READERS HUE BACK

Letters

The Naked Truth

V.F.'s August cover of pregnant Demi Moore created an extraordinary reaction all over the world. In the U.S. alone there were ninety-five different television pieces—an audience of more than 110 million—as well as sixty-four radio shows on thirty-one stations and more than 1,500 newspaper articles and a dozen cartoons. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted a poll on their readers' reactions, and approximately five thousand responded, with opinion dividing right down the middle. Meanwhile, in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and South America, Demi made headlines. Readers' letters continue to deluge V.F.'.s office in the U.S.

In creating this cover, you have made America wake up to the nineties! You have made a statement that reflects the beliefs of a liberal, progressive, literate readership that has evolved from children of the fifties, passionate activists of the sixties, reformists of the seventies, and conscious consumers of the eighties.

KEITH C. SCHNIP Denver, Colorado

Your August cover has provoked an intense response in our obstetrical-gynecological practice. To me, the photograph conveyed a sense of beauty and pride, and I expected an overwhelmingly positive reaction from nurses and patients and their husbands. Unexpectedly, the opinions expressed were predominantly negative. In an attempt to understand these reactions, I asked a psychiatrist for his view. He felt that negative responses were to be expected, for a strong cultural taboo was being violated by showing a seductive and beautiful naked pregnant woman. In a sense, the cover functioned as a Rorschach test: individuals reveal a bit of themselves in how they perceive the image. Vanity Fair is to be congratulated for having had the courage to publish this photograph, for it truly stirs one's emotions. Pregnant women often view themselves as unattractive. Perhaps Demi Moore and Annie Leibovitz will help them to reflect on how beautiful they really are.

RICHARD L. BERMAN. M.D. Livingston, New Jersey

To me it was like a mirror: my baby is due this month.

CONNIE WILLIAMS Birmingham, Alabama

My wife and I have left the August issue with Demi Moore on the cover on the coffee table for a couple of weeks, and the more I see it, the better I like it. I'm guessing that as time goes by, more and more pregnant women will want a similar photograph to show life is really that way and there's no point in concealing it. And what a pretty sight it is!

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JOSEPH A. MOSS Kilmarnock, Virginia

It is a desecration. Like sex, pregnancy is a wonderful experience, but one which when observed by someone else becomes repulsive and pornographic.

SARA S. PATRICK Lookout Mountain, Tennessee

Vanity is fair when you grace your cover with a sky-clad pregnant woman.

DAVID L. SEELY Cambridge, Massachusetts

I was appalled and shocked at your August cover. Isn't anything sacred anymore?

GLADYS H. HALBOUTY Houston, Texas

JAMES A. THORSON Omaha, Nebraska

I have been a mother for thirty years, and when I looked at the cover I felt categorized and violated. Where have morality, discretion, and self-respect gone?

MARTHA F. BOWIE Whitmore Lake, Michigan

Renoir and Bonnard would have applauded. So do I.

DOLORES W. ROGERS

San Jose, California

The notion that celebrating pregnancy is taboo makes me think the Victorians are still with us. I am a curator in Birmingham and the author of a study of the Americanborn sculptor Jacob Epstein. In 1908, Epstein caused an uproar by including a semi-nude pregnant woman among his carved figures on the facade of the British Medical Association building (now Zimbabwe House) in London. The critics claimed that it was inappropriate to show realistic nudes in a public place, and that the figures were an incitement to immorality.

Epstein went on to make other sculptures of the same subject matter. The most controversial was the white marble Genesis, 1930, whose pose is almost exactly that of Demi Moore on your August cover. Genesis became so notorious through press coverage that the first owner raised large sums for charity by touring it around Britain. It and several other "shocking" Epsteins even ended up as a sideshow in Louis Tussaud's Waxworks in Blackpool! Rescued in 1961, they are now in major museums; Genesis is in the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.

EVELYN SILBER Birmingham, England

In a random survey of thirty-six men and women in our clinic, eleven thought the cover was O.K., sixteen thought it was O.K. but not as a cover, five didn't like the picture, and four found it offensive.

ELAINE M. MOSSBERGER, M.D.

San Rafael, California

I hope your cover is a new standard ushering in a new era. As a recovered anorexic, I think it's high time we started making women feel good about their bodies—throughout their lives!

