II. X-Art and the Aesthetic of the “Tasteful” Founded in 2009, X-Art built its reputation on the oxymoron of “classy hard-core.” The brand’s visual grammar—creamy natural light, white linen, Malibu sunsets—was engineered to flatter the viewer who wants to believe that aesthetic refinement can coexist with the sight of bodies locked in gymnastic coitus. In short, X-Art promised to solve the old Kantian contradiction: how to reconcile the beautiful with the erotic, the disinterested judgment of taste with the very interested judgment of lust.