Age Verification for Adult Creators: Why It’s Mandatory (And How to Do It)

Let’s talk about age verification really quickly here as I know some folks are either just starting out, or have some confusion around it. To be clear, age verification is non-optional in direct or independent selling. Platforms come with the perk of them taking on some of the liability of verifying the age of subscribers. When selling off platforms, that liability falls on you alone.

NOTE: platforms are not held responsible for minors seeing your content, you are. See this resource for more.

For this article, I will be focusing on the US laws.I am not a lawyer this is not legal advice. I would make a terrible lawyer. Do your own, heavy research into this before settling on a process. The below is just an outline.

Why & When Age Verify Potential Buyers Continued on Next Page

Why & When Age Verify Potential Buyers

• To ensure the safety and legitimacy of your business
• To ensure the safety of yourself as an individual
• To ensure you are NOT selling or distributing NSFW content to minors.
• To help weed out time wasters and scammers.

Consequences of Not Age Verifying

That is considered online solicitation of a minor OR unlawful contact with a minor. This is no longer an oopsie, but rather a state and federal crime. It does not matter at that point if you thought they were an adult. What matters is the contact between you and a minor happened.

We need to focus on online solicitation of a minor as that is where we conduct our business. So, how is online solicitation of a minor defined?

Online solicitation of a minor is defined as a person over the age of 17 intentionally communicating with a minor by electronic means in a sexually explicit manner, distributing sexually explicit content to a minor, or knowingly soliciting a minor to engage in any kind of sexual activity.

Distributing content to minors is our biggest concern. Nowhere in that part of the definition does it say it matters if you are knowledgeable of the person’s age or not. Therefore, it is a blanket statement for intentional distribution to a minor, and accidental.

But let’s talk about content and what defines sexually explicit content.

Let’s say you are only selling your socks, not adding any images or videos and they will never see your body. That is still fetish-related content and is therefore inherently intended for sexual gratification! Just recording an audio and they will never see you? It does not matter that is still custom, likely meant for sexual gratification, content you are making and you don’t want that going to a minor.

What is considered online sexual solicitation?

• Requesting sexually explicit videos.
• Sending sexually explicit messages.
• Asking intrusive questions about a child’s sex life.
• Making plans to meet in person for sex.

What are the penalties for this?

Every state has different penalties, but let’s just look at some of what can come from not age verifying:

• Imprisonment for no more than 5 years.
• Up to $10,000 in fines.
• Both fines and imprisonment.
• Required to register as a sex offender.
• Required to attend sex offender treatment.
• Restricted internet access.

How to do Age Verification

You can use an automated method such as the Yoti app, or manually. Every creator that processes age verification manually does it their own way, so let me share with you my method. First I will ask if they can age verify with me. They will either say no, yes, or how do I do that. If they say yes, or ask how I have a specific script I say every time and it is this:

Okay, honey, I am going to need to see a very heavily redacted, or covered-up, official document. The only thing I need to see on that document is your date of birth. I genuinely don’t need to see anything you are uncomfortable sharing, I just need to know that you are over 18. In that same image could you please physically write down your username and today’s date I would appreciate it. That just lets me know that this is in your possession. If you don’t want to deal with the technology of redacting everything, like I said you can absolutely just cover everything up with paper but that date of birth.

If they refuse, communication should end. There is no sale going to happen and now they are wasting your time. I have a specific script for that as well:

Okay honey, I completely understand. I won’t ever pressure you or push you to do something you aren’t comfortable doing. Unfortunately, that does mean we don’t get to spend time together. But I hope you find a great gal and have an amazing experience.

💡 Pro tip: Reverse image search the licenses for extra reassurance that it is not just an image ripped offline.

Some people go to further lengths including but not limited to:

• Having the paper with the username and date crumpled
• A selfie with their redacted ID, face unredacted on the document, and showing in the selfie
• Video with ID and face, face unredacted on document and showing in the video
• Having a specific hand signal in the image with the ID

Acceptable forms of official documents can include (but are not limited to):

• State identification (ID) card
• Driver license
• US passport or passport card
• Foreign passport
• Foreign identification card

Here is an example of what I would accept for age verification:

Not all creators verify and that is a problem. Because of that, not all buyers are willing to verify.

Be prepared for people to refuse. And when someone refuses they are refusing service. They are not just refusing to age verify, because we do not provide services unless they have verified. Something that has helped tremendously to make them feel more comfortable, is to have a very heavily redacted/covered version of your own to share with them.

© 2023 Creators Spicy Tea

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Creators Spicy Tea with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.