Age Verification And Art That Toes The Line

Is age verification necessary for art that is erotic but not necessarily pornographic? And what about art that toes the line? What do gay artists run into when they share their art and music on social media where new policies and restrictions make them feel extremely unwelcome?

We didn’t give up when YouTube terminated our channel nor did I admit defeat when Discord suspended my account for a bullshit reason. Community was and still is very much a part of the music we make and for this site, building a community is not only necessary, but it is a requirement. Read on to discover what this community means. But first a little history of what has happened so far. If you want to skip the backstory, I don’t blame you. But for those who want to know the journey of how we got here, I lay it all out for you. Skip to “WHERE IT’S GOING” to get the lowdown on why we age verify and the plans for the community.

How It Started

We don’t consider what we do pornography or really in the vein of “adult material” as some might call it. We consider it erotic art no weirder or different that what Andy Warhol did in the 60s and 70s. Films and music that celebrate the male experience that also includes sexuality. Our work is firmly in the camp of art and artistic expression. Most all of what we do is generated with AI and the AI we use will not generate pornography. Our art is more like what you would see in an R-rated movie. But mixing the visuals and music together result in themes that should only be experienced by adults. We spend so much time on the work that the artistic intent is clear but it might get labeled as something different by automated systems.

Like all art, it inspires discussion. And we do discuss things important to men who are interested in the brotherhood and celebration of masculinity through bating. We started this website to be liner notes for the BATE FUEL album and allow listeners a peek inside the underground scene of bating and gooning. We had been posting our AI music videos on YouTube with no problem and were looking for a way to up the explicitness and include more male nudity.

We soon discovered that realistic AI music videos like the ones we create are not allowed on sites like OnlyFans because the AI models cannot provide verification that they are adults and have consented to being in the content created. We know they are AI but OF has policies where every model must sign a release. We found ourselves with a treasure trove of great content that we could not post anywhere. And YouTube policies prohibited us from taking the art to where we wanted it to go.

We didn’t think our work belonged on PornHub or other porn sites because it is not porn even though it contains elements of such. We posted a few videos on BoyfriendTV but that site is more geared towards porn. We have nothing against porn and might make some in the future but it would be more artistic and expressive and we still would not consider it porn as is traditionally produced.

We thought a Discord server would be a great place to store our more explicit videos but a community server, while a great idea, quickly ran into restrictions and presenting videos there was not quite the experience we wanted. It transformed from a server that was explicitly about our music into a meeting place for men who were looking to bate with each other. And we were fine with that.

A series of viral X posts brought a flood of men to the BATE FUEL Discord server and to our music and content in general. We processed 1700 applications in one weekend. And we settled into a new normal of running a popular discord server. Guys were there for the music and videos we created, but also the brotherhood and connection of a community as well. Some members were not fans of our work and that is fine. It’s not for everyone. But for the men who loved it, the themes of the music played out in that server.

When YouTube terminated our channel, we quickly scrambled and built a dedicated video site. Having already set up streaming on this website, the YouTube termination was less devastating. And we were kind of excited to finally post videos that we could not post on YouTube or really anywhere else. But the videos could not just stand on their own. We age-gated the material and to comply with regulations and policies, we had to add a lot more words to the visuals we had created. We are a website for adult men, but not necessarily an adult website.

Why Age Verification Is Necessary

According to regulations, for artistic expression, we’re allowed to have 33% visual content for adults. The rest must be words. We started converting this website into a magazine with articles and stories. Otherwise we would have to install hardline age verification features that would cost a minimum $2500 a month to implement. The visual media must clearly show artistic intent and we feel we have always done that through somewhat exhaustive explanations of what our music and art is really about. We clearly state multiple times that undearge access is prohibited.

