Nude for Peace:
Internet Pornography and the War
By Richard Leader
Printable
Version 
Barely a week before US troops began their procession towards Baghdad
a small website was unveiled at Nudeforpeace.org. Capitalizing on
previous examples of anti-war activists gaining media attention
through nudity, the Australian website invited visitors to submit
their own nude images to the project. The vast majority of the existing
pictures were of young women—some very so—who were photographed
in a peculiarly clinical way, despite the juvenile nature of the
sayings written on their bodies. One woman stood as a statue, staring
blankly, as she held a razor to her pubic bone, pointing her other
hand to the words “No Bush” scrawled in makeup across
her abdomen. Two men were also photographed, though both appeared
older and were demurely shot from the waist up. Strangely, of the
first dozen or so images, five women, claiming to be from nearly
as many nations across the globe, were each shown standing before
the same painted-brick wall.
News of Nudeforpeace.org spread quickly across the Internet. Few
seemed to notice the more curious aspects of the website as untold
numbers of visitors descended upon it, rushing back to their own
forums and web logs to share their opinion of what they saw. The
immense traffic momentarily put Nudeforpeace.org out of commission,
leading many to theorize that the site was hacked by pro-war activists,
though most eventually conceded that it was likely just experiencing
technical difficulties. Despite the austere “server bandwidth
exceeded” message that was displayed on the front page of
the website, many secondary pages and images were still available
to viewers: something that should have again indicated to the technical-savvy
that all was not as it seemed.
The site stayed dead for several weeks and was not missed by the
general public as the anti-war movement faded into the murky green
backdrop of night vision and bunker-busters. Yet almost a month
later, something surprising happened: visitors to the presumed-defunct
Nudeforpeace.org were automatically redirected to AbbyWinters.com,
an Australian website that specializes in “amateur”
porn, a designation that has more to do with stylistic considerations
than financial. Some of the same models present at the old site
could now be seen in even more explicit terms, including the woman
who previously held the razor to her groin. This redirection was
only in place for a short period of time before visitors were forwarded
to yet another location, to a much darker Ishotmyself.com, a single-page
placeholder for a future website, registered to one Richard Lawrence.
Of the so-called “postmodern pinup” variety, the genre
revels in the detached and morbid, while supplying male viewers
with the traditional fare of young, thin females that they have
come to expect, only with the imposition of various youth subcultures
as a twist. The violent double meaning of the chosen domain name
echoes one of the more popular sites in the genre, the Portland,
Oregon based Suicidegirls.com, demonstrating that the idea of violence
against women—if only on a hypothetical level—is still
sexy amongst men who oppose the bloodshed of conventional war. This,
too, lasted only briefly.
Nudeforpeace.org stayed dead for months while Ishotmyself.com was
idling with only a placeholder graphic. In July of 2003, the latter
went live, featuring a gimmick startlingly reminiscent of the first:
all the images on the site are self portraits submitted by women—who
must have one hand on their camera at all times, a nod to the name
of the website—who are paid if the proprietor is satisfied
with their physical aesthetics and chooses to commission more shots
from them. For a short period of time their photographs are visible
to all visitors on the site, keeping a constant rotation of fresh
images on the front pages to draw traffic, while only paid subscribers
are permitted to view older galleries in the archives. Coinciding
with it going live, Nudeforpeace.org received a makeover as well,
albeit a strangely genteel one: it was transformed into a tribute
page to the Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig. Lawrence already
possessed such a tribute page at Curlyflat.net and the new content
at Nudeforpeace.org (the only of the above domains that Network
Solutions does not list Lawrence as proprietor, as it is registered
anonymously) is an exact mirror of it, possessing no further utility
other than to perhaps mask what had already transpired.
The exact specifics of these events remain unknown and are largely
irrelevant. Whether those involved with the website were perpetrating
an elaborate hoax or were genuine activists who fell victim to opportunism—given
their line of work—it seems unnecessary to grant them yet
another editorial platform given their behavior in either case.
