Artist Blog

Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.

        There is something really fascinating about Japanese culture, especially their double moral standards they're having. This sex guide is innocent, disturbing and completely beautiful all at the same. Sometimes sex guides can seem strange and slightly off putting, like those creepy illustrations of hirsute men enjoying the missionary position in Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex, or even cold and scientific, like a technical drawing from Popular Mechanics. This Young Person’s Guide to Sex from the 1960s is a case in point. It starts off practical enough with courtship rituals and hints about handholding and flirtation, before suddenly switching into a kind of Ballardian handbook on sex—with test tubes, and artist mannequins attempting to straddle a young woman. "Sexual activity and interest has been declining in Japan for years, and is in part blamed for Japan's decreasing birth rate. Because Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world - and its population is on course to shrink dramatically by the middle of the century, every five years the government carries out a detailed survey of attitudes to sex and marriage. The studies and surveys have reported loss of sexual drive across several demographics, from adolescent men and women, to married couples." Maybe this guide should be produced in a new edition.