“My polemic is about the fears and revulsions as to sin and sex, the mindlessness of prejudices and the breaking of taboos. My work is mindful of our myths and ignorance, its expressions as to bigotry, and being obscene. "

Norman Shapiro, age 85, is an artist making pornography. His erotic fiction, illustrations and homemade comic strips describe, in some detail, an endless number of sex encounters. The unbounded fantasies present in his work, both by word and by picture, are certainly about pleasure. They are also purposeful confrontations with a society that takes offense at what it still labels unacceptable or impermissible. Sex as art, as Shapiro says, is not accidental, and these works are not celebratory.