💌 Vaccine hangover won't stop me from getting you the latest in lewd games!

Ongoing moral panics, secret mermaids, and more in Mr. Hands' Naughty List #30

May 23, 2021

Hello, lovelies!

I’m happy to report that Mr. Hands got jabbed in his Mr. Arm with AstraZeneca, but not to worry, his wrists still function just fine. 😌

The side effects really aren’t too bad but the shot did leave me feeling tired and woozy, so I’m currently writing this from the comfort of my bed.

If you want to make me feel better, why not consider subscribing?

Now let’s get into it!

Moral panic update 🔞

In what does now seem to become a weekly occurrence, XBIZ reports that eBay has become the latest platform to ban the sale of adult-only content, including video games.

The online trading platform offers the nonsensical explanation that they’re doing this because “we want to [prevent] those who do not wish to view or purchase these items from easily accessing them”. But their blanket ban on adult content does not apply to old issues of Playboy, Playgirl, Mayfair, and Penthouse apparently.

And in seemingly unrelated news, Twitch took away the ability of their most popular hot tub streamer to make money from ads. Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa says she made about $1000 a day from ads until May 7th, when it suddenly dropped to zero. Twitch came back to her saying that ads were off the table from the time being.

This makes it all the more interesting that Twitch just announced a new category for streamers called “Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches”. Presumably, this will make the content more palatable for advertisers.

Friends, I don’t hope I sound too conspiratorial when I say that both eBay’s and Twitch’s sudden changes relate back to payment processing. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that MasterCard and Visa both do not want to deal with the icky grey morality of paid adult content.

As a result, every other business on the Internet has to have a good hard think about whether they want to support adult content or process credit card payments. Because apparently, you can’t have both.

Finally, I leave you with this tweet, which highlights how you can’t ban porn without harming queer creators in the process:

G.C. Houle | Read Starcross'd 🎭 @gchoule

It's foolish to think queer content will survive erotica bans - intimacy and porn and feelings and body politics are all inexorably linked, and banhammers aren't going to take the time to untangle any of it, see: tumblr.

Kiss a mermaid in Aquadine’s beautiful waters 🌊

Aquadine is a visual novel by SoftColors about a boy named Ciel who helps pay for his mother’s hospital bills with his part-time work. He works as a gondolier, giving tours on the canals of beautiful Aquadine under an assumed identity. In his work, he encounters many different people, each with their own troubles and secrets.

As he’s finishing up one night, a mysterious voice lures him in and he discovers a beautiful mermaid! She immediately dives away, leaving him with many unanswered questions.

The game features four romantic routes with four unique characters. And yes, one of them is secretly a mermaid! A perfect fit for MerMay, wouldn’t you say? 🧜‍♀️

Aquadine is available now on Steam. A copy was kindly provided by SoftColors so I could cover it for this newsletter.