Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs include homoerotic and sadomasochistic images, often glamorized and disturbing, which made him a controversial figure. Mapplethorpe is well-known for his Portfolio X series, which sparked national attention because of its explicit content, including a self-portrait with a bullwhip inserted in his anus. When his 1988 retrospective show, "Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment", moved from Philadelphia to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, some public officials objected to being confronted by images of "fist-fucking, of stiletto knives inserted in penis-heads and the now-notorious shot of Mapplethorpe smilingly posing for the camera with the handle of a bullwhip lodged up his bottom." In June 1989 the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington cancelled its scheduled exhibition of the Mapplethorpe works - just two weeks before its scheduled opening. Since the show was partially funded by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) this provoked an immense controversy between liberals and the right over issues such as pornography, freedom of expression and NEA policy. The DC artists' community retaliated by giving a late-night slide show of the most explicit photos on the Corcoran's marble facade. Because of the controversy, demand to see the exhibit exploded, The Washington Post reviewed the show from its catalog, and the Washington Project for the Arts, at great expense, picked up the exhibit.

His The Perfect Moment exhibit which included his Portfolio X series resulted in the unsuccessful prosecution of the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and its director Dennis Barrie on charges of "pandering obscenity". In 1990 a Cincinnati jury found that city's Contemporary Arts Center and its director not guilty of obscenity for exhibiting Mapplethorpe's photographs.

Some of the images from The Perfect Moment exhibit can be seen in the slideshow to the right.