Sex & design

It's not that sexualised imagery didn't exist in the media before, say, 1994. But that year, Loaded magazine hit shelves and suggested to lads that it was okay to be leery. Or perhaps it happened after the British Board of Film Classification reviewed R18 film certificates in 2000, liberalising access to hardcore porn. Maybe it's just society in general, in the UK and elsewhere, loosening up. Whatever the case, it seems that sexually explicit material is everywhere, from music videos to Sunday supplement up-skirt shots. Virgin 1's Sexcetera and Showtime's Porn: A Family Business indicate a normalisation of hardcore pornography - so much so that, in February 2010, psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos published a Home Office-commissioned report warning of the dangers of 'pornification' for British teenagers, complete with recommendations to stymie its 'drip drip effect'.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of it all, it's a subject close to the hearts of many designers, who are choosing to twist, distort and subvert sexual imagery and erotica. They do it to make a comment, and they do it because it gets a reaction. Some of them even do it because, well, it's fun! But what's common to all is a drive to actively engage rather than passively titillate viewers.

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The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Ecommerce Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Editor, Digital Art and 3D Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.