dirty Window

It was pointed out to me recently when chatting about Clayton Cubitt’s blog CONSTANT SIEGE that much of the creative work I enjoy seems to engage subjects or feature key elements that could be interpreted as sexually charged, erotic or just plain pornographic.

I reasoned that what stands on one person’s bookshelf might only be found under another’s mattress, so I didn’t set myself any Hail Marys. I’m not listed on any registers, don’t frequent service providers that advertise in telephone boxes and only hang about in deserted business parks when it’s 4 am, I’m leaving one of Alistair’s parties and have forgotten the way to Hackney Central tube station. Again.

Now that we’ve established (I hope) that I’m fairly normal, I think perhaps I am drawn to this particular vein because, above all, I crave authenticity. I’m not knowledgeable in the arts, but I am steadfastly open to anything creative. In own my ham-fisted way, I attempt to experience on as many levels as I am capable, and hide behind cynicism only when it’s too much fun to set aside. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy mindless shit as much as the next person, but i don’t believe it. And i want to believe, Scully.

When I read a novel where two people occupy the same space for an extended period, share an overlap in sexual preference and there is no acknowledgement of sexual tension (and no credible obstacle to it) the spell is broken. Switch on a film where ‘coming of age’ is a central theme but the petrifying awkwardness of the first sexual misadventure and its long fallout isn’t explored, and I’ll switch off.

Like me, it probably dawned on you that sex is magnetic in lessons played out in, and in-between school periods. It appears that - like it or not - most of us don’t need much coercion to muck in with grubby fantasy. It’s also plain that most advertising runs on the juice squeezed from our libido, and that the same lube oils the apparatus that helps us to appreciate and create.

Apologies for both of those images.

So I suppose it makes sense that in my (probably pompous) search for the authentic I might lean toward work that accentuates these realities.

Richard Kern’s photo models’ captured ‘willingness’ references the caricatured come-hither of porno but somehow explodes it, leaving just banality… but not so much that some might only be persuaded to make their way to the cashiers desk with one of his books tucked between a Patricia Cornwell and a James Patterson.

In Nabokov’s Lolita, near-universal cultural taboos are flaunted to create dark humour that rummages around in our locked cupboards to both hilarious and disgusting effect. But Nabokov takes as much time establishing Humbert as a deviant as a figure deserving of pity, and perhaps even one with traits with which most men can identify.

As in every 20th century generation, us 80’s kids have seen a radical shift in the boundaries of social acceptability. Sex is now officially O.K to talk about. So next time you’re around my house and are browsing my bookshelves, just remember - I’m on the cutting edge mate, not a filthy perv. Probably.