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I’ve made a decision
For weeks now I’ve been dealing with Stripe closing one of my accounts simply because I have nudity on my website.
I originally created this website in late 2018 because I was getting tired of Patreon continuing to sanitize itself like everywhere else on the internet post-FOSTA/SESTA. I created a space on the internet where I didn’t have to censor myself. It was wonderful and I felt at least safer than I did before, in a space I had full control of even though I didn’t really know what I was doing.
I took a risk when I set up my website using Stripe. I knew that they had already fucked people over because their work included nudity. I hoped I would be able to go unnoticed. Obviously that didn’t work because I’m in this situation now. Stripe was the best I could do because of how ubiquitous it is and how inaccessible other options were. I really wanted to create my own home on the internet, and I did.
I’ve continued to have no luck with finding a place to create a “high risk” merchant account that I can afford. I will continue to look for options that better suit my members/supporters/friends, myself, and this website. I still want to work toward an internet where nudity is normalized.
I still have things to share, events and workshops to plan, and bills to pay, so I’m doing what is accessible to me, the most convenient for members, and available to us now.
I’m going to be active on patreon again and memberships will be available there starting now.Benefits to having memberships on patreon again:
• there’s already a ton of content on there from when I regularly posted between March 2016 and November 2019
• it’s a well known platform that has built trust with creators and their patrons over time
• there is IT and support available if any of us need it
• I can still offer sliding scale memberships
• their fees are more affordable than me getting my own “high risk” merchant account
• they’re continuously upgrading and adding new features which is much harder to do on your own (which I would be doing)
• I can continue as normal here on bunnyluna.com for members that aren’t impacted by the Stripe closure
• there are more membership options available for folks whether or not I get my own merchant accountImportant message for current members:
I appreciate you so much for your understanding and patience while I’ve been figuring this out! I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused many of you (I’m still figuring out which of you are impacted!) and I hope to be able to make it up to you.
If you’ve already received an email about a failed payment or are having trouble accessing member content here on my website, please let me know at bunnyluna@pm.me and we can figure out next steps together.
Whether you email me now or not, I will be personally emailing those of you I believe are impacted by the Stripe closure by the end of October. The reason I’m not emailing sooner is because I have to wait a full billing period before I know who all is impacted.
I’m here to help if you need assistance or have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Email me at bunnyluna@pm.meIf you already know you want to move over to patreon, you can do so here!
I have a special offer right now, anyone who joins the 2nd tier or higher between now and the end of the month gets a free sticker and print sent to them!
TLDR:
🔞 Stripe hates nudity so they closed one of my accounts which is fucking up my website store.
💌 Not all members are impacted, I will be personally reaching out to those impacted by the end of October.
✨ Memberships are now available via patreon!
🖼️ Check out my special offer for a free sticker and print if you sign up by the end of the month!
show your support for free:
💌 share this with your friends
💻 sign up for my email list + get 2 free ebooks
🔞 join my uncensored art + resource sharing discord server
📹 subscribe to my youtube channel
💖 share my resources page far + wide
❓respond to my survey + help me create what you want to seeshow your support financially (sliding scale!):
✨ become a member for ALL THE PERKS!✨
📆 participate in my online + in person events
🤝 book a one on one session with me
💲 buy me a smoothie via cashapp
💰 buy me lunch via venmo✨ THANK YOU MEMBERS FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE!!! ✨
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The Stripe saga continues…
If you missed my previous post about Stripe (my payment processor) closing my account, you can read it here.
Members, thank you so much for your attention, patience, and support.
As of August 17th 2022 Stripe closed one of my accounts.
I had 3: Bunny Luna, WC, Bookshop
The Bunny Luna and WC account are both connected to my website and your memberships, some of you are connected to one and some of you are connected to the other.
The WC account is the one that has been closed.
The only way I will be able to know who is attached to the closed WC Stripe account is by which payments fail over the next month or so.If you get an email saying your payment has failed, that most likely means that your membership is attached to the closed account. You have done nothing wrong! I will be emailing you soon.
Sometime in October once a full billing cycle has gone through, I will email those of you whose payments are failing with next steps. I haven’t figured out what those are yet, but it’s my top priority and I am working on it!
The payment processors that I was hoping would work for me because they accept “high risk” merchants (I’m considered high risk because my website has nudity on it) are too expensive. Like $1000/year + $100/month + transaction fees expensive.
I’m considering other options because it’s important to me to be able to share nude art.
I also have to be able to pay my rent and buy groceries.It has gotten more and more difficult over the years to be an artist that includes nudity in my work, but I am not willing to give up. This is a rocky time right now but we will continue to move forward together. Puritanical corporations can’t stop us from being naked on the internet! We will find a way.
If any of you know of a payment processor that integrates with wordpress and woocommerce and allows nudity, PLEASE let me know! You can comment below or email me at bunnyluna@pm.me
Thank you ♥ -
I don’t know what’s next
The bad news:
I hoped this day would never come, but it has. Stripe is closing one of my accounts because I am a “high risk” client (aka I have nudity on my website).