Pornographers are certainly entitled to hold anti-war views and
there is certainly nothing novel about them doing so: reading Playboy
for the articles is a longstanding cliché and, to this day,
many male liberals defend its sexism by citing its anti-war stance
during the Vietnam era. Whether the initial models of Nudeforpeace.org
were activist volunteers or paid employees is certainly a cause
for feminist concern, as is the exploitation of those who freely
submitted their own images to the project, not knowing that it was
conducted by those who routinely profit from such imagery. However,
such ethical lapses on the part of pornographers are to be expected;
more disappointing is how easily they were able to both deceive
and exploit the male progressive community who eagerly accepted
the website at face value.
The popularity of Nudeforpeace.org was fueled by derision, largely
by men who have embraced the brand of neo-libertarianism espoused
by magazines such as Maxim; the glossy combination of capitalism
and sexism complementing their meteoric ascensions within the Information
Technology industry and the rewards that have come with it. Given
their aptitudes and free time during working hours, they often set
the pace for the Internet at large. Fark.com, one such news portal
for the demographic, brought roughly 89,000 “click-through”
sessions to Nudeforpeace.org within just a few days. Although many
of those were surely duplicate visitors, it was not the only large
site linking to it and a good portion of its participants maintain
their own smaller web pages and journals, making the news of the
project proliferate quite rapidly amongst those who were opposed
to it politically—much more quickly than it filtered through
the far more rudimentary channels employed by activists. Among the
men responding to the website, most were quite vociferous in both
their pro-war stances and in their attacks upon the models, whom
they deemed undesirable in the most rabid of terms. Nudeforpeace.org
symbolized everything that they had to come to expect from liberals:
trivial actions, futile in significance. The method in this case,
female nudity, only served to bolster their misogyny, giving them
the opportunity to insult the women both in body and in mind.
Beyond the basic irony that many men, not at all unlike those above,
continue to pay a fair amount of money to view those same women
in more flattering images, it would appear that the bland photography
and the painted-brick wall each served their purpose well, disguising
the true agents behind the project. Many anti-war activists who
had submitted pictures to Nudeforpeace.org felt dejected after the
website imploded—unhappy that their participation was in vain—and
quickly began to organize themselves to pick up where the defunct
organization left off. They created a small online community using
popular journaling software for the express purpose of posting of
similar imagery. The overwhelming majority of such pictures were
far more sexualized than their progenitors. This, of course, is
to be expected to a great extent: no one wishes to be seen in unflattering
terms and aping the conventions of popular media, from the advertising
industry to pornography, is largely unavoidable. Indeed, none of
these contributors would have had cause to actively work towards
not looking like a porn star. Although Nudeforpeace.org was never
picked up by the mainstream media in any significant fashion, given
its late introduction and early demise, the work of these people
has made what was likely a short-lived hoax into a historical reality,
working to solidify public perception of the anti-war effort. While
the number of protestors in conventional demonstrations was routinely
downplayed by the press, the millions of Europeans taking to the
streets ignored by the American media, nudity based activism received
a disproportionate amount of attention.
Prior to the advent of the war in Iraq, a press release by Nudeforpeace.org
had been eagerly reposted on many activist websites, giving a statement
by one Anna Van Riel, who otherwise had no online public record
as an activist. Perhaps the first appearance of the statement was
at Indymedia.org, which allows its users to submit articles of interest.
Posted by Richard Lawrence (whose Ishotmyself.com currently displays
an advertisement for Indymedia.org), a nude photo of a woman draped
across a bed was displayed with the text. From there, news of the
website was transmitted through the activist media, landing its
way onto sites such as Protest.net, though most had the sense to
dispose of the picture that accompanied the original.
The text of the statement exhorted people to “donate their
modesty” by volunteering their own images to the project,
arguing that street-protests and demonstrations are a way of “making
noise” but have no lasting effect, indicating that nudity-based
activism would have more profound consequences. Such claims are
fairly absurd as female nudity was co-opted long before male Art-Historians
began their pointlessly protracted discussions on the merits of
“naked versus nude.” The response of the Dixie Chicks
to their detractors in the wake of an anti-Bush comment, posing
undressed on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, was scripted
millennia before they were born. As soon as the cover was unveiled
and released on the Internet, legions of men who use “Photoshop”
as both a noun and as a verb had de facto ownership of it, creating
countless parodies of the trio by sectioning the women’s bodies
into labeled cuts of meat or by turning it into a “Saddam’s
Angels” poster, placing their silhouettes against a backdrop
of flame. Some even replaced their images on the cover with a bulbous,
Frankenstein-like nude, representing writer and filmmaker, Michael
Moore. Nudity is a completely untenable device for achieving social
justice in Western society and forever will be: even if stripped
of both its capitalist and gendered associations (female indicating
vulnerability, male being synonymous with aggression or humor),
it would then lack any significant meaning whatsoever, making comparisons
to actions within other cultures unfounded.
As sordid as the events surrounding Nudeforpeace.org were, the
most regrettable aspect was in how it was not at all dissimilar
from its more legitimate contemporaries: after all, its very congruence
is what allowed its veracity to never be called into question. The
first example of nudity-based activism in response to the question
of Iraq took place on November 12, 2002, in Marin County, California.
Organized by Donna Sheehan, who hoped to emulate the actions of
Nigerian women who had used the threat of nudity as a traditional
shaming device in their interactions with ChevronTexaco, nearly
fifty women disrobed on a California field, spelling out the word
“peace” with their bodies. Sheehan sees her movement,
based at Baringwitness.org, as a revival of the spiritual power
of the feminine, not at all wary of being termed an essentialist.
Despite this, her advice to would-be activists is immensely practical:
the bulk of it describing how to interact with photographers and
to procure a copyright condition that reflects the concerns of the
demonstrators. In nudity-based activism—just as in pornography—no
matter how many women are in front of the lens, it is men who are
most often behind the camera and who will receive the bulk of the
protection from the legal system. While activists donate their modesty,
none seem willing to contribute their skill as photographers, demanding
credit, copyright, and even the ability to profit from derivative
items, such as prints, apparel, and even refrigerator magnets.

Illustration
by Timo Honkasalo
Men have also not been shy about stepping up as spokesmen for the
movement. Mike Grenville, a UK man in his late fifties, organized
his own “nude spelling bee” in his local area of East
Sussex on January 12, 2003. While he did claim inspiration from
Sheehan’s organization—as well as the Rolling Stones,
both of which he thanked in an interview with the Guardian Unlimited—Grenville
began his own webpage at Barewitness.org, perhaps hoping to take
advantage of confusion between the name of his own site and that
of the established movement, as Sheehan claims that he often borrows
photographs from her page for his own. Admittedly out of the activism
arena for many years, he makes several mistakes such as referring
to Bristol University students as “girls” rather than
women and is not shy about selling branded clothing or even linking
to traditional nudist sites such as Bodyfreedom.org. Indeed, those
among the naturist movement have been quick to jump on the bandwagon
when it comes to the nascent form of protest, hoping to guide its
actions toward their own ends. When longtime naturist T.A. Wyner
wished to choreograph a protest event consisting of herself and
other nude women—though it would be videotaped by one George
T. Simon—at a Florida public park, the debate landed in court
where the duo were defended by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Although U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrook granted that
the speech in question was overtly political, and thus protected,
many nudists declared it a victory for their own movement as well.
While such specious reasoning will not likely serve to promote nudist
goals in the long run, as naturist organizers generally depend upon
a sense of insularity to establish hierarchies amongst the male
participants, their association with the recent anti-war movement
is abundantly damaging to the credibility of those—mostly
women—who already lack any measure of political authority
under the current regime. A general sense of naivety pervades as
the novelty of obtaining media attention consistently overrides
any consideration of the quality of that attention. Nudity based
activism allows conservative reporters to hide their own biases
behind cheeky headlines and humorous copy, permitting their own
political statements to lurk quietly in the background in texts
that most readers will accept as neutral: something that progressives
can ill afford.
