These Sex Worker Artists Are Hosting a Self-Destructing Online Art Show

Dubbed E-Viction, the "virtual arthouse/whore gallery for sex workers, clients, artists, and allies" will feature chat rooms, an interactive peepshow combining art and sex with the help of 16 sex workers and artists, as well as an online store selling original pieces and sex icons. However, if you're interested in checking E-Viction out, act fast because the site will only be live for 12 hours before self-destructing at midnight — a move that is reflective of the censorship sex workers face online.

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That said, it's more than just another art show, as E-Viction will also serve as a protest against digital gentrification, per curators Empress Wu, Niko Flux, and Sybil Fury.

A "direct response to our urgent need for a digital public sphere and the challenges of sex worker survival in COVID-19," the show aims to create an online platform for civil disobedience while spotlighting the current conundrum faced by many sex workers who've been forced online due to COVID-19, especially since they still have to grapple with the difficulties presented by targeted legislation such as SESTA/FOSTA.

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🌹DEAREST WH0RES, TRICKS, and CURIOUS ONLOOKERS 🌹 Veil Machine would like to cordially invite you to: ✨E-VICTION, a digital arthouse wh0re gallery + digital protest platform. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 🗓WHEN: August 21, 2020, 12 pm- 12 am EST 📌WHERE: E-viction.net 💵 COST: free to enter but donations welcome. Have your CashApp and Venmo ready to tip performers for b00bs, intrigue, and art. We’ll also have an E-banned shop where you can purchase original art and sex objects. 💥WHAT: E-Viction will exist as a virtual arthouse / whore gallery for 12-hours before self-destructing. Log on during that time and be seduced by our virtual peepshow where you’ll have intimate encounters with sex workers and artists making art and sex live on cam. Scroll through performers’ ads, shop art and sex objects, learn about legislation that threatens sex workers and free speech online, join raunchy chat rooms, and RESIST digital gentrification. But be sure to tune in before it’s all gone at midnight. <E-Viction is the only de-platforming you can prepare for in advance.> WHY: In the midst of this global health crisis, most sex workers must work, gather, and organize online despite being targets of pervasive surveillance and deplatforming. By engaging on a platform that violates SESTA/FOSTA, visitors and performers alike will engage in a new form of civil disobedience. 💄Performers for the event include cherubirl @tittyglow.jpeg, Darla deVour @messydarla , Empress Wu @thebitchempress_, Heidi Darveaux@hailheidi, Isis, JEVX, Lilith @evashedemon, Minxy Lopez, (m)Other @obeyyourm0ther, and Squiggles.and.Sluts. @squiggles.and.sluts E-Viction is produced as part of @eyebeamnyc's Rapid Response for a Digital Future and supported by Kink Out Events @kinkoutevents . . Graphics by @renal.artery #eviction2020 #eyebeamRR #rightsnotraids #sexworkisart

A post shared by Empress Wu (@thebitchempress_) on Jul 24, 2020 at 7:06am PDT

Not only that, but further highlighting the appalling online treatment of sex workers is the fact that E-Viction's Instagram has already been threatened with deletion, despite the only "nudity" being pixelated graphics and a PG photo of one performer — though organizers say "it's not a coincidence" that the performer in question was Black.

Needless to say as situations like this illustrate, these platforms that advocate for and amplify the voices of sex workers who are trying to create a safe space for themselves in a post-SESTA/FOSTA world are more important than ever now.

"In challenging the world as it is, E-Viction imagines the world as it could be. E-Viction will allow both sex workers and allies to experience what the internet could be once SESTA/FOSTA is overturned," as Sybil Fury explained. "When E-Viction self-destructs at midnight we want you to feel the sadness of its loss. We want you to feel a taste of how we feel when our creative work, our income, and our community gathering spaces are taken from us without warning, due to the arbitrary intervention of sexist, racist, homophobic algorithms. And hopefully that loss will inspire action."

E-Viction goes live at 12 pm ET on Friday, August 21 at www.e-viction.net.

Photo courtesy of E-Viction