In late June, a provocative exhibition opened at New York City's Museum of Sex. 

NSFW: Female Gaze - the first collaboration between the Museum and Creators at VICE - celebrates expression and desire in the female gaze. Historically, as described in John Berger's 1972 book and BBC series Ways of Seeing, art consumers were men, and the objects on which they feasted were the women who graced canvases or were sculpted from marble. In 1975, film theorist Laura Mulvey produced the landmark essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which drew from Lacanian and Freudian psychoanalytic theory as a critical means by which to deconstruct the power structures around who is looking, who is looked at, and to what ends. Mulvey helped initiate a much-needed dialogue that surpassed its roots in film culture, one which today takes on renewed relevance as gender matters play out on social media platforms. 

For NSFW, the all-woman artist roster works across a wide media and methodological landscape, exploring sexuality and positioning the act of women looking as a radical pursuit that resists social mores and gender expectations. I spoke with artist and Museum of Sex Associate Curator Lissa Rivera and Creators Editor-in-Chief Marina Garcia Vasquez about their curatorial approach, how "the gaze" is defined, and why an exhibition prioritizing women’s desires is critically important in this moment. 

Interview by Roula Seikaly