I often encounter a strange attitude among people and organizations, who can’t distinguish between nude photography and sex. In their opinion, both are evil and should be banished or limited to adults only. In my opinion, there is a great difference between the two. I suppose that the only common thing between them is, that to be able to have sex you need to be (partly) naked. Furthermore, we should be very thankful for the existence of sex, because if it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be on this world, and wouldn’t have wonderful children and grandchildren.

I presume that many people who object to nudity have a problem more with themselves than with nudity. Nudity is pure and honest, as long as we look at it from the esthetical side. Nevertheless, I do respect the objections of those who don’t want to be confronted with it. Therefore, I create my artistic nude projects far from people’s eyes: in a closed studio, on outside locations, or in nature. I am aware that outside or in nature unexpected or unwanted encounters can happen (unexpected visitors). For this reason, I ensure that most models are equipped with a cloth to cover themselves when needed.

The problem with social-media platform YouTube is worse. I have been uploading my art videos there since 2010. Because of the requirements of YouTube, which is owned by Google, I mark my videos mostly as age-restricted. This means that people need to login to Google and ascertain that they are 18 years or older, to be able to even watch my works. Nevertheless, with some frequency, YouTube deletes my videos, allegedly because they violate their rules. Meaning, the videos show nudity.

The most recent case is my video Populus logs, which despite already being age-restricted, was deleted four times by YouTube in the past two weeks. I’ve appealed every time, the video has been reinstated three times, but I’m still waiting for a response to my last appeal. Can anyone understand this? I can’t. Moreover, because YouTube repeatedly gives me warnings about my videos, there is a risk that they will at some point delete my entire art channel.

As you may imagine I would rather use my time to create new artworks than to fight the inscrutable giant YouTube. My videos have received almost 20 million views, which benefits the platform but which does not generate income for me to fund my art. Why? As you may guess, YouTube does not allow advertisements on videos with nudity.

I want to ensure that social media platforms respect nudity in art, and not resort to censorship. Therefore I support the WeTheNipple campaign by the American National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).

Would you like to support my ability to publish my art on social media platforms, then please tweet, post, publish or otherwise share #wethenipple and #artnotsex.