DA Alterntives?

[Stoutland395]

Forgive me, as I'm a little bit upset right now. This site and DeviantArt are my only two avenues for positing stories and pictures. Recently, on my birthday no less, nearly all of my edits on DA were removed for violating TOS. Which one(s) I have no idea. There's plenty of risky material on that site, featuring as far as full nudity and more, yet my content is the stuff getting removed. I make no money off this stuff, and it's purely for enjoyment, and all of my pictures feature either mostly or fully clothes people, edited to include bondage elements. I would think this would fall under Fair Use.

Despite the monumental and likely fruitless endeavor of disputing everything, I'm in complete shock that suddenly nearly 3 years of content is suddenly gone from my main page. Luckily I have saved most/all of the content I've uploaded, so if I can find a reliable alternative, I can post the content there. If anyone has any site willing to host bondage-related photo edits, I'm happy to take suggestions. The only other platform I know of is Tumblr, but I've read that's a spotty site - I don't know.

I've seen some great artwork, photo-manips, and stories from users on DA, and I started my channel there as a way to post my own content. This is a weird connection, but I don't think I would have my BA in English if it hadn't been for my fascination with bondage and wanting to write my own original stories like the ones I've enjoyed reading. I've also learned editing techniques that I've gotten utility outside of making content specific to this type of community. I don't want be forced off a platform responsible for so much of my enjoyment, but I'm simply at a loss right now. I'm so upset. Any advice someone has, I'll be happy to listen to.

Thank you.
Stoutland395

[drawscore]

Some thoughts:

First, whenever you post something, copy it to a thumb or flash drive. That way, you have a back up in case your pics get deleted.

Second, there is a Russian site. Can't remember the addy at the moment, but they are fairly lax about what is allowed. However it DOES have some standards, and it does allow you to limit those that view your site by letting you create a password.

But if you think some of the stuff on DA was raunchy, some sites on the Russian platform are worse.

Drawscore

[Xtc]

I feel for you, [mention]Stoutland395[/mention]
DA seems to take down very mild bondage related stuff whilst leaving hard-core porno pics undisturbed.
Unfortunately, I don't know of a more suitable platform.

[FelixSH]

That sucks. Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, I can't offer any alternatives either, just wanted to tell you that I feel you. That said, I'm surprised, I thought they took only stuff down that showed genitalia? Did it get that much worse? I guess you just had bad luck, being found by some stupid busybody, who is too stupid to understand that being tied up doesn't have anything to do with sex. Disgusting people.

BTW, I don't think it's so strange, to learn another language due to hobbies of either kind (I mean, this is nothing but a hobby, in the end). I learned English by playing RPGs that never came to Europe (very common in the early 90s). I'm sure there are other people for that this is true, as well. Due to podcasts, I know that some people also learned Japanese due to things like this, only in this case it's often Anime. I actually considere this a great thing, that way, you have something you actually want, a goal, instead of this vague "you have to learn it, because it's important".

Sorry, getting off-topic here. I wished I could help you.

[bondagefreak]

[mention]Stoutland395[/mention] you probably already know this, but DA is notorious for the wanton deletion of users and content.
Tumblr is by FAR a much better site for posting and sharing content. [mention]GoBucks[/mention], [mention]Volobond[/mention], [mention]sniffingyoursocks[/mention], [mention]Whitestorm[/mention], [mention]BondageFootPig[/mention], myself and a bunch of other guys on here can attest to that.

Open yourself a Tumblr and have fun.

[jafib]

Also, DA has notoriously cut down the features of their interface, making it very hard to stay atop a growing collection of nice pics.
A self-hosted site is of course always the safest, as it puts you in full control, and with all the modern tools it isn't hard either.

[Stoutland395]

Thank yo for the comments so far [mention]Xtc[/mention] , [mention]bondagefreak[/mention] , [mention]drawscore[/mention] and [mention]FelixSH[/mention]

Just got an update: Not unexpected but all of my disputes were overruled, seemingly citing policies against sexually explicit content. I get kinks can be a gray area, but even looking at the list of stuff they consider pornographic, I don't think my works apply to any of them. I go out of my way to keep things very tame. None of them showed nudity, and the least-clothed were maybe a handful of shirtless pics of guys in their swim trunks at the beach, but apparently a pic of a face with tape over the mouth is too "sexually explicit" for a site called **Deviant** Art They even removed a real Chandler Riggs pic of a fan handgagging him at a convention (which I only edited to blur the fan's face!).

