What’s certain is that Yoshiyuki’s photos harness timeless human urges, vulnerabilities, and perversions. They ask uncomfortable but necessary questions: What constitutes freedom, and what crosses the line? In the photographer’s 1980 interview with Araki, Araki stated that “Only lechers take good photos.” Then he asked Yoshiyuki: “So are you one, too?”
Yoshiyuki’s answer toes the perennially blurry line between normalcy and indecency captured in his images: “I think I’m completely ordinary, but I think there’s a little lecher in everyone.”