But I digress.

I want to take a long, hard look at Bush's sexuality. Because The Photos are Bush's porn. Oh, he says they "disgust" him. Of course, they do. Listen, I'm a sex therapist. Many of my clients will say something disgusts them at first, only to confess a few sessions later that it really turns them on.

Shortly after the censorship dam burst and The Photos were released publicly, Bush issued his first attempt at apologizing: "I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated." He coughed up the words like a chicken bone, or that pretzel he swallowed and almost choked on. And he looked like a shifty-eyed boy caught by his mama, his schoolteacher and the whole neighborhood with his political pants down, way down around his ankles, exposing his severe shortcomings for all the world to revile.

The Photos are Bush's porn. Oh, he says they "disgust" him. Of course, they do. Listen, I'm a sex therapist. Many of my clients will say something disgusts them at first, only to confess a few sessions later that it really turns them on.

Notice that he started to say how "those prisoners" were "treated." But then, he couldn't say it. After all, it might have given him an erection. Which would not help his reelection.

George II was so disgusted that, a few hours after he made these pious pronouncements, he went to a private party at the home of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Line Producer of Bush's P.O.W.* Porn. I assume that Rummy and Mrs. Rummy provided barf bags for everyone. [*Prisoners Of War]

Giving Bush's War That Extra Spice

Amazing how many synonyms for "disgust" have dripped and dribbled like infected spittle from the rapidly dissembling mouths of various pro-war pundits and politicians, as they too are compelled to submit their reviews of Bush's P.O.W. Porn, which they helped to produce, promote and distribute. They are APPALLED. Shocked. Dismayed. Disturbed. Sickened. Nauseated. Rummy is "stunned." Condi is "outraged." Yes, this is a "deep disgust," as the President so compassionately suggested, that the whole Team Bush Torture Production and Distribution Wing "shares."

And yes, it's all very disgusting and dismaying to see hooded, naked men being forced to "assume the position" in a perverse pornographic Passion Play. But is it any less disgusting and dismaying to see them bombed to bloody smithereens? Is it less disgusting to see their heads blown off, their bodies riddled with bullet holes, their arms shattered, their legs amputated, their skin burnt to a crisp? Is it any less disgusting to see their families murdered, their children pulverized, their libraries torched, their museums looted, their hospitals ruined, their homes razed, their oil stolen, their land RAPED by invaders? Everything about the Rape of Iraq-that is, the brutal, unprovoked invasion and occupation of this sovereign, ancient land--has been "disgusting." The Photos just give the ongoing horror of Bush's War a little extra "spice."

Yes, it's all very disgusting and dismaying to see hooded, naked men being forced to "assume the position" in a perverse pornographic Passion Play. But is it any less disgusting and dismaying to see them bombed to bloody smithereens?

But, oh that spice. It packs such potent psychic punch. It titillates as it appalls. It's not the kind of thing that hurts your eyes like a cluster bomb victim with no arms or legs and burns all over her body, or a guy on the road whose head has been run over like a ripe melon by a U.S. tank. Bush's P.O.W. Porn is disturbing, but you can look at it. In fact, you kind of want to stare at it. Why do you think they show The Photos over and over everywhere, even on Fox?

I still stand by my statement to Charlie Radin of the Boston Globe that "death is worse than rape." Considerably worse. But I have to admit that sometimes sex makes a bigger impression than death. After all, death is so final, so depressing, so yesterday. Sex is always intriguing, even if it's "disgusting."

Of course, the more explicit parts of The Photos are still censored. This is not Bush's doing; just the U.S. Media, always protecting American eyes from Arab assholes and genitalia.

But The Photos are more than genital. They have meaning. They have mystery. In fact, they're fraught with more mysterious meanings than a Freudian dream with Reichian overtones and shades of "Strange Fruit." They show torture, of course, clearly forbidden by the basic tenets of the Geneva Convention, not to mention human decency. But they show more than that. They show sexual torture. Nakedness, leashes, penises, butts, masturbation, latex gloves, panties, grins of ecstasy, grimaces of agony. They show a dark drama, a Theater of Cruelty that Antonin Artaud only dreamt about, complete with masks and props and imaginative staging, heavy on the symbolism, daring to cross psychological and religious boundaries, daring to sodomize the Saddamites, and smile for the camera. It is the stuff of our sadomasochistic, exhibitionist-voyeuristic, hetero/homosexual, racist-colonialist nightmares.

But The Photos are more than genital. They have meaning. They have mystery... They show sexual torture. Nakedness, leashes, penises, butts, masturbation, latex gloves, panties, grins of ecstasy, grimaces of agony. They show a dark drama... daring to sodomize the Saddamites, and smile for the camera. It is the stuff of our sadomasochistic, exhibitionist-voyeuristic, hetero/homosexual, racist-colonialist nightmares.

