Some selected excerpts from this article:

" But let's get the cover out of the way: Rachel McAdams, . . . arrived at the photo shoot only to learn that Ford wanted her naked. I had not thought a willingness to disrobe was a condition of appearing on the front of Vanity Fair, but reluctant ecdysiast McAdams not only lost her spot, she is mentioned in the magazine only as 'a certain young actress' who 'bowed out when the clothes started coming off,' . . . There you have it, ladies, straight from Vanity Fair: We don't care if you star in three successful movies in one year; if you won't get naked for a "threesome," you can forget your spot in our pages!"

Hmmm, this has all the intelligence of complaining -- after an actress arrives for a movie shoot, but balks upon reading the script -- that they won't let her act in the movie on the mere grounds that she won't follow the script. (Of course, it was idiotic of Vanity Fair not to give McAdams advance notice of the planned nudity.)

" Seventeen women (average age 31) and 19 men (average age 34). There are 16 visible female nipples (erect or exposed) to 17 recognizable female faces. Only five of the women are over 30, and two of them -- 75-year-old Van Doren and 38-year-old Pamela Anderson -- are honored not for their talents, exactly, but for their identities as 'The Breast Friends.' There are three female ass-cracks, one naked headless woman (in a photo of 'Shopgirl' star Jason Schwartzman), two manicured female feet (for Viggo Mortensen to tickle), one pair of shapely female legs (upside down, for Topher Grace to maneuver as if he might at any moment spread them and dive) and one giant Dada-ist breast on a golf course in front of a featured plastic surgeon."

Hmmm, an imitation of Joe Bob Briggs. Accident . . . or coincidence?

" But it's Joy Bryant's picture that is most disturbing. The African-American Bryant, her blurb tells us, earned straight A's in Bronx public schools, went to Yale, scored roles in 'Antwone Fisher' and 'Get Rich or Die Tryin' . . . and now appears in Vanity Fair, where she is called "The Wild Honey," and photographed wearing expensive jewelry and nothing else. Congratulations, Joy Bryant, on breaking class and racial barriers so that you can be reduced to your breasts and bling on the pages of a national magazine!"

Ah, that's it: A photo of a nude woman *reduces* her "to her breasts and bling".

But wait, Ms. Traister: What about a photo of a clothed woman? Does that *reduce* her to her face and clothing (and accessories)? And -- horrors! -- what about a reasoned article written by a woman: Does that not *reduce* her to her intellect?

Sorry! I momentarily forgot that you don't operate on the plane of reason.

" I don't mean to be a scold; I have nothing against nudity in magazines."

Goodness, why would anyone think otherwise?

Let me guess: The author believes, contrary to what she claims, that under any circumstances, photographic nudity -- at least female nudity -- is demeaning.

Which the author takes as a given. But she knows that to be cool nowadays you can't be perceived as being anti-sex, so she hastens to contradict herself in order to have it both ways.

Can't Broadside do better than blithe self-contradiction and knee-jerk tantrums over violations of unexamined platitudes?