It’s time we had a conversation about Age Verification.

Nobody in the adult industry wants to allow under 18’s to access adult content, and it’s a fallacy to suggest otherwise. There are now 20 states that require adults who wish to access adult material to age verify and those states have made it law that adult paysites, such as the ones that we run, must put age verification on their sites, otherwise face prosecution. If you are in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia or Wyoming – as well as the UK and France, you will likely see an age verification window popup before you can access explicit material. North Dakota, Missouri and Arizona are expected in coming months, and my personal feeling is we will probably see it in some form across all US states and most of Europe within a year or so.

This isn’t a political post other than to say, the aim of these bills isn’t really to protect children but to stop porn. Device based age restrictions (where only an over 18 year old would be able to access adult content on phones, devices and computers) would be the easiest, and better option. Whether you are used to surfing porn for free, or paying for websites, patronizing cam sites or using OnlyFans or similar fan sites, you will be asked to age verify in these territories.

How does this affect Grooby as a company?
Age verification causes a chilling effect, where some people don’t want to use age verification through a misguided want to protect their privacy. As I’ll talk about in a minute, people have nothing to fear using a good adult verification service, and their privacy is not compromised more than what we already have on file with you as a credit card user.
We also have to pay for every verification we run. Grooby isn’t able to verify you, we have to use an approved age verification company and those costs add up fast.

We also lose our marketing avenues as free sites are unable to pay for age verification, and advertising sites gets blocked.

All of this affects our income, which we’ve seen drop month on month this year.

Every area of the adult industry is affected.

Fear Not. We use only the very best (and costliest) age verification, and for many of you if you have had the same email address for a substantial period of time, that may be all you need to verify. The other way you can get verified is by facial estimation. NOTE – estimation – not recognition. The difference being is that software is only estimating your age as an over-18 year old, not recognising you in any way or matching you to a name. Once you have passed the estimation, your photo is erased/deleted completely. You may also be asked to show your state ID – which will prove you age, and that will also get erased/deleted. No data on you is retained other than to say you are over 18, and you should only have to do it once.

The Knock-On Effect
We’re a company with very slim margins working in a niche product, so any new costs hurts our shooting budget, and both the age verification costs along with the chilling effect of less people joining, has already affected us. We’ve been looking at ways to mitigate this, and although we’ve not increased the price of the sites in a number of years, we don’t feel a price increase is the way to go, especially with the uncertainty in the US over the economy and people being wary on their spending. We have had to sadly lose a few staff members to meet the new budgets.
There may be some minor scheduling or content changes on some sites, as we try to make sure we can continue to deliver a product that is superb value for money, and still get as many trans women working in shoots as we can. We’re also look at the possibility of passing on the age verification fee (approx. $1.50) to persons in those states or countries which require age verification. I’d be interested in hearing feedback on what our members think.

What You Can Do Help?
First, don’t be afraid of age verification. This isn’t just in the adult industry, and there is nothing that will tie your face or ID back to our sites, it’s just verifying you age and then deleting your data. Consider please taking longer packages, or grooby.com/tickets/ which not only give you a cheaper monthly option, but by paying us up front it allows us to budget for the future better. Spread the word that age verification is here to stay, and it’s nothing to be afraid of.

We’re committed to riding this through, and I think we’ll see a better age verification system in the future (hopefully, Federal and device based) as it will become the norm, the same as two-factor authorisation has for many (when you get a text message or an email with a code to login to your bank, or utility account).

Please don’t start shouting or yelling at us. If you didn’t vote for your state government, then you know people who did and you can blame them. We’re just one small company, providing a great service to people who love to see stunning trans women, and to further platform the trans women that we work with.

Stay positive and optimistic – and please support what we do in anyway you can. If you have any questions about this contact us on customerservice@grooby.com or reply on this blog.

For more information on Age Verification in your state, please visit the Free Speech Coalition’s Stage Age Verification Laws