It's also a farce, a frat house prank, a practical joke, a lynching party except (some of) the victims get to live, a hazing into hell, an initiation into the penal code-ha, ha, ha! As Rush Limbaugh chortled, The Photos show patriotic American soldiers engaged in making "good old American pornography." True, but there is one critical difference between Bush's P.O.W. Porn and the films of most American porn companies like, say, Extreme Associates, currently under indictment for obscenity by Bush's top lawyer Ayatollah Asscraft. That difference is that in Extreme Associates' porn, the actors are paid to perform; in Bush's P.O.W. porn, the actors are forced to perform. Ha, ha, ha! Joke's on you, Mohammed! The raghead becomes a hoodhead. What a comedy!

And what a tragedy. Pathos, terror, broken men, dead ones too, depraved soldiers, maniacal interrogators, a profoundly sick system, America's hope dipping below the lowest of the low. And more pictures and video are yet to come, which Bush and his collaborators may or may not let us see. The Director's Cut.

What we have already seen boggles, bullies and fascinates even the most sophisticated, jaded 21st century mind. Painfully bound prisoners writhe at the feet of the latex-gloved conqueror. Naked men wear black hoods that cover their heads like bags, disorienting their senses and masking their humanity. It's a War-on-Terror twist on the old saying, "Just put a bag over her (or his) head," and you can do anything to her (or him).

It's hard to imagine anything more offensive to Muslims than to see fellow Muslims being forced by laughing Christians to get naked and do sexual things to each other.

It's hard to imagine anything more offensive to Muslims than to see fellow Muslims being forced by laughing Christians to get naked and do sexual things to each other. Not that these images don't offend Christians too, resembling, as they do, some Hieronymous Boschian lower depths of Satanica. Jews might find the images horrifically reminiscent of naked Jewish men and women being put through their paces by Nazi concentration camp guards. Hindus and Buddhists are also disgusted. So are Pagans and Ethical Hedonists. For us, the nudity isn't the problem; it's the fact that these guys are being forced by their captors to do things we prefer to associate with love and pleasure that is so, well, disgusting. It's especially disturbing (and ironic) that many of The Photos have been released during the month of May, declared "Masturbation Month" by Dr. Betty Dodson and other assorted sex-positive feminists. Bush's Goddess-Damned War won't even let us jill off in peace!

Pyramid Schemes

Several of The Photos show the grinning guards forcing the naked men to make pyramids. Pyramids? In Exodus (the second of the Five Books of Moses, sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims), we read of the Egyptian taskmasters who forced their Hebrew slaves to build the Great Pyramids, beating and humiliating them, making them suffer and die for the enormous triangular tombs. Then, so the Exodus story goes, it was the turn of the taskmasters and their Pharaoh to suffer disgusting tortures and die horrible deaths, cursed by their own greed and grandiosity.

The pyramids in The Photos are the bare bodies and hooded heads of the prisoners themselves. The American guards grin, like camp counselors, proudly presenting their charges to the camera. Children in every culture make pyramids; it's a common, innocent game. Turning the men into children may be part of the "regression" the CIA manuals talk about when they euphemistically describe this "torture lite" or "stress and duress." The idea is "to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist." In other words, turn the man into a child and have him "adopted" by one or two extremely violent, sexually abusive "parents."

Making the naked human pyramids, being forced to rub your no-longer-private parts against your fellow hapless prisoners bare flesh, is one form of humiliation-style punishment that is, it seems, specifically designed to shatter the dignity and sanity of the Muslim man.

The parents (guards) prepare the child (prisoner) for class (interrogation). If you don't do well in class (tell the interrogators what they want to hear), you are punished. Making the naked human pyramids, being forced to rub your no-longer-private parts against your fellow hapless prisoners bare flesh, is one form of humiliation-style punishment that is, it seems, specifically designed to shatter the dignity and sanity of the Muslim man.

Of course, this is not to say there aren't gay Muslims. Homosexuality exists in every culture. But for most moderately religious Muslims of any sexual orientation, the forced public commission of such acts is more or less equivalent to a psychological electric shock. This is one reason that pre-interrogation "softening up" techniques like these do seem to "work." They make the victims lose their minds, and consequently, their defenses. Does it get them to talk? Probably. Would it get them to tell the factual truth? Probably not. More likely, it would get them to fantasize.

Perhaps fantasies were all the interrogators could hope for when they were desperately searching for phantom Weapons of Mass Destruction to satisfy the agenda of the Grand Auteur of this avant garde cinema verité multi-billion dollar porn production--Mr. GW Bush--along with his production studios, otherwise known as the U.S. military, U.S. intelligence and the U.S. incarceration industry.

