Why I Took My More Daring Drawings Off Instagram

For the longest time, Instagram was my main window to the world – the place I shared my art, connected with models, and measured how well my work was received.

Every once in a while, people ask me: How do you not get your posts flagged?
To outsiders, it seems like I get away with things they can’t – I was posting realistic revealing figure drawings that sometimes “looked like a photo.”
But the truth is: I’ve had stories and posts removed in the past year.
Every time it happened, my heart sank.
Sometimes they were restored, and I slowly regained my sanity. But when they weren’t – I started hearing that voice in my head: “Watch out. What you thought you could get away with was actually removed. You don’t want another post taken down, do you? You don’t want to start blurring and censoring your drawings.”

So I began walking a thin line. Planning posts ahead. Trying to guess what might be too provocative for IG – for the algorithm, for the audience, for an occasional human moderator.
I received incredible, inspiring references from my muse and other models – but some felt too raw, too explicit, too suggestive. And I kept asking myself: If I can’t share it on IG, is it even worth drawing?

So I decided to try Reddit. I opened an account (with a slightly weird username – I accidentally misspelled embodiedart so now it’s emobodiedart) and started uploading some older popular work.
To my surprise, it did well – especially for a fresh account with no followers.
But that wasn’t even the point.

My real motivation was to finally post the drawings I wanted to make, without second-guessing them.
Last Sunday, instead of doing my regular IG post, I uploaded my first Reddit-only explicit drawing.
And the response was validating – not just because of the upvotes or the comments, but because it reminded me: There are spaces for this kind of work, where it doesn’t have to apologize for itself.

So for now, my more daring drawings will live over there.
It doesn’t mean I’m abandoning IG – just that I’m no longer letting it set the rules for what I make, or how I make it. I needed a place that feels a little freer. A little wilder.

My reddit page: https://www.reddit.com/user/emobodiedart

If you don’t have a reddit account, here’s the direct link to the drawing