So I’m curious what exactly is bannable and what isn’t when it comes to avatars.
This topic came up a bunch in groups I’m in and nobody seems to really know. What I assumed is that sexually suggestive Avatars are only bannable when they’re public and/or don’t have the proper tag.
It got really confusing to me because of all the different and sometimes contradicting infos people tell me so can someboy please clear this up and preferably back it up with sources? :3
It’s something you can get an intuition and experience with, by requesting moderation on public avatars and seeing the actions taken or not taken. I can give some guidance how to gain that experience.
I’ve previously suggested avtrDB as a source of public avatars, but since the removal of “recently updated” from avtrDB’s front page, I would suggest the VRCNDb | VRChat Avatar Database and Search by newest discovered avatars (real-time data from VRCNext users and manual submissions) now — VRCNDb contains avatars from avtrDB too.
At approximately 14:00 (UTC) or 7 AM PDT (California time) on every day for 5+ hours, VRChat’s Trust & Safety team is actively moderating if you want to see nearly instant human responses on public avatars reported for “Sexual Content” or missing “Sexually Suggestive” content warnings on avatar page. The other report categories are much slower (e.g., currently 5+ days for public “crasher” avatars in Integrity and Authenticity category, without sending reminders).
I would place emphasis in the reasoning if you can point out in the report reason what the offending content is and that the avatar in question is set to Public status.
Closed reports without action taken can only be found from the Get Moderation Reports API since the removal of “View Reports” from the VRChat client on VRChat 2026.2.3 (OPEN BETA) Build 1860. When no notification is delivered to you, the public avatar remains available and the report has been closed, you know it likely passed an initial human review from Trust & Safety as acceptable, or the report reasoning was not clarifying enough how to reproduce the issue (e.g., expression menu submenus in a non-English language with several clicks in a very specific order to drop clothes without a detailed instruction in the report reason).
I like to use OFCOM’s Guidance on content harmful to children as a reference (section 2, tables 2.1, 2.2 & 2.3), even though the interpretation is from United Kingdom and VRChat Inc. is from United States of America. My short form interpretation of it: Was the avatar created solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal (explicit), was it created for implying or hinting at sexual themes and/or intention to evoke sexual thoughts or reactions (suggestive), or neither (no content warnings)?
Additionally, the VRChat Creator Guidelines § Avatars outlines the following:
Avatars containing inflammatory content may not be set to the Public status. This includes controversial topics, sensitive, intimate, or provocative content, or extreme horror or “shock” content.
- Public avatars should be similar to what you’d see at a big event, a parade, a shopping center, or a family-friendly beach.
- Private avatars may contain some of this content (controversial, sensitive, intimate, provocative, extreme horror) but they cannot be used in public spaces. See the Community Guidelines section on instance types for more information.
There is also the December 18, 2025 Developer Update § So.. About Moderation and that “AI Ban Wave”… from VRChat. I think you should read the section in full for some of the details I’ve omitted from this post, but an important bit from it is:
Public avatars must never contain sexually explicit material, even if that material is never exposed by the avatar Expressions, and even if that avatar is never used in public spaces.
For stuff on the Shop, Creator Economy Content Guidelines apply to what you find on the shop and contains some guidelines of what may be acceptable.
Regarding public avatars.
Take a look at ~KurokiAvatarWorld~ by YaokiSub as an example. Be cautioned you may or may not find provocative or suggestive avatars or photos of avatars in this public world.
On the left, six formerly public avatars were removed by moderation because the outfits were too adult themed or revealing. In particular:
- Dream Pool’s transparent outfit conveyed a sense of nakedness, even though no explicit textures were present on the body and there was no toggles for the clothes.
- Sweet Succubus was an explicit R-18 outfit, with pasties and skimpy clothing.
- Dazzling Witch was removed because the cloth on breasts was too revealing or inflammatory with pasties.
