I became the toast of London. A lot of people I met came from these really decadent families where the married men were gay and no one thought anything about it.

Boston: Bulfinch Press 1990. Mapplethorpe's first studio was at 24 Bond Street in Manhattan. 2nd ed.

The frank homoeroticism of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks.