Big deal - So the Cuban government is trying to look oh so "tolerant" by showing this exhibition - yet they don't show all of the work -they don't show all of highly sexual stuff from this artist because they know the powers that be in Cuba would object - they just show the mild homo erotic pieces - in other words the exhibition is watered down.

"The Mapplethorpe exhibition, which does not include his roughest images, embraces the photographer's internal contradictions."

Hmmm, "roughest images" the ones that where openly shown in the United States - but why can't they be shown in Cuba? Because the Cuban government will object - because the Cuban government in the end is afraid of anything that is dangerous, challenging, subversive, questioning - as is the nature of Mapplethorpe's work.

No way in hell is prudish and philistine Fidel going to allow pictures by Mapplethorpe that show anal fisting, bondage, machine guns, erect penises, or urine drinking -
dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/warner...037.jpg

And you thought there was censorship in the US or at Tribe - think again - in Cuba where the internet and internet porn is heavily censored and denied as are pages from Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.

And all this talk about the new gay openness in Cuba - more BS - the Cuban government is just acting very quietly because of the heat from many powerful gay groups on the Left that complained big time when the regime cracked down heavily on gay nightlife in Havana a few years back. Some big names in art and media spoke out against this - threatening further protests. The regime doesn't want to step on any gay activist toes because it's afraid of a boycott or protests that will harm a steady cash flow of dollars coming in from massive gay tourism on the island.

Besides, Castro's Cuba has the unique and fascist distinction of operating the second homosexual concentration camps in history (Nazi Germany was the first) and putting AIDS sufferers in other concentration camps to die - yet we in the West are sometimes too naive or ignorant and believe the "social justice" lies of humane Cuban treatment for AIDS when in reality it's just another form of draconian repression from a bunch of 70 something year old Gallego fascists.

For a great indicator on gay Cuban life and the repression by Castro's regime, read Reinaldo Arenas for a revelation.