I have made websites and content for years without ever having to implement hardline age restriction, but the internet is a far different place, now. It is now our responsibility to prevent minor’s access to these materials. For decades it was considered ludicrous to give a minor unrestricted internet access and as far as I am concerned it still is. As much as I believe that no child should be on the Internet, lax parenting and regulations have placed the responsibility on website owners. On our Discord server we went through the laborious task of video verifying every man to make sure he was an adult and legally allowed to be there. We went above and beyond to comply and we video verified over 1,500 men personally. And we checked their ID to make sure if they looked young.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be checking IDs on the Internet but there I was making sure for all the men on the server. None of us want to interact with anyone underage. And the amount of work we did took time away from what we were really there for: to relax and have fun. And simply sharing this amazing work also brought with it the headache of complying with regulations and making sure it was locked behind age gates and verification. Something I never had to do until very recently. YouTube terminated our channel to “keep YouTube a safe platform for all” but our work encourages healing and connection over mindlessly watching porn. Our work contains strong anti-drug messaging. Our work is infused with a pro-male vibe that encourages men to embrace honesty and integrity by owning their manhood and their sexuality.

At some point I felt like I was not protecting the content from minors, rather protecting myself from the government and policies. And this was a very weird feeling to me. Why am I tasked with protecting myself from children? I don’t even like kids. I was censoring myself and my artistic expression in really disturbing ways and the whole thing felt very homophobic to me. This was a sort of silencing I had not experienced since the 1980s when I first came out. I felt I was being told to shut up and go away. Stop making music and videos that speak directly to the men who need them.

For men who had been around awhile, all this seemed incredibly silly. And if I really think about it, it is. But after the YouTube termination, I became hyper-focused on adhering to policies. We had already invested so much time and energy into making the art that we didn’t want to risk anything else. Adults should be free to look at the stuff they want to on the internet anonymously if they want to. Men who are grappling with their sexuality or those who want to safely explore kinks and fetishes should not have to volunteer personal information in order to do so. All of it seems personally invasive to me and it’s a responsibility I certainly didn’t want. Many men come to this type of work deeply ashamed and having to face that shame by needing to get verified was something I took very seriously. It also came with benefits I would not recognize until later.

The benefit of personally video verifying each man was that I got to talk to hundreds of men and assure them there was nothing to be ashamed of. Some men shared with me that I was the very first man they had ever talked to about sex or sexuality. And that was incredibly sad to me. As an out gay man, I’ve had the freedom of openly discussing the things that turn me on with my peers. And I was completely unaware that there are men out there that never had the opportunity to do that. Because we personally verified each man, our community on Discord was extremely supportive. We didn’t just verify their ages, we validated them as men with a sexuality. And we encouraged them to explore with men who were similarly exploring.

For this site, we required men to sign up to be able to access some content. Not all of it, but for the stuff that is more adult in nature. Part of the registration plugin included basic community features like the ability to have profiles and all that. We did not flesh it out here because we already had a community on Discord. And we funneled all men to the Discord. But there were restrictions on iOS that prevented adult men from joining. There were workarounds but many men could not join due to other arbitrary restrictions. Keep in mind that these were adult men of legal age prevented from accessing materials and information meant for them. And Discord seemed to be heavy-handed with the ban evasion suspension and we lost many men daily to these arbitrary bans and suspensions.

And as you know, I eventually fell to that arbitrary ban evasion suspension. And along with it, lost access to the very community our brothers had spent countless hours building. I didn’t build it, they did. There was a day or two that I thought about deleting all the music and videos and pretending like it never happened. Over the past few months I had received hundreds of messages from men telling me about how much they loved the music and videos and how much it has affected their lives in a positive way. Simply making the music and the videos had affected our lives in a positive way. Would I fight to keep it going or would I just ditch it all and move on?

Now at this point, one might say that the terminations and restrictions and all that would mean that I am doing something wrong. When does a man admit defeat? To continue in this vein might be seen as fighting a fight that cannot be won. We have sunk thousands of dollars into this already and not made back our initial investment. Not even close. But artists rarely create because of the money. They create because they have to. And then the artist has to figure out how to get that work seen. We only intended to ever make music and videos, but we had no idea how difficult it would be to simply share it with the intended audience.

The BATE FUEL DX album was just released in July and all this crap really hampered our efforts to promote it. It is a unique and innovative project that requires unique and innovative approaches. We don’t view the restrictions as signs that we’re doing something wrong. We look at them as ways to get creative and be of service. We believe in the music and the art so much that we’re willing to go to any lengths to keep it up on the Internet for adult men to experience and enjoy the way we intended. And our expression has been crippled by these regulations so making sure everyone is of age here will explode our creativity in remarkable ways. We do not want to put it behind a paywall, nor do we want to charge for access. The community features are the age verification we need.

