I wonder if the shift away from “edgy” violence in the arts and media will be paralleled by a similar shift from ‘edgy’ sex in the arts and media; it must be 40 years since Mapplethorpe argued you could skewer art pretensions by making it pornographic (see his biography). Then there was the Cosey Fan Tutti/ GPO exhibition at the ?ICA which also sought to deconstruct/ challenge/ [enter your post-modern buzz-word here] sex and pornography. Fashionistas eventually got it, Jeff Koons, his missus, all those photo essays of the fetish and s&m world, Madonna’s “Sex” book (oh those amusing transgressions she played with), Terry Richardson, porn as a norm, and the hiding in plain sight of sexual predators (I see Max Clifford and Weinstein as reflecting similar phenomena). I’m all for sex, and all for it being represented in an honest manner to accommodate a wide variety of orientations and preferences. Can this be done in a better way than currently? Discuss.
