I Got Banned from Mailchimp

Just another platform making it hard for writers like me

My Sunday morning was going the way it usually does. I published my latest article, put together my newsletter, and sent it out to all of my subscribers.

Or at least, I thought I had.

Instead of responses from my readers, I got an email from someone I normally don’t hear from.

Mailchimp.

The subject line freaked me out a little.

“Sending Suspended: Acceptable Use Violation.”

I clicked on it immediately to find out what happened.

“Hello Emma,

Mailchimp is no longer able to serve as the email provider for your account because the content associated with your industry conflicts with our Acceptable Use Policy.”

My industry? I’m a fucking Medium blogger, not a drug dealer.

So, I looked over their policy to find out how my little newsletter could’ve offended their algorithm.

And there it was:

“We’ve also found that certain types of content may cause higher-than-average abuse rates. For that reason, we may closely review, suspend, throttle, or disable accounts that offer the following services, products, or content.”

In the list, they include “Adult entertainment/novelty items.” I sometimes write about porn and sex toys, so I guess that includes me, too.

Well fuck. There goes my Sunday.

Instead of spending my afternoon relaxing a little and outlining my next post, I had to spend it looking through tons of lists of the best newsletter platforms for bloggers.

Some of them didn’t have the design features I needed. That’s a big deal for me. Even though I’m a writer, I always try to create a visually appealing product and I can’t do that just anywhere.

But as soon as I’d find one that would let me create something that didn’t just look like a block of text, I’d pore over their terms of service and find out that content like mine was deemed unacceptable.

ConvertKit wouldn’t work. I’d be violating their terms by letting my readers know I wrote a new porn review.

MailerLite seemed promising, so I signed up. Within an hour, I got an email informing me they were turning me down. Harsh.

I even considered Mad Mimi but they also won’t allow the kind of the stuff I include in my newsletter.

You’d think I was doing something illegal, but the last time I checked, having sex and discussing it weren’t criminal activities.

But almost every platform had a ban on adult content, lewd material, or some vague stuff about being associated with the adult industry.

So if you want to be a grownup and acknowledge that sex exists, is fun, and encourage other grownups to have more of it, most newsletter services would rather show you the door than help you reach your audience.

Platforms for Prudes 2.0

I published my first blog post in February 2019.

I had just spent a year or so writing and publishing erotic stories and novellas. I started it even though I knew there’d be challenges to making a living writing erotica.

I’d have to write like a workhorse. I’d need to learn how to design my own book covers. I’d have to figure out how to actually get them up on the Kindle store.

But all of that was a piece of cake compared to actually promoting my books.

I discovered very quickly that most of the tools writers use to market themselves aren’t available to people writing erotica. And when they are, you have to do a tricky balancing act to avoid violating their vague content rules.

You’re selling smut, but if your covers or titles are too smutty, you can’t sell them through Amazon. Well, you can, but they might get dungeoned — meaning they’ll be harder for readers to find.

And if you write more taboo topics (the kind you see all over mainstream porn), you can’t sell them through Amazon at all. You have to go to Smashwords with all the other filthy perverts.

Facebook was taking issue with breastfeeding photos, so using it to promote stuff for people who like tits was dicey.

Tumblr had already put an end to everything Tumblr was good for. Instagram was starting to crack down on anything explicit, too.

It pissed me off. It’s hard enough to make a living as a writer without being cut off from some of the best ways to reach an audience.

So, I did what any writer does when they get angry. I wrote a blog post (I didn’t have Twitter back then).

I decided to publish it on Medium. I’d read and published some really dirty stuff there before, so I figured I could rant safely.

The post was called Sex Sells (But Who’s Buying?) and I liked writing it so much that it wasn’t just a way for me to vent — it was a pivot. I put my erotica projects on hold and started coming up with more and more blog post ideas.

Instead of writing sex scenes, I started writing about sex. I tried to make my articles fun and informative. I write for adults, so they were still explicit and still dirty. But they were educational so I assumed I wouldn’t have any problems promoting myself anymore.

But I guess I was wrong about that.

Because I write about sex and write about it explicitly, I’m always worried that something is going to get in the way of earning a living.

I don’t post all the things I wish I could post on Instagram because I’m worried I’ll be shadow banned and lose my ability to connect with my audience there. I’ve been wanting to post a video of one of my sex toys fucking another one of my sex toys (well, one of my husband’s sex toys, if you want to get technical). I think that would be a lot of fun to make and cool to watch. But I won’t do it because I’m worried that’ll be the thing that does me in.

I worry about Buzzsprout deciding they want to go clean and I have to scramble to find a new podcast host.

And I hope I never wake up to find out that Medium changed its rules and decided to stop distributing content with four-letter words and filthy phrases.

But I really didn’t expect my newsletter provider to be the first one to give me trouble.

My newsletter is supposed to be my failsafe. If I ever lose the ability to publish on here or promote my work on social media, I can at least reach my core readership and tell them what I’m up to and where they can find my work.

Getting that email from Mailchimp reminded me that I can never let my guard down. Pretty much all of us masturbate, fuck, and watch porn, but there’s no platform that guarantees you won’t get banned for being up front about that.

Goodbye, Shame Monkeys

By late afternoon, I had sorted out my newsletter problem.

I started a Substack account after reading over their terms of service and not finding anything that is likely to get in the way of doing the kind of work I do.

I exported all my contacts from Mailchimp, recreated my newsletter on the new platform, and sent it out — about six hours later than usual, but better than never.

The next day, I heard back from Mailchimp’s support team. They lifted my suspension and informed me that I could start sending my newsletter again and suggested ways I can avoid the algorithm flagging my account in the future.

But nah, I can’t.

This whole situation almost prevented me from sending my subscribers the newsletter I promise them every week. I don’t want to risk that happening again because I included some X-rated keywords that made their algorithm panic.

But mostly, it’s the very fact that they have this kind of policy in place. Where I can, I want to avoid working with companies that have sex shaming policies.

I’m mostly safe as someone who writes educational content, reviews, personal stories and the occasional cheeky blog post. But I happen to love porn and sex toys, and I want the people who make a living creating and selling them to be able to promote themselves, too. I’d much rather use and support services that make that possible.

I haven’t hired an escort (yet) but I want them to have fewer barriers to running their businesses, too.

So, I won’t be going back to Mailchimp. They can keep their A/B Testing feature and their design templates because I don’t need the sex negativity that came with them.

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