toilet of venus artwork vienna
© ReutersA visitor looks at Peter Paul Rubens’ masterpiece ‘The Toilet of Venus’ during an exhibition in Vienna.
The Vienna Tourist Board has just opened an account on OnlyFans, saying that the platform, mainly known for adult content, remained the only place where nude artworks from the city's museums could get "the freedom they deserve."

The Austrian capital is "home to some of the world's most famous artworks, many containing nudity. The most prominent social networks have policies in place that ban or censor such works," the tourist board explained.

"With our OnlyFans account, we want to give these artworks the freedom they deserve - including on social media."

Vienna has been teasing its move to subscription-based OnlyFans on other platforms with a clip showing the more decent parts of the works by Peter Paul Rubens, Egon Schiele, and other artists whose work is exhibited in the city's museums, and asking the audience if they wanted to see more.


The Albertina Museum, Leopold Museum, Art History Museum and Natural History Museum are all part of the OnlyFans project. They earlier became "casualties of this new wave of prudishness" that resulted in famous artworks being blacklisted on social media and strikes handed out to any account that posted them, the tourist board said.

In July, the Albertina Museum had its TikTok account blocked for sharing a work by Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, which featured an obscured female breast. In 2019, Instagram blamed the museum for violating community standards when it shared a classic painting by Rubens.

Meanwhile, the Leopold Museum got into trouble with Facebook and Instagram earlier this year, after its promo clip, which included a work by Koloman Moser, was flagged as "potentially pornographic" by their algorithms.

However, the most ridiculous censorship case of all occurred in 2018, when Facebook told the Natural History Museum its photo of the 25,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf figurine was porn and deleted it from the site.
venus of willendorf
© Reuters / Herwig PrammerThe statuette Venus of Willendorf is displayed at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna.
Those subscribing to Vienna's OnlyFans page will receive an official sightseeing card or a free ticket to one of the museums to check out the X-rated art in real life.