Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This is not a rape") is a work of performance art by American artist Emma Sulkowicz.

[1][2][3] Released on 3 June 2015, the work consists of a website hosting an eight-minute video, introductory text and an open comments section.

[6][7] Named after "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" from René Magritte's The Treachery of Images,[8] the scene shows Sulkowicz and the actor engaging in what begins as a consensual sexual encounter and ends with what appears to be non-consensual anal sex.

[14][15] Sulkowicz's senior thesis and first notable artwork was Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) (2014–2015), which consisted of Sulkowicz carrying a mattress wherever she went on campus during her final year, in protest against campus sexual assault and the university's handling of a complaint she filed against fellow Columbia student Paul Jonathan Nungesser, who she said anally raped her.

[16] The university cleared the student of responsibility;[11] the district attorney's office declined to pursue criminal charges, citing lack of reasonable suspicion.

[17][18] Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol consists of a website that hosts a video, an introductory text and an open comments section.

"[7][11] The video begins with Sulkowicz and the actor, whose face is blurred, entering the room, undressing each other, then kissing and engaging in oral and vaginal sex, the latter with a condom.

Three minutes into the video, the actor hits Sulkowicz several times, then removes the condom, pushes his hands and her legs against her neck or throat, and penetrates her anally.

"[7] Lawson said Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol explores the relationship between art and social media, "this giant, polluted ocean.

[11] Paul Mejia in Newsweek called the video a "harrowing document," while Priscilla Frank in The Huffington Post described it as "simple yet stinging, providing imagery that lingers like a nightmare, never quite comprehensible but impossible to forget.

"[24] Hannah Rubin, writing in The Forward, called it "sophisticated and brilliant," and despaired of the lack of empathy on display in the website's comments section.

[25] On Slate's DoubleX Gabfest podcast, Hanna Rosin argued that the split-screen forces the viewer to embrace the subjective, in terms of choosing whether and how to watch, and how to interpret, which is the opposite of activism because it is too nuanced.

Rebecca Brink argued in The Frisky that, as well as illustrating the nature of sexual consent, Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol challenges the position that art, once made public, is removed from the artist's control and is for the viewer alone to interpret.