Poor is the man
Whose pleasures depend
On the permission of another
— Madonna, “Justify My Love”
“Hate speech kills. We live under the weight of our society’s guiding beliefs, norms and ideals regarding acceptable sexual practices. To deviate from these normative practices, i.e. to engage in what is “dirty”, is to court shame. Shame creates both internalized and externalized hatred. Hatred kills not only emotionally and spiritually, but also physically. To disavow non-normative desires that we cannot control, we attempt to regulate or eliminate the threat of sexual stimulation. Violence and denial become the best way to deal with irreconcilable attraction, in a archaic system that monitors and socializes sexual repression. GAY SEX IS THE ANSWER is about liberating the desire from the shame, and exposing the love in the dark. By reappropriating these magazines from the 1970’s and 1980’s I am deliberately challenging every homophobic affront and offering up a challenge to question why homosexual sex is often labeled as dangerous and disgusting.” – David Macke