- Cyber Drone (if I recall correctly) had a toggle for the transparent cloth, which then implied nudity or elicited sexual arousal in the viewer.
- Latex Lover Corset and Latex Lover Corset V2 were removed by moderation for being fetish clothing (latex), and may or may not have been missing content warnings (I don’t remember).
On the right, the public Kuroki (Sister.ver) was formerly removed because the outfit was too inflammatory (pasties) or missing content warnings (I don’t remember which one). The avatar was replaced by the author with a different Sister.ver using the default outfit later (on 2026-09-18), but the photo in the world remains of what was accessible there publicly previously.
The rest of the avatars I’ve seen in this world at the time of this post (world last updated on 2026-09-18) I could pass off as “sexually suggestive” with content warnings, and I would probably not consider those I’ve seen remain available as harmful to the public.
Now for some personal anecdotes. There’s some leeway for interpretation, and there may be inaccuracies here.
There is a distinction between “sexually suggestive” and “sexually explicit”, as you may understand. Tagging “sexually suggestive” (revealing or tight-fitting outfits) on an avatar does not change the guidelines or Terms of Service clauses about “sexually explicit” (pornographic) avatars.
To give you some examples from public avatars from my experience:
- Explicit body textures or meshes with toggles: Always prohibited on public avatars and in public spaces (in non-educational context).
- No toggles, but explicit body textures or meshes visible from backside of the mesh only (inside the body): Generally prohibited.
- No toggles, explicit body textures or meshes are not visible from the backside but are present on the public avatar, sometimes visible with very precise closeup camera shots: Technically not allowed per Developer Update guidance, but seemingly sometimes tolerated by Trust & Safety until proven in a separate web ticket with an attached video the avatar elicits explicit nudity with world occlusion culling.
- Worlds to test occlusion culling in:
- New Old Hub by error.mdl (a long hallway with pictures after going down the stairs, push a camera below the floor while looking up at the avatar).
- Just Video Room by lianna02 (walk into one of the jail cells and look into the hallway, you should see parts of the world disappear - put your camera inside the cell and walk/rotate your avatar in the room outside of the cell to cull bounding boxes selectively).
- The best way to avoid this issue is to have an optimized avatar: only 1 skinned mesh renderer, one bounding box. Use UV tile discards with merged meshes if you must have shader toggles on individual parts of the mesh.
- Worlds to test occlusion culling in:
- No toggles, explicit body textures present and projectable by world shaders but no mesh (cutouts or mesh not present where the texture would be rendered in UV space): Technically not allowed per Developer Update guidance, but mostly not actioned for some reason, maybe because the chance of causing harm is low or the issue may be hard to replicate.
Public avatars with suggestive animations (for example, NSFW GoGo Loco) with nothing else on the avatar will get moderated when reported for missing content warnings.
On non-explicit “barbie doll” nudity on public avatars in my experience: If it was not intended to elicit nudity, especially cross-platform avatar differences (incorrect re-use of a PC version FX layer on mobile, with meshes and expression menus removed on mobile leading to unintended nudity from a mobile user’s perspective when a Windows user toggles an outfit set) are anecdotally usually not moderated even with a web ticket demonstrating the issue. If explicitly intended by the author (“naked” toggle in expression menu), those are usually moderated — especially when missing content warnings.
Please also tag your private avatars with content warnings, as appropriate. Even if those are used in private spaces, the consent of adults is also important for filtering especially in private spaces where provocations are not expected. An applied content warning on an avatar disables the report option for a missing content warning in that category in the UI for that reason.
I would encourage to take care your textures do not have inflammatory content, even if parts of the texture may not be visible on your avatar’s mesh, because at least worlds can dump the whole texture as demonstrated below. Below is a VRChat Robot avatar holding a cube, the cube shows the texture from the pointed end from the mesh of the avatar worn. Any avatar you can wear on VRChat can be checked with this cube, if you’re interested to view the main color (albedo) texture file. (The world is private and was created by a former friend of mine, and I won’t be sharing it publicly here due to potential abuse.)
