Laurie and Debbie say: Liz from Badgerbag wrote us (and many other people) about the erotic photographer Michael Rosen’s abusive sexual behavior towards her, when she modeled for him years ago. And that she was not the only young model who had this experience. She spoke to her anger and concern that in spite of [...]

Laurie says: This portrait of Civil War black soldiers really struck me in its powerful portraiture. It’s from a blog by Ta-Nehisi Coates, In Every Black Man’s Eyes–Death To The Rebel, about the history of black soldiers in the Civil war, reflected back and forth through his personal history of blacks and guns. He also reflects on [...]

Debbie says: I was thunderstruck to find this quotation from the late, brilliant James Baldwin’s essay “Here Be Dragons” (originally titled “Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhood”). The whole essay is in The Price of the Ticket: The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all. I hope [...]

Lynne Murray says Macbeth was talking to the ghost of the man he murdered when he said, “Take any shape but that and my firm nerves shall never tremble.” Briony Kidd’s short film , Starring Xavier, about an Australian fat man on welfare playing Macbeth, was inspired by a “trashy TV report” presenting a real [...]

Marlene says: A few months ago now, Laurie and Debbie asked me to write here. I was flattered and excited. When they asked, one of the things they mentioned was that they thought my voice would be a good addition to theirs; that I would write things different than what was already here. I have [...]

Debbie says: I’ll spare you the excuses for why it took me a month to get to this particular conversation with the comments, this time with my friend Lisa Hirsch. In mid-May, I wrote this post, which starts with the story of a woman who had plastic surgery so she could look like her daughter. [...]

Laurie says: I saw Nisi Shawl get the Tiptree at the award ceremonies at WisCon. It was one of the high points of the convention for me. The Tiptree is “an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender.” She won for her short story collection Filter [...]

Debbie says: It shouldn’t surprise any regular (or even occasional readers) that here at Body Impolitic we support gay marriage and we fought against California’s Proposition 8. We didn’t blog about it much, though, because we don’t generally write about electoral politics. However, this article by Deacon Keith Fournier in Catholic Online draws a connection [...]

Laurie says: I just discovered photographer Charlie White’s teen and transgender photos for Andrew Sullivan’s recent Faces of the Day blog. They were part of a show at the Hammer in LA which unfortunately closed on May 31st. The portraits are distanced and deliberately constructed, with serious artifice and commercial quality polish. They’re also striking, [...]

Laurie and Debbie say: Ariane Cohen is 6’2″. In this article, she writes about her life as a giraffe. She opens the article by theorizing about our connections to exotic animals: I have a theory that we each have a vague kinship with an exotic animal. Perhaps you have an inexplicable affinity for leopard print. [...]