Two weeks ago, I was notified that one of my listings was removed for violating the adult items policy. This listing was for the Tali Zorah Body Pillow Case that you can find from Bioware Gear's website. Depicted is an alien woman, fully clothed, without an inch of skin showing. There is nothing adult about this item, especially when compared to eBay's restricted adult items policy.
- Modeled clothing that is see-through or very tight and shows human genitalia, the anus, or the nipple/areola of female breasts
Nothing about the depiction violates this rule. There are no human genitalia, the anus, or the nipple/areola of female breasts showing. There is no sexual contact. There is no sexual activity.
In fact, the lore of the character is that she has to wear a full body suit because her alien race has weak immune systems and cannot be exposed to outside . In the game, you never even see her face in-person; the closest thing is a badly photoshopped photo portrait sitting next to a bed. For all intents and purposes, the character depicted on the pillow could be a robot and no one would be none the wiser.
Despite multiple attempts at trying to convince eBay representatives that there was nothing adult about my item, they were unable to do anything about the listing removal even when none of the many, many agents I spoke to were unable to identify why the item was considered an adult item. Even when there are other listings for the same exact item that are still up for sale on eBay at the time of this post.
I found a post on the /r/dakimakuras subreddit titled "Anime Pillows are no longer allowed on eBay". In the screenshots, the eBay representative stated clearly, without ambiguity, that anime on pillows is sexual content, even if the anime on the pillow depicts fully clothed people.
This led me down a rabbit hole about eBay's policy toward body pillow cases with characters on them. Here are the observations I made:
Observation #1: My listing was removed for being an adult item when none of eBay's representatives could explain why. Because I did not want my competition selling the item when I could not, I also reported their listings for the Tali Zorah Body Pillow Case. It has been 2 weeks and their listings are still available for sale.
Logical conclusion: The rules don't apply to everyone, especially when it is in regards to an item they consider to be adult content without ambiguity. If the rules do not apply to everyone, then eBay can simply destroy any seller at-will by falsely claiming that any of their items constitutes adult content, without due process.
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Observation #2: The vast majority of body pillows still listed are from China. Any body pillow case being sold out of Chinese is almost guaranteed to be a bootleg or nonofficial .
Logical conclusion: Again, the rules don't apply to everyone. Anime body pillow cases are sexual content, except apparently when it is being sold by someone in China.
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Observation #3: I had another body pillow case from Bioware Gear of Garrus, a male alien character who like Tali Zorah is also from Mass Effect. This item was NOT removed at the same time as my Tali pillow, but I have since deleted it to proactively protect my account against further arbitrary aggression from eBay. Keep in mind that these are both literally NON-HUMAN characters.
Observation #3.5: The vast majority of body pillow cases that are still listed are of male characters, and not female characters. For every 1 female character body pillow case listed, there are 10 or more male character body pillow cases.
Logical conclusion: If eBay considers all anime on pillows to be sexual content even when the character is fully clothed, then this clear imbalance of the sexes shows that eBay must be okay with the sexualization of males, and only considers the sexualization of females to be unacceptable. A double standard when it applies to sex/gender aka sexism.
Suffice to say, I am disappointed by this institutionalized discrimination. Either eBay applies the rules to everyone regardless of seller region, as well as whether the anime on the pillow is of a man or woman, or eBay should stop its crusade against anime body pillow cases.
