Lesserspace

What we can and can’t show

A short, honest note about the kind of work our galleries and shops can carry, and why some of it we can’t.

The short version

General artwork publishes freely. Artistic nudity gets a quick human look before it goes public, and in most cases it can be shown. Explicit or pornographic work we simply cannot host or sell here. That last line is not a taste judgment, it is a rule we are bound by, and here is exactly why.

Why explicit work can’t be here

Your storefront doesn’t stand alone. It runs on payment and marketplace networks that every artist on Lesserspace shares, and those networks each prohibit sexually explicit content:

• Stripe powers checkout. Its rules list adult and sexually explicit content among the businesses it will not process. If it appears in our shop, Stripe can freeze payouts for everyone.
• Etsy prohibits pornography, and eBay restricts adult content. We list work into these shared marketplaces on your behalf.
• Because these accounts are shared infrastructure, a single explicit listing puts every artist’s storefront at risk of suspension, not just the one piece.

So when a piece is held for this reason, it is protecting the whole community’s ability to keep selling. It is never a comment on the merit of your work.

Artistic nudity

Nudity in art is not the same as explicit content, and we treat it that way. A piece with a nude or sensual figure is reviewed by a person, and where the shared rules allow, it is shown. If it can’t be sold through the payment networks, we’ll still do our best to display it where the rules permit.