This means that between 2/3 and 95% of my income will disappear when my account is closed. They’re closing my account tomorrow after emailing me initially about it last week.
They haven’t answered any of my questions about what is going to happen to you, members of my website. I am so frustrated that I’ve been shuffled around Stripe’s customer service for a week with no resolution. I don’t know what will happen when they close my account.
I have more than one Stripe account: one that’s being closed, another with no issues. This makes no sense to me since they’re both connected to my website. This may impact some or all of you, but I don’t really have a way to know for sure.
Because of all this I’ll be postponing my weekly vlog posts (starting in September) until I get payment processors figured out.
The good news:
I’m in communication with 2 alternative payment processors that are totally cool with nudity and will know about it from the start. (If you’re curious what they are – PaymentCloud and Authorize.net)
They both say they can transfer the information from Stripe.
It might take a bit of time to get everything figured out and switched over to a new payment processor, but in the meantime I’m still able to use Square for one on one peer support and mentoring, and I am still able to use Cashapp and Venmo.
Once I have a new payment processor I won’t have to worry about this happening again while being able to openly share nude stuff!
I’m not going to let a puritanical corporation stop me from making and sharing nude art!!!
Call to action (optional):
If you know anyone who works at Stripe or feel so inclined to contact them about this, raise some hell!
Book a one on one peer support or mentoring session with me – more info here!
Help supply me with vegan food via donations to my Cashapp or Venmo
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Ambivalent Ann at a nude beach
CAPTIONS FOR THIS VIDEO:
Hi friends! This weekend I’m sharing a photoset that I took outside of Portland Oregon of my friend Ambivalent Ann. I met her during the nude beach gathering that I facilitated outside of Portland last summer, and we met up again to take photos of each other at a different nude beach. It was super fun. There were other people there but it wasn’t super crowded or overwhelmingly a lot of people. I went to the nude beach that she and I went to another time with other models that I’ll be sharing with you. It was a really great time and it’s a beautiful nude beach and I believe I’ve already shared the photos that she took of me so these are the photos I took of her there. I love that we had access to the water and there was natural trees and grasses and stuff that we could hang out in too and of course the sandy beach which is nice. I’m always definitely a mountain person, but the beach is nice too. If I had the choice I’d go to the mountains before I’d go to the beach, to be honest.
I’m excited that I have finally decided what I want to do. Of course it might change because life happens, things happen, I might be called to do something different, but at this moment I’ve decided that I’m going to be making some changes. I’m really excited about them, and I hope you are too! For those of you who are in the photo level, you’re getting upgraded! I’ll explain that in a second. For everybody, on Mondays at 6pm EST I’ll be doing livestreams on my youtube channel. (I’ll link to that HERE!) Make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel so you can see all the Monday livestreams that I’ll be doing! The first one coming up is this coming Monday the 6th and my mom will be a special guest! We’re going to talk about holding space for all of our feelings, because we’ve both learned a lot about holding space and what that truly means over the last couple of years, and we have knowledge that we would like to share about it. We’ll also probably do some mini meditations at the beginning and end and have a conversation, I’m really excited about that! If you’d like to join our circle on Monday, it’ll be every Monday (this time my mom will be joining!) at 6pm EST on my youtube channel, so subscribe!
Every Thursday at 6pm EST I’m doing a members only live video chat via freeconferencecall. I have topics already scheduled out (CLICK HERE FOR THE SCHEDULE) I have the whole list of dates and what all I’ll be discussing (topics) and all of those are up for potential rearranging, changing, upgrading, adding, subtracting. I’m not going to hold myself into a small box of like “this is what I decided to do 3 weeks ago, and I have to follow that 3 weeks from now” when I might have something different going on. It’s like a template, a basic general idea of what I’d like to discuss, but I want to give yall the ability to let me know what you’re interested in and excited about! I would like to cater those Thursday live video chats with yall to what you’re interested in talking about and experiencing. If you want to see what my tentative plan/schedule is, it’s at bunnyluna.com/schedule.
I’m really excited! I’ve wanted to go more into video and more actual community and spending time with each other instead of being like “here’s something that I typed up and here’s photos that I took, that’s it, here enjoy it”. I want to be more connected to yall and have more experiences with you, even if it’s just virtual. For me, especially with everything that’s going on, I’ve really enjoyed the times that I’ve been able to talk to someone and see their face and hear their voice. Even if it’s not in person and it’s just digitally like this. To me it’s so much more connecting than just reading text and seeing a photo. I tend to try to do these blog posts early. Like, today is Thursday (I think? Who knows what day it is). I think today is Thursday. I won’t be starting the live video chats today obviously because you won’t see this video til Saturday. But I like to do things early if it’s something like a blog post and getting photosets ready to show you. I feel like I’m not as present with you when I’m doing that because I’m scheduling stuff for the future. I want to be present with you. I want to have a conversation with you, have a dialogue, see your face, hear your voice (if you’re into that). I would like for us to have a conversation. I want to ask “what is something that you’ve enjoyed that I’ve done?” so I can do more of that.