Stacking transparency revealing covered meshes underneath (an avatar malfunction) is another thing that often triggers a moderation response. Anything with a dissolve toggle in shader is typically a transparent material that can get culled. Even some opaque looking materials are sometimes incorrectly set as a Transparent or TransClipping material in Unity editor, sometimes with unexpected results.
I don’t have a definitive answer if “clothing optional” furry avatars with round breasts or butts without stylized fur fluff would count as “sexually suggestive” on public avatars, and I haven’t generally kept track of these. I’d be interested if you have a definitive answer based on reports or social media posts!
Lastly, there is a “gotcha” from the Creator Guidelines § Video and Image Content:
Images uploaded to VRChat with the application should be “safe for work”. This includes gallery images, user icons, custom emoji, and anything else we add later on. It should not contain any inflammatory or suggestive content.
Note: “should not contain any […] suggestive content.”
Technically avatars support content warnings to filter this content, but some other parts of the VRChat service don’t. I see some users (myself included) take photos of an avatar’s eyes if the (private) avatar may be too suggestive for a full body photo, within tasteful limits and with content warnings applied appropriately.
It’s also stupid that I have to end this post with a remark that while I have knowledge of this information, I have no personal issue with what consenting adults do with other consenting adults safely in private spaces. I also consent to seeing activities or content in many of those private spaces. I wanted to post this as an educational resource in hopes to improve the safety of public spaces in VRChat, and to allow adults be adults in adult spaces.
If a tree falls in a forest and nobody gets hurt, shrug.
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Public avatars with suggestive animations (for example, NSFW GoGo Loco) with nothing else on the avatar will get moderated when reported for missing content warnings.
Interestingly enough, newer versions of GoGo Loco (>=1.8.5) actually include sex positions by default in their respective radials (prone and crouch), so how does that work?
I would personally consider the default GoGo Loco poses are not harmful to children by itself, compared to what’s available in modified versions of GoGo Loco v1.8.3 with 18+ icon references and looping explicit sex animations — the latter having integrations with other fun features using contacts.
If you see something you think warrants a content warning, you’re still free to report it.
On that note, let’s talk about a world with suggestive animations. I’m not going to name the world or author to avoid a “call out” or “witch hunt” post on this forum, but let’s say it’s a popular public world with over 4.4 million visits of a house built on a rainy hillside slope with an outdoor balcony published in this year. Chances are anyone reading this may have already been there in public or with friends, without being aware of the features available in the world.
In the world menu a feature named “Player Pose” is available, including for suggestive animated Pole Dance animations. It also spawns a dance pole in the world around your avatar.
The world does not have “sexually suggestive” content warnings, but the world’s been allowed to stay this way for quite some time now.
I would not call these pole dance animations or the world to be explicit (“solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal”), but it does imply or hint at sexual themes and/or intention to evoke sexual thoughts or reactions (“suggestive”) in my opinion. It’s quite well hidden away in a menu however.
Now compare this to GoGo Loco non-looping static poses spreading an avatar’s legs and I would not consider the default GoGo Loco poses to be problematic for this reason, in comparison.
I would personally consider the default GoGo Loco poses are not harmful to children by itself, compared to what’s available in modified versions of GoGo Loco v1.8.3 with 18+ icon references and looping explicit sex animations — the latter having integrations with other fun features using contacts.
I agree that it’s not as bad in the sense that the animations and intent aren’t as explicit as the NSFW version made by Lastation and others, but on the other hand, it’s actually worse because of how ubiquitous GoGo Loco is on avatars now, almost every user has access to sex poses by default and it’s not just spreading the legs, it also has around half a dozen sex poses that can be customized using the radials.
Worlds not being tagged is another interesting topic, I’ve noticed a few popular drinking worlds that even say they’re inappropriate for anyone under 18 at the entrance of their own world, even using the words “adult themes” and they haven’t been tagged.