LESLIE WARD Evanston, Illinois

As a longtime Lamaze childbirth educator, I took particular pleasure in your elegant cover. Who says women can't be comfortable about themselves and retain their sexuality during pregnancy?

GAIL VIELBIG Princeton, New Jersey

Most women don't want to look at their own abdomens when enceinte. Who wants to look at Demi Moore, pretty or not?

BARBARA W. HANDLEY Indianapolis, Indiana

Leibovitz's photos of Demi Moore are the most beautiful pictures of the female form I've ever seen!

JOHN BENNETT Newbury Park, California

We are so unused to seeing powerful images of women that Demi ignites like a cross before vampires.

MARY ANN HOGAN Denver, Colorado

Three of our major supermarkets banned the sale of this issue of V.F., for which I applaud them.

BARBARA W. GAMMON Huntersville, North Carolina

I have stopped shopping at the grocery store I shopped at for two years, because they refused to carry your August issue.

LYNNE ANDRZEJEWSKI Apollo Beach, Florida

At the bookstore where I bought my issue, the cover was actually camouflaged with a large, opaque piece of paper. Is America really this messed up? Have we actually come to a point where exploitive magazines full of naked women are displayed openly at newsstands while sensitive pictures of pregnant women are banned or covered up so as not to offend anyone?

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SHANNON MARMION Plano, Texas

The local supermarket informed me that it had decided not to carry the August issue, so I located it elsewhere. I'm the father of a three-year-old, and the photos brought back memories of my wife when she was eight months pregnant. Thank you.

RONN KOESTER Toledo, Ohio

If I may be so bold as to give some advice to the people who threw themselves into fits over four tastefully made photographs: Please do the world a favor and get some psychiatric help.

BRUNO LOMBARDI Montreal, Quebec

Pardon the thought of a dirty old lady— I'm seventy-two—but after showing Demi Moore's huge belly, why not on your next cover have Bruce Willis with a huge erection? After all, he made the right connection.

RAE MILLER HENESON Baltimore, Maryland

If you searched our entire country, I doubt if you could fill a football stadium with people who like that picture.

JERRY EDGAR Van Nuys, California

While browsing in a bookstore, I overheard teenagers viewing the cover exclaim, "Gross, sick. Who would want to look like that?' ' Perhaps in the future a flashback to that picture will help them realize one of the consequences of unprotected sex.

JONI A. ARCHIBALD Exeter, New Hampshire

The August cover will do more to deter promiscuous sex than all the lectures on sex education.

SARAH GRACEY Atlanta, Georgia

Congratulations. Well done. Truly a most remarkable time for a woman, and a beautiful shape to show off. What a pity Demi Moore didn't show her breasts, for they too are part of pregnancy, changing size and shape and color.

HEATHER ANDREWS Shillingford, England

Sodom and Gomorrah seem puritan compared with the entertainment world in the 1990s.

CATHY CONBOY Flushing, New York

Why has the world gone crazy over this artistic, tasteful photo of a lovely pregnant woman?

KATHY ROBINS Aurora, Colorado

I believe that there is a fine line separating sophistication from bad taste. I also believe that you have crossed that line.

SUSAN SCHAPER Libertyville, Illinois

No one has the definitive description of beauty, except, of course, Jesse Helms. The real issue at stake over this cover is freedom of the press, not what is beautiful. Thank you for expressing your right to print this picture of Demi Moore. In my humble opinion, you should have two naked pregnant women on next month's cover.

ROBIN GORNEAU Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I live in a retirement village. We are not prudes, but we do believe in decency. No plain cover hid Demi Moore from my side of the world. My poor postman! What must he think?

LAURA ELTZROTH Miamisburg, Ohio

The other day my two-and-a-half-yearold son was asking me about babies in their mommies' tummies, so I pulled out your August issue and showed him the pictures. He understood immediately. Publishing these pictures was a great idea, and the way so many closedminded people in this country reacted was ridiculous. I'm glad I subscribe and didn't have to rely on one of those stores that trumpeted their "family values" and pulled the issue from the shelves.

JODI BORNSTEIN Boca Raton, Florida

This cover is a tour de force. It will be studied in years to come—and it should be.

PENELOPE W. B1ANCHI Pasadena, California

Letters to the editor should be sent with the writer's name, address, and daytime phone number to: The Editor, Vanity Fair, 350 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017. The letters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity.