Letters

By dig readers

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Share your babies!!!!

Dear Dig,

How unfortunate for the rest of our species that Julie Bogart and her ilk are breeding.

In her "She's a baby, not a purse" rant (Soapbox, 3.5.08), she can't fathom that her fellow partygoers' behavior was socially acceptable because it was a manifestation of joy—and those squirming little bundles inspire that in us humans.

You see, we're social animals, so making faces and goo-goo noises is a funny way of socializing. It's what separates us from, say, lizards or sardines.

It's sad that Ms. Bogart's sentiment that equates friendly strangers at a party with danger and disease is so increasingly common. It's thoroughly suburban, and thoroughly modern. Tough knocks for evolution.

DOUGLAS

SOUTH END

(this shit was hand-delivered—Ed.)

Apology denied.

Dear Dig,

I'm the human statue who's the focal point of the photo in this week's Dig This (3.19.08). Had you bothered to ask before you used my image, I would have refused, then admonished you for the article you wrote drooling over the Sex Workers' Art Show (2.13.08). Said article included, among the plethora of typical pro-sex work non-arguments, the "radical" assertion that we should respect the right of a prostituted woman to allow strange men access to her anus in order to pay rent because sex workers are people too. Funny, I thought that the humanity of sex "workers" was exactly what makes it regrettable that they're selling their bodily sovereignty.

Had you left a note in my tip jar, I would have told you that legit lady performers voice discomfort over the burlesque trend of reducing the contributions of female performers to variations on the striptease. I would have said that your article about how awesome the upcoming Burlesque Expo will be (same issue as my photo—oh joy!) doesn't empower anybody.

I would have voiced a rousing call of "hell fucking no" before I ever let you use my likeness in your paper.

As someone who has known and cared for complex human beings who were also sex "workers," viciously brutalized by their jobs, I don't find you particularly hip when you pull this shit. You're not being edgy by endorsing something Republicans claim to dislike. And while it's your business if you want to glorify an industry that fucking kills people in the pages between your glossy covers featuring generic hawt chix, I wish you'd leave me out of your publication entirely.

Besitos,

LADY IN WHITE

DOWNTOWN CROSSING AND FANEUIL HALL

PS I don't expect you'll have the cojones to publish this, but I'd be superappreciative of an email response and an apology.