I read the letters, and then went to look at the Vanity Fair cover and layout.

Tom Ford is not genius. He's just another woman hating fashion designer who fancies himself an artist. Like Christian LaCroix, he doesn't really like women. Does he see women as competition? I don't know. But I've never been impressed by his designs, and I'm not impressed here.

I agree with Traister that the man is a meglomaniac. I don't think we should extrapolate that to society. Society does need to have a discussion about the mainstreaming of this commercial pornographic view and it's impact. Mainstream pornography is indifferent to female sexuality or fulfilment. That's what is happening in the Vanity Fair pieces. It's indifference.

This is not about straight men, or misogyny in general. It's about fraud, mainstreaming porn, and gullibility. Traister is grasping at the fact that this Emperor has no clothes. Ford has no new ideas, so he goes for nudity, the way that hack cook Emeril goes for spice. As a native Louisianian, I can tell you, spice is to be used to enhance, not to hide, the flavor of a dish. Nudity is to be used to enhance, not hide, beauty. The nudity here was not enhancing anything to me. Ford is so incompetent at creating sensuality that he does keep Bana clothed, and he does not use the clothes to good effect, either. Just like in mainstream porn, women's desire for the erotic really is not to be accommodated. Ford thinks it's all erotic. It's just irritating. This shoot shows the limitations of fashion world's view of consumers- that we are stupid. The "controversy" really should be over how dull these photos are. Ford is so lacking in ideas he can't even dress the women in any interesting way. Just like porn, after awhile all of this gets to be very, very boring. The images are trying far too hard.

I get Traister's analysis. I just think it goes beyond misogyny to sheer consumerism. When advertisers have no idea of how to market something, they use sex or nudity. Ford had no idea of how to get anything across, so he went for sex. It's an idea that demeans both men and women- look men, naked boobies. Look women, naked boobies. Aren't we clever? But gangsta rap has been doing this for the last five years and doing it far more successfully.

Ironically, Atlantic Monthly had an article on teen oral sex that really does a good job analyzing what is here in this layout: a gay male sexuality. In that sexuality, women's sexuality is really not present, male desire is front and center. Straight men don't get it, because the normal straight men do want to please their female partners. Women mistake it for misogyny, because the nullification fo female desire seems strange. The real issue is that this sexuality is indifferent to women. That really explains Tom Ford. He is, at heart, indifferent to women, just as most mainstream porn is. It just looks like hatred. Yet indiffernce is the greatest sin to many.

Ford really does not know how to be erotic outside of his narrow purview. Ignoring his misfire would be kinder than continually calling attention to it. He really does need to go back to designing bags.

Vanity fair's target audience is upper class women 18-40. I am in that demographic and I am straight. As a straight woman, I have no wish to see naked women, just as many of the feminist bashing straight men here have no interest in seeing naked men. I find naked women boring, clinical, and something out of a locker room. Yet my lack of interest is not as imporant as male and gay female lack of interest. Who priviledged gay and straight men, gay women, over straight women's erotic interests? Why are straight women supposed to "get over it" or be bashed as "feminazis" because we expect a magazine aimed at women to cater to all women? Why are we ridiculed because what turns on men and gay women does not turn us on?

The real question is when will the straight female erotic be mainstreamed too? It seems threatening to many men and some women. As a straight woman, that is rather funny.

By the way, a majority of parents in the US are getting disturbed by this mainstreaming of porn. The readership here is very out of the mainstream. That explains why Vanity Fair has been losing money. It's catering to the wrong demographics. If it starts catering to gay males, maybe it will make money.

My husband remarked on the level of nudity in many women's magazines. Ironically, I (and my friends) had not noticed it, because as straight women, we were indifferent to the nudity. It's something for the frustrated female bashers here to think about.