What makes a face female, you ask? I’m not sure–but boobs beneath it are the (ostensible, anyway) clincher. I’m hetero-female, and I’d rather look at women than men. So would my daughters. When I asked why, the youngest one said, “Because they’re prettier.” Can’t argue with that.

And, speaking of pretty, the cover is incredibly so. I didn’t see it as excessively sexualized; the woman is facing away, rather than exhibiting any come-hither-iness. What I admired and envied, speaking as an occasional artist, was the unusual palette and richness of color and the masterful effect of iridescence on the scales. And I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the artist’s pride is in that gorgeous cluster of spangled feathers on the figure’s head, to which the eye is drawn more than anywhere else.

What we ought to be screaming our heads off about instead, as writers, is the horrible writing/copyediting/proofreading in Tanith Lee’s story, not the fact that they used a cover that might actually sell a magazine that could someday publish us–if it stays in business.

Also, here’s a link to a blog by women erotica writers who are campaigning to get images of men on their books.

http://eroticacoverwatch.wordpress.com/

Apparently erotica publishers don’t think images of men on covers sell books, even though the majority of erotica readers are women. Hmm. Sounds familiar!

And I’m pretty sure there’s some societal influence at work when so many people say the female body is inherently beautiful and the male body is not. This is, after all, what the advertising industry and the media have conditioned us to respond to.

However, I probably would not buy a magazine to READ based on that cover, because it doesn’t tell me much about the contents, and what it does suggest is that the stories inside would likely not interest me. Also, it’s not the kind of cover I want on material I’ll see in public.

I would like ROF to use covers that are relevant to the stories within, and for the art not to be chosen based on which story is “sexiest.” I’d like to see covers where the image tells a story itself, or part of a story, rather than “sexy woman” (clothed or not) being the entire point of the image. The mermaid isn’t DOING anything other than being decorative. If she were doing something, if she appeared to have a story, I might have a different reaction to the cover.

Interspersing half-naked men would be more egalitarian, I guess, but I’m not entirely convinced that anyone–women particularly–read specfic for the sex.

But I suppose if the covers have to be “sexy,” I’d be more likely to pick it up if they were equal-opportunity sexy.

I think the fact that female bodies are constantly played for beauty-and-consumability, that it’s impossible to go anywhere I might see advertising without visuals of expanses of female skin, all these things – I think mostly they’ve burned me out, such that even well-done art with a female subject is something I find … boring. It takes something really exceptional to break through the ennui.

I admit that I have a low bar, being an easily pleased person. I like naked men, naked women, naked apes, naked snakes, and three-day old babies in plated armor. So I am not a reliable indicator.

But I will put to you that for a long time in art the male body was actually considered much more aesthetically pleasing than the female one, hence the abundance of strapping young men in classical sculpture, and Michelangelo’s art. Obviously the idea of what was beautiful and pleasing and worthy of be represented have changed with time, and culture. In classical culture the male body was represented because it embodied all the civic virtues of strength, valor, and so on. But then art was a political thing, in that it represented the polis.

For us, art is something different, that has a lot to do with consumerism, and I don’t say this judgmentally. I am not speaking about the cover, which like Tempest I actually liked very much, but there is a certain shift away from representing the handsome-virtuous and towards the attractive-consumable. Of course this is good for a magazine, who wants to attract customers and make them consume, in buying the magazine.

But in this context, the idea that only, or mainly, the female form is consumable, starts to make one a bit uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s just that I am Italian, and therefore a bit sensitized to this idea that women are valued for their beauty and, er, comsumability. :-(

Actually I find the mock-cover rather disturbing, as I think it is supposed to be. But all the same, I am realizing now, casting my mind back at the images of male beauty I remember from my having perused Mapplethorne’s, Salgado’s, and, er, far too many porn comics, how much I have missed images of male bodies. Don’t they deserve to be celebrated as well? Although, I hasted to add, I don’t want this to be taken as meaning that you should paint male bodies. One’s artistic inspiration goes where it wants, and it’s fine if it stays there.

Also, I didn’t mean you don’t have a balanced view because you’re the subject of the piece, I meant it’s not balanced because of who you are.

Also, you’ve just scored at least two on the discussions of sexism Bingo card. I hope you’ll pause now before you score any more. The whole “people looking to be offended will be” argument is tired, wrong, and not worthy of someone with intelligence and class, which I have to assume you are since Frank married you, and I know he has an abundance of both.

Secondly, I did read this whole thread – and I feel like you’re certainly implying exploitation – even if you’re not using that specific word. Frequently, discussions of sexism are loaded with that assumption. Perhaps, as a writer, you could make your feelings more clear.

I don’t think I have a balanced view, but not because I am the subject of this piece. My own art is focused 100 percent on women, often in highly suggestive poses. You can see it at http://www.briannaspacekat.com. I can guarantee you, there will never be any naked manflesh in a piece I do.

People that are hellbent on being offended will be offended. There is no satisfying them. As an artist, I have no interest in making work to please the critics.