Honestly, the majority of developers don't really see this, from those I've spoken with, as well as those who are members here, as a "pirate forum". That doesn't mean there aren't those who classify it as such, but honestly about 80 percent of the developers out there don't really see it that way. Rather, they see it as advertisement. One of the more frustrating thing about Sex type games, is actually finding them. Patreon historically makes searching for any game difficult, and if you don't really know the exact set of key words that you need to input into whatever search engine you want; you're never going to find anything.
This site does something that Patreon doesn't allow, and while itch.io does, it's a heck of a lot easier and in some cases cheaper to use. As to what it does, the site compiles most every single game that's being produced at any given time, and it puts them in a place where a user can quickly poke through, showing every change the developer has made, every update, and gives some information about the game as well as links to that developer's pateron, or whatever "payment" site they use. So if a user wants to pay for a title's development, they can choose to do so.
Based soley off that, the site is less a pirate forum, as you assume, and more a repository. A place where games can be tried, inspected, and if a person wants to continue down the rabbit hole of the developer's site, they have the option to do so. It is not, however, a true pirate forum. Sure, it may have started as one, but things change, they evolve; and sadly, based purely off of some key differences with other 'pirate' sites... this doesn't fit that standard.
So what are the differences?
The most important is how every game here has some form of attribution to the developer. Where possible, there's a link to that developer's patreon, or sometimes multiple links to the various payment systems they use. True pirate sites don't care about the developers, and thus they don't link back to who produced whatever game is on offer, allowing users to pay for it if they wish.
The second most important difference is the simple fact that a large number of the developers are actively present here, and are active members of this community. While that does happen at some other sites, typically those are "take it down or we'll sue you" type of interactions. Not like here were the majority are the developers listening to the bugs, or errors people have found, and working to better a game. Even though the people here haven't paid whatever monthly fee the patreon users have.
The last major difference, is the lack of virus content injected into the games being offered. I know that sounds like I'm over-reacting, but the fact remains that with true "pirate" sites, somewhere around 50 to 60 percent of the games will contain a virus. Sometimes this is a false positive due to how cracks and such work. However some of those are actual malicious viruses being injected into users computers in an effort to steal information, steal passwords, or do general damage. The last point coming from developers themselves who seek to punish the people downloading their game. What better way to sour a person from stealing the game, than to make them suspect the site they stole it from damaged their computer?
In the end, while you have two camps here, one arguing "pirate site" as you did and others aruging something else... The fact remains that neither is right, and yet, neither is wrong. This place is something more than a piracy forum, but by the same token it's something less than a full on advertisement site. It falls into this gray area in this regard. Hence my classification of a "Repository". It's little better than a better implemented version of itch.io, with some piracy tendencies.
