for adult writing.

Fiction - Adult Writing Community

Part of the membership could be:
* Connect with other members
* Fiction email address (stay anonymous)
* Exclusive resources/classes/courses on writing
* Exclusive insights into the writing process
* Get feedback on your work
* Exclusive development updates
* Merchandise
* Suggest and vote on features
* More?

This would be a closed community. The cloud idea mentioned above is fun, but it's probably better to have a long-term plausible/acceptable product.
 
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