ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1989, I was asked to comment on a controversy over a sexually explicit advertisement which had been placed in the gay and lesbian community newspaper of Ottawa. The ad—which was, in my view, tasteful in the extreme—featured a frontal nude male sporting a condom on his not very hard cock. The ad had been produced by a local gay photographer in conjunction with the local AIDS education council. The photographer's work was widely known in the Ottawa community—portraiture, erotica, news photography, and recently, safe sex posters. In short, his work and his style were so eminently recognizable in the local gay and lesbian community that a Phillip Hannan photograph would seem “natural,” would feel as vernacular as a Keith Haring drawing might in New York City.
