Clayton Pettet: "It's Just Got Bigger And Bigger"

“I didn’t set out to shock,” Pettet protests. “My virginity wasn’t in any sense a gimmick. I’ve been developing this idea for a while. I thought, ‘Well, this might get a little bit of press in London closer to the event.’ But not this.”

He talks earnestly with enthusiasm and at galloping speed. “It’s just got bigger and bigger. They’ve invented quotes from me. They’ve said my parents didn’t know. They’ve said I expect rave reviews, that I would have a Q&A session after the event and that I’m a teenage narcissist. It’s absurd! Crazy!”

For a moment he looks despairing. “And no one even knows exactly what’s going to happen in this performance.” Even he isn’t sure. “I’m still developing the idea.”

Like any self-respecting conceptual artist, Pettet at least sees the potential in negative publicity: “I’m going to use the press and the assumptions made as part of the piece and the exhibition. In some ways it’s quite useful to make my point.”

The Evening Standard actually bothers to talk to Clayton Pettet - the art school kid that everyone else just regurgitated fictions about him staging a "live gay sex show".

Something of a mediaballs studies masterclass.