Former Columbia University student and anti-rape activist Emma Sulkowicz has again made a statement through performance art—and it's gathered mixed reactions from the public.
The eight-minute video, "Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol" ("This is Not a Rape)," shows Sulkowicz having consensual sex that turns violent, according to the New York Daily News.
The clip, directed by Ted Lawson, generated many viewers since it became viewable on Thursday, which made the video stream slower than normal.
The disturbing video shows her entering a dorm room and having consensual sex with a man whose face is blurred out. In the heat of passion, Sulkowicz's partner slaps and chokes her and rips the condom off before finishing unprotected, said the Daily News.
Sulkowicz whimpers and utters "no" several times to her partner, but he continues doing what he wants to do to her. The man leaves in haste and doesn't say anything to pacify her, while she languishes in bed. She ends up ceremoniously putting the covers on her bed, tucking herself underneath them and wishing all that happened could be put behind her as she sleeps.
Sulkowicz warned viewers that, like all art, the performance could be taken subjectively and is open to interpretation, in hopes that she would not to be "misjudged," reported the Daily Beast.
The video, according to the publication, "is prurient and yet viewers may not see the blurred lines between consensual sex and rape."
Criticisms of what Sulkowicz does in the video could be regarded as more harsh than when she was earlier branded "Mattress Girl," when she carried her twin, 50-pound mattress around campus in protest while still at the Ivy league school.
One of the comments on the site called the project "perverse" and said it was in poor taste and not the right way to spread her message, said the Daily News.
