About the Exhibition
A living culture
Men gathering to share masturbation with other men is not new. The Beggars Benison, founded in Anstruther, Scotland, in 1732, is the earliest documented organization built around communal male masturbation. Nearly 250 years later, New York Jacks, founded in 1980, established the modern model of a community-based, sex-positive space organized around shared masturbation and erotic connection. That model has since expanded internationally through clubs created and sustained by their own communities.
Jacks clubs create a distinctive kind of social and erotic space: direct, playful, permissive without being coercive, and governed by active consent and respect for individual boundaries.
And they are fun.
The Jacks can be intense and quiet, absurd and joyful, tender and explicit. They can encompass solitary focus and collective communion; erotic charge, humor, awkwardness, release, ritual, trust, friendship, and the simple pleasure of getting off together.
What we’re looking for
We are looking for art that tells the Jacks story.
Jacks culture includes men across a broad spectrum of sexuality, identity, body, age, and background. What unifies the experience is not a single identity, fantasy, or sexual role, but a willingness to be present, open, and real with other men.
We welcome work that conveys what it actually feels like to inhabit a Jacks space: its intensity and quiet; explicitness and suggestion; solitary focus and collective communion; erotic charge, humor, tenderness, awkwardness, joy, release, ritual, trust, and friendship.
Artists with direct experience of Jacks clubs or other communal-masturbation cultures are strongly encouraged to submit.
About Rain City Jacks
Rain City Jacks is Seattle’s jack-off club and a community devoted to creating welcoming, sex-positive spaces for men to share masturbation, erotic connection, and fellowship.
Founded by Paul Rosenberg, Rain City Jacks has operated in Seattle since 2005 and is part of a wider international tradition of community-based Jacks clubs.
Rosenberg is also the creator and host of Heart of Jacks, an oral-history and interview project documenting the people, experiences, and ideas that have shaped Jacks culture, and is serving as a curator of The Art of Jacks 2027.
The Exhibition in Seattle
The Art of Jacks 2027 will be on view at Gallery Erato from May 6 through June 13, 2027.
Gallery Erato is open to the public on Thursdays throughout the exhibition run, including two First Thursday Art Walk evenings in Pioneer Square:
Thursday, May 6
Opening of The Art of Jacks 2027
First Thursday Art Walk
Thursday, June 3
First Thursday Art Walk
The exhibition will also be viewable at multiple private events hosted at Gallery Erato during the run, including four Rain City Jacks club gatherings. These events are separate from public gallery hours and open only to their respective attendees.
Artists and members of the wider Jacks community are warmly encouraged to visit Seattle during the run of the exhibition. This page will be updated with gallery hours, event information, accessibility details, and practical visitor information as plans develop.