The Nude Crusade
If you're a recurring visitor of this blog & website, I bet you're familiar with the Nude Crusade. People on social media may have seen me use the #NudeCrusade hashtag before. I even mention it on Discord servers I'm part of! No further explanation.
Yeah but what is the Nude Crusade, Shesvii?
In my blog entry Sick of Censorship I mention this bit of Nude Crusade context:
Years ago a friend of mine (AWS) wouldn't stop having issues with Webtoon because the comic he posted featured artistic nudity. It wasn't erotic, it wasn't sexual, just people chilling naked on a paradisiacal field. At the same time, I was having issues with Art Amino's bot striking me for posting bare chest PG13 women and Instagram shadowbanning me for the same reason. Because of this, my friend coined the term "Nude Crusade". From that moment on, we decided we'd rebel against this misogynistic censorship that equals women's bodies to filthy porn. We sheltered in smaller communities that will not censor our artistic creativity, mainly welcoming Discord servers, Patreon and our own websites. This allowed us to rediscover the joy of creating what we like without restricting ourselves: we realised we were unconsciously limiting and censoring what we created in order for it to be "social media post material".
So that's basically the origins of this humble but steady fight against the current puritanical panorama.
At some point, the squeamish boob fearing crowd even came after me on DeviantArt... Yeah, DeviantArt of all sites. The frustration took over me and I decided to do something oddly rebellious:
Yep, I made an OnlyFans account for shits and giggles! It wasn't long-lived even though it will lives in my heart forever.
For those who don't know, the Vienna Museum of Art displayed their paintings on OnlyFans as a protest against censorship. You could look at paintings and photos that featured nudity and would get a free ticket for the museum as well. That move the Kunstmuseum pulled was genius. I thought to myself that was the best was to protest against today's ridiculously prude standards of social media towards nudity in art and platforms' ongoing censorship of its art museums, galleries and artists.
So I did the same.
My OnlyFans page didn't last long due to the constant spam I received but it sent a clear message: there's no place for nude art on the internet anymore so we're forced to use platforms with a questionable reputation. Some followers on Instagram were shocked when they discovered I made an OnlyFans, however the vast majority of mutuals were artists who instantly got the joke and protest motivation behind it.
After getting in trouble with many platforms for posting 2D watercolour boobs, I began censoring for Instagram & DeviantArt because big platforms are outright hostile to nudity. Even when I properly tagged and labeled a work as Mature Content on DeviantArt, it got me in trouble so I decided to cover & crop. I would only post uncensored art on Patreon and Discord. Oh and my website here.
The Boob Wars, the ancestor of the Nude Crusade, saw me and my friends fight against Art Amino and the Team Amino bot nonsensical flagging of harmless artistic nudity. Their Terms of Service & Guidelines allowed artistic nudity but the bot would take everything down and strike (mute for 24 hours) or ban the artist.
And of course there is a follow up:
I'm sure this feeling of being censored is something most artists can relate to. We've all felt forced to cover, crop, edit or adapt our art in order for it to fit today's social media's standards.
This is directly linked to our current hypersexualised society getting more and more puritanical. Paradoxical much, I know, but bear with me. It's getting puritanical because skin and nudity are becoming associated with sex no matter the context, that is undoubtedly true. Skin equals pornography while at the same time everything is hypersexualised, especially minors. They're not mutually exclusive, in fact the latter is the consequence of the former. Sex and sin are insinuated everywhere rather than flesh and skin being explicitly shown for what they are (natural), so people's minds instantly associate the forbidden hidden bodies with dirty little secrets.
Everything is porn or dirty by society's standards which means people's minds are constantly sexualising stuff for them to consider them dirty.
Everything is sexualised but god forbid we see a nipple. If you wear a crop top they call you a whore. You can't even type certain words on socials nowadays, gotta write "p3nīs" or "b00bz" to avoid punishment. That's puritan views.
The Nude Crusade rejects these imposed views and embraces nudity for what it is: a natural and neutral state of the human body. If you're here you're officially one of us. Let the Nude Crusade save your soul from puritanism!
"Welcome, brethren, to the Ordo Templi Mammarius" AWS, Lord of Thiccianity
What are the principles of the Nude Crusade?
I. Female breasts are not inherently sexual.
II. Those who associate nudity with sexualisation are socially regressive idiots.
III. Contrary to what they claim, nudity in art won't corrupt innocent souls.
IV. Sexualising women for corporate interests is okay for them though. Everything for the dollar.
V. Artistic nudity exists and it's PG and suitable for children.
VI. On the opposite side of the spectrum, fully clothed figures can be depicted in 18+ sexualised ways.
VII. Porn-rot is turning everyone into a prude: only the Nude Crusade can free you from this pandemic.
VIII. Say the words, don't censor speech. Proper education can't exist if vocabulary and images are being censored: children will resort to porn or other inaccurate and unhealthy means to educate themselves about bodies and sexuality.
IX. Artistic freedom is not debatable. If naked bodies offend you, it's your responsibility to avoid that content not the artists' to protect you from it.
X. Nudity by itself is natural and devoid of message. It's the artwork's context and intention of the artist the one giving it an ulterior purpose.
Thank you very much for reading. Consider joining the Nude Crusade... Maybe? 🤔
