The two life drawing sessions I attended at Lydia’s were some of my favorite ever.
I’m not a big life drawing person, since I did so very much of it at Parsons; I mostly prefer to draw naked people having sex or people with clothes.
However the sessions at Lydia’s with professional models E and L were very special.
You can see the previous one here; I had to move it from my SFW site. Lydia is now a professional tattoo artist! See E&L’s (now retired) modellinghere.
It’s such a pleasure to draw expert models, surrounded by fellow artists.
And yet, I couldn’t publish these drawings on my “regular” site, because they show naked people touching each other. So they languished, unavailable for you to download and frame and enjoy, for a year. Now that I have suzanneforbes.com set up with European hosting and registry, site security and age-gating, I can publish all the nude drawings I want. (Thank my husband for his hard work getting all this set up!)
If you’re confused about why even life drawing has become a liability for US internet platforms, you can read here about the chilling effect of the new laws known as SESTA-FOSTA.
I’m working on crowdfunding for this site; meanwhile, if you see me around town you can always hand me a euro or buy me a non-alcoholic beverage!
Liliana Velasquez at Violet Variete Benefit for Berlin Bruisers by Suzanne Forbes April 10 2019
This page at Onlinecensorship.org tells you how to appeal if you’ve been censored or shut down on Facebook, Insta, etc.
EFF has a new project called TOSsed Out. It shines a light on cases of people deplatformed for so-called Terms of Service violations. The basics on it.
New as of Jan 20: The group Hacking//Hustling has a terrific resource page to help adult content creators handle shutdowns, doxxing, security and more.
NEW as of Dec 5 ’19: An EXTREMELY clear and helpful post from Hoss, explaining a lot of the basics of how all this works plus a huge amount of detail on Facebook/Insta/WhatsApp “Community Standards”, i.e. what will get you banned.
OUR Community Standards, a show and statement from the Tom of Finland Foundation for the annual ToFF Art Fair.
Alternatives to OnlyFans, from before OnlyFans was bought by MyFreeCams. As of today, June 22 2019, you CAN put adult content on OnlyFans. You must check a box stating you intend to upload pornography. Along with your legal name, country of residence and bank account.
Adult performers picketed Instagram to protest content policy. This piece includes the story of famous fine artist Betty Tompkins being kicked off Insta.
Them magazine on how sexuality in online spaces has become whiter, straighter and thinner. Good breakdown of how corporate platforms self-censor and governments become more repressive. Includes the UK Digital Economy Act, which affects porn in a range of ways, including an age-verification system. Although that has now been delayed til 2020.
Liberapay, a payment donation platform, which doesn’t exactly allow porn, but doesn’t exactly not, and is based in France.
For the latest on censorship and the fight, I follow young sw Liara Roux. She has a SFW twitter, an XXX twitter, a Patreon (for now,until Patreon shuts down all adult accounts) and of course, her own platform.
I just joined Mastodon, the federated social media thing, on Switter – which is the sex-worker-friendly instance! Find me here: @suzanneforbes@switter.at
Here’s my screed on the value of owning your own platform:
Own Your Platform, Own Your Fans.
A platform is a piece of technology (software + servers) that lets you publish content to the internet.
Platforms can be owned by corporations (they pay server costs, your content/data is their product) or by you.
In order to Own Your Platform, you must:
Own your domain name and know what nation it is registered in.
Pay for your own hosting of your website on servers, and know what nation the service you buy hosting from is headquartered in.
To Own Your Fans, you need to be able to connect with your fans outside of a platform owned by corporations. Corporations can and will always throttle your access to your fans. A mailing list is your biggest asset. But your newsletters must comply with the TOS of the mailservice you use, and the laws of the nations your fans are in.
Using a corporate platform like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter is like renting a shop on a busy street in a busy part of town. The corporation can cover the front of your shop with a dropcloth and set up a barricade to redirect your fans away from your street whenever they want. They can even evict you with no notice whatsoever.
Owning your own domain and paying your own hosting is like owning a piece of land in outer space, light-years from your fans. Except, the mailman comes and goes ten million times a day, and mailing is free, and your fans can visit you in milliseconds. You can build whatever kind of house you want on your land.
When you own your domain, you have a permanent address where your fans can always find you.As an artist I will always link to creators’ own domains first, then add social platforms. That way anyone who wants to reach the creator from my page will click first on the site the creator has the most control over. And if the social links go dead when an account is deleted, the creator’s website is still there.
Cherish your mailing list.
If you lose your social platform, your own domain or your hosting, temporarily or longterm, an email to fans to let them know can be extremely reassuring. You can let them know where to find you again.
The two life drawing sessions I attended at Lydia’s were some of my favorite ever.
However the sessions at Lydia’s with professional models E and L were very special.
It’s such a pleasure to draw expert models, surrounded by fellow artists.
Adult performers 
For the latest on censorship and the fight, I follow young sw Liara Roux. She has a SFW