Michael Ney’s subject is the subterranean world of BDSM and alternative sex filtered through the eyes of fetish photographer Noel Graydon, aka Master Venom. Bondage, dominance and submission, fetishism and algolagnic ritual are all expected bread and butter, but Graydon’s ‘the insider looking out’ and Ney’s airy style lift up the whole affair, to give us instead a portrayal of civility and mild-mannered gaiety that is set against a putrid backdrop of upper circle Christian catechism. The outcome is a parable of two moral scenes: the unspoken principles contained in adult open sexual catharsis beside the dissolute morals of the guardians and stockists of ascetic convention. From outside the fence, transgressive sexuality seems to be about reining in violence and fear and to a rephrased perpetuation of abhorrent behaviour once inflicted upon the subject. Liberty in Restraint points to the disbanding of this idea, it reworks shock and trauma to the point of distilled catharsis. One has the impression of wellbeing imparted to the viewer once the ritualistic cycle has been wrapped up and the needles and gasmasks removed. Don’t you wish Bush, Blair, the Pope, their respective entourages and loyal fan clubs, fucked one another S&M style, instead of fucking about with the world we live in? MF