Susie Bright
[Writer, feminist, and activist, b. 1958, Arlington, Virginia, lives in Santa Cruz, California.]
Seeing lesbian photography is just the tip of my radicalized clitoris. I have modeled for, commissioned, published, and fought for these pictures, and answered threats against them. I’ve seen the feminist movement bring these pictures to life, and I’ve seen that same movement try to suppress the liberating results.
Photographs have always been the tar baby of censors and obscenity laws. Literature can certainly (if it’s any good) conjure up the most pornographic imagination. But photographs dare to be “real.” No matter how contrived or constructed they are, there’s that damn body staring you in the face.