Why I Don't Respond to Most Emails

Dear Susannah,

I just realized I misspelled your name--I'm so sorry. I'm such a klutz. I won't make that mistake again. But as a follow-up to my last note, I recently learned of a particularly disturbing form of photos--the before-and-after facial shots. They consist of pairs of photographs of women--a "before" picture and an "after" picture. In the before picture, the woman looks glamorous and made-up. But in the after picture, she is splattered and dissheveled, often with a surprised, uncomfortable, or awkward expression. All aspects of the pictures--beginning with the fact that the woman's identity is obvious, and the man's anonymous--all are seemingly intended to diminish the subject. In fact, diminishing--or actually degrading--the subject seems to be part of the peculiar and troubling thrill of those pictures. Indeed, it suggests that for a certain segment of consumers, degradation is actually a necessary element. If true, that's extremely troubling. On the other hand, imagining a similar type of before-and-after facials--but with gender roles reversed and consisting of the faces of men--could be quite interesting. In the before pictures, the men would all look handsome or "professional", with well made-up hair (perhaps including facial hair), etc. In the after pictures, all facial hair is gone--shaved for the woman's comfort--the mens' expressions are tired, dissheveled, awkward, suprised, uncomfortable. Perhaps some would have sore jaws. But all of their faces and hair would be wet with a woman's juices. I could imagine a gallery of such "gender-role reversed" facials to be very interesting. Yet I don't believe such a thing exists.

All the best,
[redacted]