For gay men in the past, sharing erotic art came with restrictions or consequences. In the past few decades, gay men saw a loosening of restrictions via the internet. But social media seems to be chilling on gay men being allowed to express themselves, their bodies and their art. And that has spread to the internet at large. I truly feel this a freedom of speech and expression issue but no one has the right to view content meant for adults. I did plenty of research on this. Art and artistic expression matter, but our work toes the line and we are aware of that. Being able to freely express ourselves as a gay men was a hard won freedom. And to watch that freedom ebb away is heartbreaking.

We understand that YouTube and Discord may not be the place for work like ours. We are not about pushing into areas where we do not belong. We used AI to realize a vision and that vision got way more attention than it should have. If we had to rely on our actual budget and produce content within that budget, it never would have gotten this far. We would not have been able to produce the realistic music videos featuring the men we have on display. The music would have been rawer and less polished. The music videos might have been straight up pornography. But they weren’t and it turned into something that looked and sounded better than it should have. But it also showed what we were capable of as artists, musicians and producers. I think we should keep going and make more art and music in this vein. We’re just beginning to collaborate with other artists. If we can finally put the headaches of bans and restrictions behind us, we can focus on what really matters because it has been exhausting to build things only to watch them get blasted away.

Where It’s Going

We have so much more unreleased work to share and we have to have age verification on this site anway. So we decided to flesh out those community features and implement the same video verification we did on Discord. I looked at this whole enterprise and shrugged. Having to rebuild the community here seemed daunting. But in order to comply with policies and regulations it has to be done. The regulations do not care how age verification is done, just that it is done beyond a reasonable doubt by the site owners. We would not have had to do this just a couple years ago. And this is somewhat of a no man’s land for artists who make erotic art or talk about sex in their art or music. It’s something we haven’t had to deal with before.

To get age verified here, we connect with a community member via video and make sure they are an adult man. They do not have access to more adult or personal content without that step. This not only makes this community safe for the men here, it also protects us from minors attempting to access the content. And any man that cannot prove their age beyond a reasonable doubt cannot gain access to certain materials here. This has been codified into law where we live and we must comply whether we agree with it or not. To retain our freedom of expression, as weird as it is because this is America, we must age verify. To retain your ability to say what you want and express what you want here, we must age verify. And even though you might live in a state or country where these regulations are not necessary, we do not want to shut down access to our materials on a state by state basis like other sites have done.

With verification comes more freedom for us and for you to be able to say and express what we want to each other. We do not believe our work is harmful to anyone but we are really focused on keeping it away from minors because it is not meant for them. It is meant for adult men only. That is the intended audience.

We never intended to make a magazine or a community here, but it was a requirement and a necessity and we’re so much better for it.

Community Features Current and Upcoming

Right now the chat features include end-to-end encryption for privacy and videoconferencing rooms for meetings and special events. Unverified users have limited access to the community and other site content. Members can build a profile and link to their socials including their profiles and content on adult websites. Eventually we will build out the profiles so that men can be more expressive in what they share. There are plans to include message boards. All of this will be for the men who want to engage with each other if they want.

There are chat rooms where men can share more of themselves when they are verified and also share things that they find useful. And they must be verified to see any nudity or explicit content, even if it is not pornography.

We understand that it might be a hassle to get verified especially if you were verified on the discord server. Even if I remember you, I must reverify you in order to be consistent across the board. I personally hate having to get age verified on websites and servers that are meant for adults. And we try to make it as painless and non-invasive as possible. But once it is done, it is done. Engaging with the community is not required.

As far as content for the website, we have plans to make more videos, some even featuring real male models. We are in discussions with men who want to be featured in erotic pictorials that evoke that old beefcake style. We may have started with AI men but that is not where we are headed…not completely. BATE FUEL will continue to be a celebration of men and masculinity. Of brotherhood and bonding. And the content will reflect that vibe and BATE FUEL aesthetic of men being unashamed to be men. It may have started with the music, but it has turned into something we could not have predicted. And we probably would not have made this site or community right out of the gate. But now that it’s a necessity, we may as well just do it.

Thank you for being a fan of what we do. Not just the art, but the brotherhood that has built up around it. A brotherhood of which you are a very important part.