I’m a medical tattoo artist who offers free 3D realistic nipple tattoos to people after breast cancer! I also started the uks first nipple tattoo charity - the nipple innovation project - to create a directory of approved nipple tattoo artists so anyone in need of the service can access it! Historically this service was offered in hospitals by surgeons after doing one day tattoo training - the nipples were non artistic and semi permanent so faded quite quickly causing psychological & physical damage. It’s so important to raise awareness of our free service as nipples are an underrated topic over sexualised by society so people don’t know what’s available to them! Myself, our artists and our registered charity constantly get images removed of our nipple tattoo work - obviously they look so real ;) but this has a huge impact on our accounts which we use to run our business or charity to offer our service! We work so hard to help give people confidence back after losing a big part of them to cancer and it feels like we are being punished for doing so!! It’s been going on 9 years and I’m exhausted, I just want to use my art to help people feel whole again it should not be this much of a battle!

Lucy Thompson

@lucy_nipple

@nipcharity

I'm a drawing artist, making graphite portraits of ancient classical gods - such as the Greek Goddess Aphrodite, who has appeared through all time with bare breasts. I'm greatly inspired by classical sculpture, where nudity was considered a sign of divinity. I promote and sell my work through social media, and was building a steady following, and even just about generating enough income to be a full time artist. As a solo mother, having this possibility for satisfying and beautiful work that fits around my childcare commitments is essential.

However three years or so ago, I started to get frequently pulled up on social media for sharing 'sexually explicit' work, or for 'sexual solicitation'. My reach dropped, as I had to contend with appealing these restrictions, which became an almost daily occurrence.

None of my work is pornographic. Some are simple nude drawings, which should be allowed, according to the community guidelines. Nevertheless, I tried censoring the works in various ways, but they were still flagged and my account was continually restricted. I paid for the 'blue tick' hoping that might help, but it did nothing. It seems as though my whole account has been flagged as pornographic somehow. My reach dropped, and my follower count has remained stagnant, at 13.8k for three years now.

Even images I post now with no nudity whatsoever are flagged as sexual. There seems to be no way around this. My career has suffered and I have had to take additional jobs, which means I can no longer draw as much. At my peak in 2021 I made 10 drawings in one year. Now I'm lucky if I do two. I have been careful NOT to do any more nudes, so the subject of my work has had to shift. It's crazy that an algorithm has dictated what art is acceptable and what is not, and has really ruined what seemed to be a promising and fulfilling career for me.

Red K Elders

@rkelders.art

In 2015, I started photographing some very brave and beautiful models for an NSPCC Anti Bullying Calendar. The calendar style saw the ladies posing either topless or naked with of course their modesty covered. It did however become extremely frustrating when I started doing the rounds of local businesses asking if they'd be happy to sell the calendars. That was it, a stone wall appeared as the questions started, 'can you actually see them topless' etc. My determination turned to sheer amazement when one afternoon, I went up to the reception desk in an office based business. The female manager came out to see me with the same concerns and politely refused. I then looked through the back of the reception into an office space where I saw, clear as day a male firefighter calendar hanging on the wall. Yep, you've guessed it, practically naked apart from the odd helmet and sledgehammer! I felt totally deflated and could not believe the double standards.

@magicmrp

My art is here to promote body positivity and bring joy to sexual liberation, while advocating for s3x worker rights and decriminalization. Instagram has shadow banned my account since its inception in 2020. Meta constantly restricts my accounts from posting content and direct messages, thus preventing me from working/making income from commissions and artwork sales. I feel Meta also has been targeting/removing my LGBTQ artworks predominantly, which is extremely disappointing and upsetting for me and my queer community. I’m based in San Francisco, and support all adult industry workers. My nonprofit organization, Safe Work Coaition (est. 2025) builds community and connects adult industry workers with resources in the Bay Area, California and Oregon, Nevada. Free the nip and free the world! #s3xworkisrealwork

@colorfulweird0

@safeworkcoalition

I am a cancer scientist by training, mother of a leukemia-survivor child and first European nipple tattoo artist trained to 3D nipple tattooing technique in the United States and to breast cancer reconstruction techniques by cancer plastic surgeons. I have developped my very own artistic hyper-realistic technique in 2017 to open in France The Tétons Tattoo Shop, the very first tattoo parlor 100% dedicated to self-esteem recovery after a mastectomy. Since that date, I have been shadowbanned and restricted in showing my work to the world and can hardly reach the people who are in need of my help. The pictures I am posting are showing the benefit of this technique to women and men harmed by cancer sequalae on their image. None of them is suggestive or appealing and all of them are respecting the publication rules of social medias. I am regularly blocked, i see my content being taken down and erasing my work is killing my very small company. I have seen my Facebook account deleted, appealed and got it restored but still being censored. My instagram backup account has been permanently crashed down. This is brutal, unfair and sad, and this invisibility of bodies damaged by cancer is another insult made to cancer survivors and those fighting for their recovery.

@alexia_cassar

I've been censored a lot in the time I've worked with nudity. In 2018 on a whim I found myself photographing fine art nudes in the desolate, alien landscapes of Iceland. The photos from that trip later won me first place in the Beautiful Bizarre photo awards. This proved to me that it was something worth pursuing and I spent the next 7 years traveling and working with art models in nature. My work has been banned from r/Art on Reddit - accompanied by hideous hateful remarks from a moderator. I've been banned from r/Photo and other subs as well. I was banned from VSCO and many other apps. I was even banned from Thumbtack because their platform specific boudoir offerings don't allow implied nudity, the most asinine policy I've ever heard.

On instagram I've battled countless restrictions, shadowbans, and removed posts. On twitter, despite the fact that they allow porn and wildly explicit content on their platform, they don't allow implied nudity in your page banner. I didn't know that, so they banned me. I spent months appealing over and over. One day they sent an email saying ""this is our final communication with you, you have been permanently banned and will no longer be able to appeal."" ...I then went to my account and was able to log in with no issue. Someone screwed up and seemingly un-banned my account after sending the final decision email. So that was a unique scenario.

At this point, I am so sick of the distorted views and interests of this culture. Platforms that do allow nudity are inundated with erotic, male-gaze type sexualized shoots. I'm not condemning these things, but I think my work is condemned when its forced to stand beside that kind of art. It would be like putting classical paintings on a porn site and saying ""well they don't have clothes on so its the same as the sex-workers obviously..."" Complete insanity. This is the perspective of most moderation and social media guideline teams.

Luckily there are some with clear minds and a grasp of art. But its few and far between.

Over the years, this type of relentless backlash and struggles just to share my work has lead me to a discouraged and defeated inner state. I sometimes see my work through the lens of society rather than what I'd intended to express. Something needs to change.

@soul.craft