Why erotica apps keep vanishing from the app stores

Every strange thing about erotica apps starts here. Why the screenshots show a woman holding a phone instead of anything in the story. Why the app on your phone is a shell and the explicit part lives on a website. Why an app you paid for disappears one morning and takes your library with it. The rules below are the reason, and both companies publish them.

What Apple forbids

App Store Review Guideline 1.1.4 bans "overtly sexual or pornographic material", which Apple defines as "explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings". It is a broad sentence and it is applied unevenly, which is the single biggest source of uncertainty for anyone publishing in this category.

Guideline 1.2 covers apps built on content other people upload. Apple's wording is blunt: apps with user-generated content "that end up being used primarily for pornographic content ... do not belong on the App Store and may be removed without notice". The same guideline leaves one narrow route open. An app showing content from a web service "may display incidental mature 'NSFW' content, provided that the content is hidden by default and only displayed when the user turns it on via your website".

Read that last clause again, because it explains a pattern you have probably run into. The switch has to be on the website, not in the app. That is why several services make you log in through a browser to see anything explicit, and why the setting you are looking for is never where you expect it.

Why the store screenshots are so tame

Guideline 2.3.8 says metadata "should be appropriate for all audiences, so make sure your app and in-app purchase icons, screenshots, and previews adhere to a 4+ age rating even if your app is rated higher". An erotica app rated 17+ still has to advertise itself as though children were browsing. The result is a store page that tells you almost nothing about the product, which is one reason this site exists.

What Google forbids, and the exception that matters

Google Play's inappropriate content policy is just as direct: "We don't allow apps that contain or promote sexual content or profanity, including pornography", and it bans "any content or services intended to be sexually gratifying".

Then comes the exception that the whole reading category stands on. A book or video catalogue app may distribute titles with sexual content when three conditions hold: "Book/video titles with sexual content represent a minor fraction of the app's overall catalog", "The app does not actively promote book/video titles with sexual content", and "The app protects minors by restricting access to book/video titles containing sexual content".

That is why the serial-fiction apps bury their steamiest shelves, and why a catalogue stuffed only with erotica is in a much weaker position than a general library with an erotica section. Google also allows an app to be limited to one region: it "may be available to users in that region, but will remain unavailable to users in other regions", which is why an app your friend abroad recommends sometimes cannot be found at all.

Age ratings and blocking minors

Google requires every developer to fill in a rating questionnaire: "To receive a rating for each of your apps and games, fill out a rating questionnaire in Google Play Console." Sexual content lands high. The ESRB rating "Adults Only 18+" is defined as "Content suitable only for adults ages 18 and up" and may include "graphic sexual content", while the Mature rating is "generally suitable for ages 17 and up" and may contain "sexual content".

A developer can also set the app to adults only and switch on Restrict Minor Access, after which Google enforces it: "users determined to be under 18 will not be able to search for, download or purchase the app". Google decides who that is from the age on the Google Account or when its systems indicate someone may be under 18. People who already installed the app keep using it, but cannot renew a subscription or buy anything new.

Apple's version is lighter. Guideline 1.2.1(a) asks creator apps to "use an age restriction mechanism based on verified or declared age", and declared age means what it sounds like. Whatever these checks are worth, they are the industry's answer, and they are the reason your date of birth matters more to these apps than it probably should.

Two rules that are worth money to you

The second is about subscriptions. Guideline 3.1.2(a) requires that a subscription "must last at least seven days and be available across all of the user's devices", and 3.1.2(c) that "before asking a customer to subscribe, you should clearly describe what the user will get for the price". Apple also says apps that "trick users into purchasing a subscription under false pretenses" are removed. A weekly plan that only works on one device is not within the rules.

What this means when you pick an app

1. Treat the store listing as marketing with its hands tied. It cannot show you the product, so judge the app on its own website instead.
2. If a service keeps the explicit setting on its website, expect to sign in through a browser at least once. That is the rule, not a bug.
3. Check where you bought your coins. On iOS they cannot be made to expire.
4. Before paying, find the cancellation route. A store subscription is cancelled in the store, not in the app, and the app usually will not say so.
5. If an app has vanished, look for the same company's website. The library often survives there even when the app does not.

More of the mechanics, with the numbers, are in the rest of the guides.