I personally don't think this was a random act. I first got notice of my last edit being removed, and I disputed it. The very next day is when I had nearly ALL my pics deleted at the same time. Now I'm kicking myself a little bc maybe if I hadn't disputed the first pic and just let it be, I would still have my others up. But I genuinely felt that a piece of tape over the mouth does not violate "sexually explicit content" policies.

Fortunately, my literature/stories were unharmed, and even the few op created pictures I drew in MS Paint survived. That gives me some hope that maybe I can go back later and re-upload some of the pics as pieces of literature. Trying to look to the brighter side, it does give me an excuse to go back through them a come up with better descriptions and/or stories that go along with them. So much of my channel was built on those edits, however, and it still hurts as that it took years and I was seeing a vast growth in channel attention over this last year. And my channel's growth was my only reward for since I do this as a hobby only out of enjoyment. My worst fear is that these removals effectively make me a dead channel unless whoever was behind this decides to move on and start ignoring me again. Right now, I'm genuinely afraid of uploading anything at all.

Sorry for the long rant. If you made it this far, thanks for listening. I'm still figuring out how I'm going to move forward.

[drawscore]

Thank yo for the comments so far @Xtc , @bondagefreak , @drawscore and [mention]FelixSH[/mention]

Thanks for the acknowledgement

Drawscore

[sami200456boyfriend]

I try Dropbox or probaods

[Xtc]

"Sexualisation of minors" seems to be a very loose category but I believe most of your works depicted adults, didn't they?
DA seems to be very lazy; they wait until someone with a nasty mind complains and then they fillet the entire gallery. However, pictures of penetration, erections and openly displayed labia remain undisturbed. I have made the mistake in the past of asking why a certain pic was acceptable whereas a certain innocent pic (to any European eyes - it was a youth in his swimmers floating face down on a lilo) of mine was not. You guessed it, DA used the question to remove the other pic I quoted!

[FelixSH]

It's probably a function of them being unable to keep up with all the content, and just take the careful route - if someone complains, it's probably bad, so we better get rid of it. That way, they minimize the problems they have to deal with. It's a shitty practice, but if you want the least amount of problems, it makes sense.

Also, Xtc, you know that the only reason to ever depict a child on anything that an adult may see can only be for the adult to jerk off to. I mean, why else would an adult ever look at a child?

I swear, we live in the most stupid timeline.

[Xtc]

I do hope that your American readers "do" irony, [mention]FelixSH[/mention]
Wouldn't want a humourless one to try to explain it!

[Stoutland395]

I always tried to keep my material based on celebs who were over 18 and none of them ever showed nudity. First, because it would violate DA's policy, and also because I personally don't care for nudity. When I first started the channel, I was very young and just leaving high school. Some of the early pics did show celebs around my age range, like Disney guys, and I can't say they were all 18+. When going through my notifications about this mess, I never bothered disputing those images bc I can see how those might be problematic now. My defense for those specific pics would be that I was around their age at the time, at a close enough age range where I could reasonably assume people would view this attraction similar to how a high school junior or senior could be attracted to a freshman or sophomore in the same high school. The last few years I've only done those who were adults, which was pretty easy seeing as they were near my age to begin with anyway, like Ross Lynch and Chandler Riggs. And none of my work was ever explicit; I think the closest I got were ones where I went outside the realm of fiction and just wrote about how I think this one guy (usually Chandler Riggs) is cute and I think he would look cuter if he was tied up. The raunchiest thing that I think borders the line of sexually explicit material would be my character Troy from "Brother's Quarrel" and "Roommates" who is described like a sex pest frat bro, and even then I never included any actual sex-acts in those stories. Ironically, those stories remained untouched by DA's purge.


___________________________________________________________
[mention]Xtc[/mention] I sent a dm to you and the other admins/mods about an inquiry. Did you get it?

[Xtc]

I don't follow their logic. They won't even act against art theft unless the originator reports it themselves.
I just don't get Americans.

[mention]Stoutland395[/mention], I don't see the pm. Perhaps you would re-send it.

[sami200456boyfriend]

You ever thought posting here. As long as their 18 and older and not nude. We do have a photo and art section here.

[zerg rush]

There is a site called pixiv.net. You won't have to worry about anything you post breaking any rules there, as long as you censor genitalia. A lot of ex DA members go there. It's either Chinese or Japanese, I'm not sure which.

Because anything goes there, a lot of the 'adult' content is very morally and legally questionable.

[Veracity]

I’m here to warn you against Tumblr as a viable alternative. I had a blog there for over 10 years- no explicit material, barely any kink, just guys with their shirts off, mostly. I had over 20,000 followers. Then one day it was gone. No explanation, no avenue for appeal.

[harukatsukino]

y-gallery.net ?