Art Footle: Seduced: Sex from Antiquity to Now at The Barbican

This large and broad collection of art sexual, seductive and provocative in nature has attracted a lot of attention, mainly because we are, as a society and species, completely fascinated by the S-word, but also because of it's rare over-18s certification.

This was justified by some of the more explicit entries, but the barring of a woman toting her oblivious 10 month old child was definitely over the top. The lower floor in particular, being focussed on art from ancient Greece and Rome up to the earlier years of the 20th Century is no place for a child old enough to ask embarrassing questions because they'll have little context in which to understand the answers, but an infant-in-arms is unlikely to be disturbed by it.

The introduction to the exhibition offers a short argument for why the exhibition is not just sensationalist pornography. Porn is intended to titilate, the curators explain, and this collection is about an exploration of sexual attitudes, fascination and seduction. Seduced by its nature is not enforced, so degrading or violent images were left out - apart from Robert Mapplethorpe's famous collection of sadomasochistic photographs which were probably the only point at which my legs crossed involuntarily.

The introduction isn't one hundred percent true. The statues and prints from the earliest historical times are mostly from brothels; the Japanese collection is mainly from books designed to incite erotic pleasures at home. So while this is seduction, it's still pornography according to the curators' own definition. The difference between the finely detailed, extraordinarily precise and contorted Kama Sutra panels from India and the oddly blank expressions on the Japanese plates, complete with elegantly illustrated pubic hair and gaping vaginas, is marked. From the Japanese room it seems a natural progression to Aubrey Beardsley's well known pen and ink creations and indeed the entire layout of the exhibition takes full advantage of the mezzanine floor to tease from above about the 20th and 21st century films and images to follow while leading you logically through a further-removed historical maze below.

Some images are suggestive, some brutally graphic; others are just plain bizarre. An 18th century sketch of a voluptuous Venus reclining on a cart drawn by two enormous phalluses and bedecked by flying, ejaculating penises with wings can't help but elicit a smirk. And then you look around guiltily at the others with their Very Serious Expressions and feel guilty for not taking the Seduced exhibition seriously enough and allowing puerile humour to intrude. But, like the sketcher, we know that sex is funny and inelegant and bizarre at times, and would do well to remember that as we walk around.

As usual, the most graphic images are the most striking. The Kinsey collection of photographs is staggering, especially placed in the context of the controversial research that accompanied it. Jeff Koons' work with a porn star, while almost too brittle and flashy to be real pornography, is the closest thing to it; it would take some serious work with semantics to establish the difference. These are not, however, usually the most provocative images, or the ones that induce the most thought or engagement with the subject.

Among the latter are Richard Hamilton's collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, the subtle The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), two technical diagrams that take a great deal of study before the sexual connection is truly evident and Nan Goldin's intimate slideshow of a couple's family dynamic.

As a whole, the coherence of Seduced is derived from the shared subject matter rather than a specific direction. This is something evident from the evasiveness of the introduction onwards but along with the natural historical path there are parts of the exhibition where you ebb and flow into darkened and lighter rooms or sit to just listen to the sounds of erotic literature being read in a quiet corner through cleverly positioned speakers. As such it does succeed in being an insistent yet subtle assault on the senses which are so inextricably linked with seduction.

The exhibition continues into January.