Acceptance by Design

Acceptance by Design is the independent creative studio and publishing home behind ShameProof and Dekan Swim.

Together, these projects explore one central question:

How can we design ideas, media, products, and experiences that make human dignity easier to recognize and shame less powerful?

Our starting principle is simple: Human worth is an unassailable reality, not a performance to be managed. It is not something people must earn through appearance, productivity, conformity, or obedience to inherited social expectations.

One Mission, Three Connected Parts

Acceptance by Design

Acceptance by Design is the umbrella under which this work is researched, created, published, and supported.

It examines how language, technology, products, media, institutions, and physical environments can either reinforce exclusion and shame or help people experience greater dignity, agency, belonging, and freedom.

It is also the home of our store, digital publications, creative resources, and support options. Purchases and contributions made here help sustain the entire connected body of work.

ShameProof

ShameProof is the public-education and cultural-inquiry initiative focused on body shame.

It questions the exaggerated meanings society attaches to the uncovered human body, including the assumption that ordinary anatomy is automatically sexual, indecent, humiliating, dangerous, or shameful.

ShameProof does not dismiss genuine harms. It asks us to focus more clearly on the things that actually violate human dignity: coercion, exploitation, harassment, humiliation, discrimination, and nonconsensual photography or distribution.

Through essays, questions, petitions, educational resources, visual media, and public conversation, ShameProof works to strengthen consent, bodily autonomy, digital-age resilience, and respect for different personal choices.

Dekan Swim

Dekan Swim explores how swimming environments could become immersive works of art with clothing-free participation might allowing people to more fully experience water, light, color, sound, bubbles, mist, rain, fountains, projection, temperature, movement, and rest more directly.

The project includes concepts ranging from small pools and open-air retreats to traveling Water & Wonder Shows, Dekan Swim temples, and large destination immersive Swimporiums.

Dekan Swim is currently a developing concept, not an operating attraction. Its images are AI-assisted concept art rather than architectural or engineering plans. The present work involves developing the vision, testing public interest, documenting possibilities, identifying practical limitations, and seeking potential collaborators, venues, researchers, and development partners.

Where Your Support Goes

Purchases and contributions help fund the independent development of this connected work, including:

• Writing and Research: Essays, educational materials, cultural research, policy development, and public-facing explanations

• Websites and Digital Infrastructure: Domains, hosting, software, surveys, galleries, email tools, and community-facing resources

• Concept Development: Visual research, AI-assisted concept art, design refinement, technical investigation, and documentation

• Publishing: Digital books, downloadable resources, printed materials, editing, formatting, and distribution

• Products and Prototypes: Apparel, towels, educational merchandise, samples, and early physical design experiments

• Outreach and Collaboration: Presentations, partnership materials, professional consultations, and conversations with potential venues and collaborators

Support is used across Acceptance by Design, ShameProof, and Dekan Swim according to the projects’ current needs unless a particular product or campaign is specifically identified as supporting one area.

Why Independent Support Matters

This work is being developed independently, without relying on outrage, fear-mongering, or corporate pressure to determine its message.

That independence allows the projects to ask difficult questions, acknowledge uncertainty, revise ideas when evidence demands it, and pursue constructive possibilities that may not fit comfortably within established categories.

If this work has helped you question an inherited assumption, feel less ashamed of being human, imagine a more respectful culture, or see new possibilities for art and water, you are welcome to help it continue.

You can support the work by purchasing a product or digital publication, sharing the projects with others, responding to a survey, offering relevant expertise, proposing a collaboration, or making a financial contribution.

One-time and ongoing support options are available below. Please participate only in ways that are appropriate for your own interests and financial circumstances.