A couple of drawings on the gallery by Koko Raul caused very strong negative reactions the other day - one commenter even used the word "vile"; not a comment you find often here, and never before, I think, from this artist. Now - let me be honest. I do not think these two drawings - which featured near pornographic images, if we're being frank - were exactly Koko's finest work. In commenting, as I did, that some of the greatest artists the world has known have produced extremely explicit images, I was rather overlooking the fact that they didn't necessarily publish them - they were found amongst, for example, Rembrandt's and Turner's drawings, after their deaths. Other painters, Redon, and Fuseli, for instance, were less secretive. A good many artists had their "dirty" drawings posthumously destroyed by well-meaning relatives - I can't offhand remember those to whom this happened, but I know there were more than several. However: it seems to me that artists CAN - leave "should" to one side - go very much further these days than hitherto. Dalí painted "Girl Auto-sodomized by her own Chastity" (which actually sounds a great deal worse than it looks); Tracey Emin has shown several explicit drawings, with her usual autobiographical element (was ever an artist more obsessed with her own person, apart maybe from Freda Kahlo?); Picasso made numerous drawings of sexual themes and images .... and so on. I seem to recall even Cézanne left a little cache of grubby graphics behind - not a man one associates with smut, somehow: don't know why! The controversy reminds me of a book entitled The Erotic Arts, published around 12 years ago, which explored these themes, unearthing some very rude Hogarths, Gillrays, Fragonards and Bouchers in the process. (I sold my copy in the midst of one of my many episodes of penury, so discreet inquiries will avail you naught..) I know nothing at all about Koko Raul, but I don't suppose he would seek to include himself amongst this august company. All the same ... leaping in where Angels fear to tread, as is my wont, I didn't agree with the obvious anger of those who were saying, basically, "that sort of thing doesn't belong on this site". I would not wish to publish drawings like this myself (I should add here, for those who don't know, that KR has recently posted quite a few drawings and paintings which are in no way questionable). And I certainly wouldn't wish them to become commonplace - if that ever happened, it would change the nature of POL forever, so I think I can understand the objections. But, art either covers the whole of existence and experience, in which case neither death nor sex should be beyond its scope, or - it seems to me - it can become twee, self-regarding, and irrelevant. The one thing I infer about the creator of these drawings is that he's a young man: well, isn't a strong sexuality perfectly natural to him? Should he not (or she not as appropriate) be able to express that? I know I shall never convince some that these were not just "mucky drawings", which should have been pushed under the bed and left there. I know that many don't want to look at these images and are offended by them aesthetically as well as morally. But while I know that, I don't agree with it. I wouldn't go into the dock for them, as E M Forster so very reluctantly did on behalf of Lady Chatterley's Lover (he thought it a rotten book, but was opposed to censorship), because they weren't that good ... and I can't say my life has been enriched particularly by having seen them. Even so, I defend their publication on POL: and having stuck my neck out, I await the first blow........