In its original length, Steven X and Barbara C is an 18 minute video divided into two parts with only talking heads on screen. In the first segment, the viewer is exposed to two occurrences: a socially unacceptable action (a sexual encounter between a 12 year old girl and a middle aged man), and a deliberate lie the artist perpetrates to encourage the man to finish his story (the betrayal and outing of the identity of the supposed "pedophile"). The question is whether a crime has been committed, and if so which act is more pernicious.
In the second segment, a woman relates an account of her precocious sexual experiences as a child, indicating that she was always the instigator, the provocateur, the aggressive operative in the situations she describes. She also describes the sexual encounter, confessed earlier by the man, from the 12 year-old's point of view. Placed side by side, the two stories are intended to question issues of adult culpability and the sexual agency of female children.
