Sexing up the secondary art curriculum: a strategy for discussing Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs of S&M and the black male nude in art classrooms

Representations of the body present valuable resources for questioning how historical, political and social conditions function to shape attitudes and identities. Viewed within a framework of discourses about power, domination, pleasure and subordination, the explicit representation of bodies and acts does not have to be delimited as pornographic exposure. In this article I suggest a strategy for viewing Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs which demonstrate their potential as a resource for engaging students with discourses of sexuality and race as a part of the secondary art curriculum. I focus my discussion on two particular photographs: Joe (1978) from Mapplethorpe's sadomasochism series and Ajitto (1981) from his series of black male nudes. I demonstrate that these, sometimes problematic, artworks can offer students a point of intervention into contemporary cultural debates about sexuality, race and subjecthood.