Nudeforpeace.org was not the first hoax to dupe both the young
activist community and the mainstream press that enjoys making them
look foolish. Ironically, the precedent was set by an allegedly
anti-porn website, Getsomereal.com, created by the Swedish magazine,
Darling, with the help of Moonwalk, a Stockholm based advertising
agency. Getsomereal.com was intended to share the message that “porn
is fake, girls are real” (even Richard Lawrence claims a feminist
intent for Ishotmyself.com, allegedly working to “satirise
internet trafficking of the female nude”) and allowed its
users to play a game where they could place censoring stickers over
the breasts and genitalia of a variety of fetish models. However,
the site also promised its users that they were making fake porn
web pages—which they were, after a fashion—that would
be submitted to Internet search engines across the world, misdirecting
would-be porn viewers to the message. It never accomplished any
such thing: to do so would be violating the terms of service set
by many of those very search engines, making Darling liable,
something a for-profit magazine would be wise to avoid. Not only
did the general public accept the site at face value, so did the
supposedly most technically-savvy of the media, the Internet-focused
magazine, Wired. Their reporter covering the story merely
linked to a dictionary definition of “cloaking technology”
rather than testing the validity of whether or not it was actually
occurring—just as no one bothered to ask for credentials from
Nudeforpeace.org.
Wired’s recounting of the story was overtly
political, beginning with an assertion that, “anti-porn folks
spew a lot of hot air,” linking to a Harvard website on the
feminist writer Catharine MacKinnon, continuing on with the allegation
that Darling’s solution is the first valid one to ever be
suggested: a construction that is very much a parallel of Nudeforpeace.org’s
statement that street protests only “make noise.” In
sum, the reporter firmly and deliberately placed a man who works
in the advertising industry, Calle Sjönell, at the forefront
of feminist activism, allowing his words to trump those of a woman
who is a respected lawyer and has dedicated her entire life to the
movement. Given the political sensibility of the author behind the
article, it seems fairly evident why the validity of Getsomereal.com’s
claims were never tested: expediency. Taking them at face value
offered a readybuilt straw-argument against progressives, one that
could not be reasonably rejected by those it would advantage, all
while maintaing a façade of fair and balanced journalism.
Darling’s anti-porn campaign only served
to generate publicity for itself and to give yet another weapon
to those who would attack the reputation of those who truly work
to end the exploitation of women.
There is certainly nothing new about the advertising industry co-opting
the words of revolution, even on the Internet. For years, film companies
and recording houses have paid professional web developers to create
amaturish looking sites, hoping their spark would fan the flames
of a grass roots fan base. There is also nothing novel about those
in power creating minority mouthpieces to reflect the concerns of
the status quo. However, given the ease at which such ruses are
perpetrated in the online realm, exploiting high levels of anonymity
with only a token financial investment, the danger of the voices
of true activists being displaced has grown exponentially. While
the so-called urban legend has been pronounced dead, a victim of
instantaneous mass communication, the dynamic has become much more
insidious as deceptions can now become public reality, in every
sense of the word, given enough audience belief and participation.
This makes it far too easy for the media to focus on imposters.
Although the left is behind in both numbers and in the technology
race, they have been presented with an opportunity: As the conservative
power base is increasingly reliant upon a generation of staunch
libertarians, who are not at all apologetic about their love of
pornography, male liberals are now faced with the chance to finally
turn away from the sex industry and its money—often supplied
to Democratic candidates as an investment in “free speech”—not
only because it is the right thing to do, but because it will take
away the last and only remaining moral trump card illegitimately
held by the Grand Old Party.
[Originally Published 6/20/2003 by Feminista!]
|