I’m excited about these changes I’m making. Another change that I’m doing is May 1st I will be discontinuing the photo membership tier, that whole photo membership I won’t sell anymore. I think I have to technically keep it in my store and just have a cap of how many people can join and hide it. Anyone that’s in the photo membership before May 1st will automatically be upgraded to the VIDEO membership on May 1st. I think the only thing different is that since the photo membership is so discounted, like right now I have it at only $10 (usually $15) and the video membership is $33, that’s a HUGE discount. The people that are upgraded from photo to video, they won’t have the video percent off in my store, they’ll have the photo percent off, which I think is 5-10%, but that’s the only thing that would be different, you get everything else. Instead of only having access to the photosets, you’ll also get access to all of my videos that I’ve made since 2015. That’s 5 years of videos, probably thousands of videos, at least hundreds if not thousands. I have a ridiculous amount of content on my website for yall to see already. So if you’re not a photo member, then you already have access to all of these. Video and up already has access to all of my videos. Everybody, all of my members, will always have access to my live video chats. That’s Monday nights on youtube, which is free for everybody, and the Thursday video calls through freeconferencecall which is members only, so all members have access to that. I may or may not record those, the Thursday ones, I don’t know, it depends on how they go and if you’re interested in me recording them. I might record them sometimes, I might not. I’m trying to be open and accepting and willing to change, because I know that nothing stays the same ever, so I might as well let memberships and my website grow with me. I’m trying to make sure I haven’t left anything out. All members have access to all of my videos starting May 1st. If you’re a photo member and you start TODAY, then you’ll only have photo access until May, and then starting May 1st all members of all levels will have video access. I’m excited! Because then I’ll only have 3 membership levels instead of 4 and that will simplify everything. I’ll have the basics of everything which includes video, which I think is important because it allows me to connect with yall in a deeper way.
Starting with video, then first look and all access get extra content for first look and all access… but since you’re watching this then you’re already a member and you probably already know that. I’m really excited, I think since I’m going in the video direction anyway, why keep a photo tier, why not just start at video? In the future, since I haven’t been creating a lot of photo stuff lately, I might not upload a new photoset every week, starting a couple months from now. I have stuff through at least early to mid June at least, from my archives that I haven’t shared yet. So you’re still going to get new consistent content every week at least until early to mid June. Depending on if I’m inspired to create photos or not, and depending on how things work… I think state parks and stuff are closed already so I don’t have as many opportunities to go to the places I’d want to shoot anyway. I don’t want to just shoot everything at my house, I’ve already shot so much here. I might, instead of doing a photoset every week, I might just do videos every week. I don’t know, we’ll see when we get there. I just wanted to give you a heads up because things are changing and I’m trying to be flexible. I think its important to be flexible and to allow things to shift and change and just go with the flow of where life is taking me. I definitely want to go the video route more, I’ve already started that a little bit, and I’m excited to take you on this journey with me!
I’m so thankful yall are here! I literally would not be able to do this without you. Since all of my gigs have been cancelled because of what’s going on in the world, yall are why I have food on the table and I really appreciate that so much! I love that we enrich each other’s lives, and that means a lot to me. I appreciate you and I love you and please let me know if you have things you want me to discuss or questions that you have or things you’d like to learn from me! I have so much stuff in my brain.
Let’s start by, if you have time, checking out the schedule (click here), seeing if the topics for the live chats are something that you’re interested in, and if Thursday at 6pm works for you. It’s a day that I was consistently available, and I figure a lot of people’s schedules have probably changed a lot anyway. I’m going to go with this for now and it’s something that can change in the future if that’s whats best for everyone. I’m excited, I love you, I’m so glad you’re on this wild adventure with me! Thank you so much! I love you, and I’ll talk to you soon!
Don’t forget, Monday, a couple days from now, me and my mom, holding space! On Youtube, 6pm EST! We’re also going to do it on Thursday so Mommy is going to be my special guest all week next week. Yall will get to meet her and converse with her during our private video chat too! If you watch our livestream on Monday and you’re like “oh, I wanna talk to Bunny and Willow about this thing that they mentioned and didn’t talk a whole lot more about it. I wanna ask questions about that!” Come join us on Thursday because she’s going to join me too! We can talk about it because there’s going to be less people and not a livestream on youtube, it’s gonna be an intimate gathering of just members! I’m so excited! I love you! I’ll talk to you soon. Bye!
Click for my youtube channel (and subscribe!)
Click for the schedule with the topics I plan to cover
Click to download freeconferencecall for easy login for the Thursday video chatsPhoto members: click here to view the full photoset of Ambivalent Ann at a nude beach outside of Portland Oregon & click here for the BTS
Video members: click here to view the BTS video
First Look members: click here to view the photoset of Tiffany Helms on Bainbridge Island & click here to view the BTS video