:
Tues - May 25 -

OUT OF LINE: David Aaronovitch writes a response at The Guardian to a previous essay by Susan Sontag about those infamous photos from Abu Ghraib prison. It's all about us or it's all about them... say what you will, like it or not, the photo showing "Leash Girl" leading the naked man on a lead will probably become one of the major classic visual images of this military action.

Why? If only because, quite simply, it is subversive to our usual expectations-- if the picture showed a man leading a naked gal on a leash, many viewers would regard it as some sort of art or artistic expression.

But, more importantly, what does it mean?

The photo shows domination and submission. For the Iraqi man, that means surrendering control, which he evidently finds painful. Whereas, in contrast, many occidental men might find such an exercise pleasurable. When the western devotees of this arrangement practice such rituals, they carefully establish consents, permissions, limits and boundaries. It is the absence of such frameworks that seems to be freaking so many people out. But regardless of how you may feel about it, that photo is apt to endure long after you and I are gone from this mundane dimension.

:: Aaronovitch: The trouble with Sontag's story
-- At The Guardian --

...