Even if you've never seen the glorious Pink Narcissus, you've probably dreamt about it. A young man escapes from the real world in a sequence of pink satin fantasies — he's a slave chosen by the emperor, a bullfighter, a wood nymph, a harem boy.

Pink Narcissus has no story to speak of, but it feels compulsively pacey. Loved for its imaginative eroticism in 1971, it was also derided for campy content ("as many spangles, feathers, and gilded costumes as in Ziegfeld Follies," protested Parker Tyler, a boy who should know). Eighteen years on, in a brand new print, you can begin to see — between the Walter Mitty premise and the Beauty School Drop-Out décor — passionate intelligence and the spirit of Genet. Pink Narcissus may appear narcissistic (and so what?), but it's also cheekily about narcissism.

While Hollywood was grappling with the gloss of gay life — how many nelly queens make a good party? — in Boys in the Band, Pink Narcissus set about scraping at the nitty gritty. It's all here: caballeros and bike boys; striptease and tearoom sex. Pink Narcissus delves beyond the surface of gay fantasy and finds that there's an expansive two-way mirror underneath.