Lately I’ve been pondering the process of when something that is shocking today becomes tomorrow’s commonplace. What exactly happens with an idea or a practice that maybe too controversial today but tomorrow will morph into something seemingly mundane?

In the context of television and movies, I can recall Lucy and Ricky on the Lucille Ball show sleeping in separate beds. They never shared an intimate moment, ever. When they had their son, he just seemed to appear, as if through divine intervention. Lucy herself was always the ever-so demurely dressed doting wife, showing of little more than her perfect 22’ inch waist and tiny ankles. Everything about her was covered, safe and unsexy. Now, we can’t turn on the television, even in a Hallmark family special, without seeing a couple at least kissing in bed together, the woman in some naughty lingere or a skimpy nighty and the man typically bare-chested.

When Gustav Klimt made his now wildly famous Beethoven Frieze, it was considered obscene and pornographic in 1903 because of its nude woman. Today, the vision of nude women in an art and society in general seems normal, common, un-controversial.

What happened here? Was it just the passing of time, the sexual revolution in the1960s, the empowerment of women through education and shedding traditional roles as wife and mother in exchange for careers and being single? Whatever it is, it’s a curious thing that happens when something shifts from being shocking to being ordinary.

Will this process happen to everything? Swiss artist Christoph Buchel is causing quite a stir with Viennese conservatives with something he calls “art intervention.” He has essentially turned the Secession art gallery into a sex club after hours. Buchel has invited an underground swingers’ group to hold their nightly soirees at the gallery. Though they are not allowed to make sweet love during gallery hours, after closing time, it’s a party. Tellingly enough,the Klimt piece is the centerpiece of the show.

I can’t imagine this sort of activity ever becoming normal. Could you picture the Louvre turning into a “love shack” after hours? The idea of swingers is still new and offensive to many people. So too are strip clubs, for that matter.Maybe in a hundred years this will all be typical, but at what cost? What happens to society when we make the transition from being offended to not even batting an eye at something like this? Has society gotten more indifferent, more accepting or simply naughtier that it’s ever been?