More Discrimination by HarbeJoe Marketing/Punished.net

A lot of the hits this blog gets come from people Googling Spankingtube.com, or having problems with using Spankingtube.com and looking for help, and landing on a post of mine from a couple of years ago. This always makes me happy, because there’s a chance that some of them might (some; might) read a little about that site’s discrimination against M/M content. I don’t imagine many minds are changed, but it can’t do any harm.

So. I’m hoping that this post might do something similar with regard to Punished.net, a new site started recently by HarbeJoe Marketing LLC, the company behind both that and Spankingtube.com — among many others. (What was that URL, you ask? Was it Punished.net? Yes, that’s right, Punished.net.)

I took a look at the boilerplate beneath the surface of Punished.net today, actually feeling optimistic that it might describe policies more enlightened than those of Spankingtube.com. In some ways the spanking/CP scene is more explicitly gendered than the wider BDSM scene, so I’d imagined that this new site might be designed to provide a more egalitarian space. In fact, its policies with regard to sexual orientation are much worse. Where Spankingtube.com does allow M/M content, but ghettoises it into its own section, and omits it from the most significant site searches, keeping it from all but the most determined users, Punished.net explicitly disallows all M/M content completely. Its FAQ couldn’t be clearer:

6. Male Videos are not allowed on Punished.net.

Though this detail is buried very deep, and the site’s description of itself appears open to and welcoming of all orientations:

Punished.net was created to let users upload BDSM and Fetish Videos and Photos and share them with the world. We also wanted to give Adult Producers a place to publish their free movies and advertise their content.

We specialize in bringing you the best in BDSM and Fetish Videos. Punished.net – Your source for free BDSM Videos, Femdom Videos, Spanking Videos, Bondage Videos, Rope Videos, Sex and Submission Videos, Domestic Discipline Videos, Slave Videos, Breast Play Videos, Foot Fetish Videos, Strap-on Video, Strapon Videos, Machines Fucking Machine Videos, Device Videos, Women Wrestling Videos, Face Sitting Videos, CBT Videos, Cock and Ball Torture Videos, BDSM Videos and Photos Movies Stories, Movies, Films, Clips. From sensual to severe, OTK, Over the Knee, strappings, paddlings, hairbrush spankings, whipping, flogging, caning, corporal punishments, domestic discipline, fem/dom, exclusive spankings, and more!

Did you catch the mention there of M/M content being disallowed? No, nor did I.

Spankingtube.com and Punished.net currently share a great deal of both content and advertisers, which suggests that one of the reasons for creating the new site — other than simply to widen the scope of advertisers beyond those who provide spanking/CP content — might be to basically double the revenue from the same streams. That would be a sharp practice, but the ethics of running a business which provides a service that discriminates based on sexual orientation are much murkier.

Whether HarbeJoe Marketing LLC discriminates based on personal conviction or prejudice, or fears of a business damaged by the prejudices of others — and I never did get a reply to either of two e-mails I sent them two years ago — isn’t really relevant. Legal jurisdictions notwithstanding — and goodness I’m not a lawyer — a rough parallel with the owners of a British B&B who lost a civil case brought against them by a gay couple whom they’d refused to accommodate doesn’t seem too far fetched.

In any event, maybe consider not dealing with this shitty company?