The combination of sexual content and photography makes for a particularly explosive mix, and not just for members of fundamentalist groups. The reasons for their disapproval are clear; images that depict sexuality outside of marriage and procreation encourage immorality (or so we are to believe), and thereby sobvert the traditional social arrangements conservatives would like to reinstate. But for the average citizen, sexual imagery can be difficult and disturbing too. Heirs to a Victorian cultural tradition that regarded sexual pleasure with profound suspicion, we greet explicit images of sexuality with anxiety and an underdeveloped history of looking. Distinctions that viewers are accustomed to making—between fantasy and behavior, image and reality—become curiously evanescent when it comes to sex. Our unease often increases if the sexual acts depicted are unfamiliar or unconventional....
