Boris Mikhailov pays the homeless to let him photograph their naked bodies. Morgan Meis reviews the photographs taken in the industrial city of Kharkov, Ukraine:
Pornography poses, even at their most aggressively sexual, are stylized and ritualized in a way that gives proper respect to the condition of nakedness and exposition. … The deep way that nakedness is related to our capacity for self-consciousness is being given its due. Nakedness is a big deal; it is something special. But the way that Mikhailov's photographic subjects are caught in the act of pulling down their pants or lifting up a shirt erases the specialness. These people have nothing left to protect, least of all their shame.
SFW examples here. Forcible stripping is, as Mikhailov notes, "a big deal." There was a reason Jesus was first stripped by his executioners; it was part of his being robbed of human dignity. The same goes for the victims of the Bush-Cheney torture regime: the nakedness was designed to humiliate and shame, the first part of a process designed to break the prisoners' minds and souls. And I have to say, as the pictures of Anthony Weiner continue to be passed around, we are beginning to see him robbed of what's left of his dignity as well. Are we not capable of mercy?
The Dish 