But before we tear into Bush and co., let's take a look at a few more of The Photos

Presenting:
P.O.W. Porn Superstar Lynndie England!

Several Photos feature a pixyish young woman, Private Lynndie England of West Virginia. Private Lynndie has a lot of presence. If The Photos weren't so, well, appalling, the girl could use them as a stepping stone to stardom, or at least 15 minutes of fame and a book deal right after the court martial. In one shot, little Lynndie looks almost sweet, like a college cheerleader, as she smiles brightly, pointing to the exposed genitals of the man beside her sitting on the back of another naked hooded man. She gives the thumbs-up-to whom? To the folks back home? To the prisoners themselves for later viewing and further humiliation (plus the threat of showing their folks back home). To other hapless prisoners that might see The Photos and quiver that they could be next? To her bosses at Military Intelligence? To her bigger bosses at the Pentagon? Or maybe it's to the really Big Boss back home, the Chief Cheerleader, the Man with a Mission that Private Lynndie, in her small, pixyish way, is helping to accomplish. "Thumbs-up to torture, Mr. Prez! Private Lynndie, an all-American gal after your bullying heart, is on the job. Mission Accomplished!"

In another Photo, Private Lynndie seems a little kookier. Maybe she'd been drinking, or maybe she was just drunk on power. Maybe she was told to pose like this. A cigarette dangles, Bogie-like, from her lips, as she moves down her row of naked hooded men. She is making one masturbate for her, but she gives her smile to the camera.

The way The Photo tells it, Private Lynndie's hooked on the real stuff, the power that comes from having a bunch of fellow soldiers with guns backing you up, the power of forcing petrified men (your prisoners) to humiliate themselves for the pleasure of other men (your bosses).

You can tell Lynndie knows she's good at this sexual torture stuff. Why, she could set herself up as a professional dominatrix when she goes home to West Virginia. She'd do a bang-up business (especially after all this PR). Though it wouldn't be the same. After all, the guys that go to doms want to be abused. The way The Photo tells it, Private Lynndie's hooked on the real stuff, the power that comes from having a bunch of fellow soldiers with guns backing you up, the power of forcing petrified men (your prisoners) to humiliate themselves for the pleasure of other men (your bosses). There are no "safe words" here. Lucky Lynndie dances down her conga line of Boys in the Hoods.

Bush's POW Porn Star Lynndie England and Co-Star Charles A. Grainer give the Thumbs-Up to their Boss (da Prez) while piling up the extras on location at Abu Ghraib.

Then, there's Lynndie again, right hand giving the thumbs up, left arm wrapped around her favorite partner-in-crime, Specialist Charles Grainer (allegedly her lover and father of her expected child), as they stand tall behind their human pyramid, like giddy tourists at an exotic amusement park, or proud hunters showing off their bagged prey.

Or like early 20th century Americans at a lynching party. Bard College History of Photography Professor Luc Sante finds this comparison most apt: "In photographs that were taken and often printed as postcards in the American heartland in the first four decades of the 20th century, black men are shown hanging from trees or light fixtures or maybe being burned alive, while below them white people are laughing and pointing for the benefit of the camera...

Before seeing such pictures you might expect the faces in them to express some kind of collective rage; instead the mood is giddy, often verging on hysterical, with a distinct sexual undercurrent. Like the lynching crowds, the Americans at Abu Ghraib felt free to parade their triumph and glee not because they were psychopaths but because the thought of censure probably never crossed their minds."Why would they be censured when Big Daddy Bush gave the thumbs-up to "loosening up" the limits after 9-11? Feminists are quiet about it so far, but Lynndie does prove Right-wing gadfly Ann Coulter's point that women in the military can be "vicious." Of course, Lynndie's friend Chuck proves that men are vicious too. Actually, there are more male than female guards in The Photos; it's just that Lynndie's such a stand-out!

A later release shows Lynndie's serious side. In this now world-famous scene, she plays the haughty mistress glaring contemptuously down at her obstinate dog, as she holds a leash, the collar of which is around the neck of one of her prisoners who lies naked, grimacing, on the floor.

Private Lynndie, Churchgoing Patriot Daughter of Fort Ashby, West Virginia, (town of one stoplight and six churches), Dominatrix to the Sand Demons of Arabie, Middle-Woman to the War Machine. America's most despised young lady right now, Lynndie is the Anti-Lynch, Jessica's shattered mirror image, the smiling face of American Womanhood at War that no one wants to see and that everyone now must face.

Who are you, Lynndie England, how could you do such things, and what will you do now? Mata Hari was a patsy too, my dear. But at least, she had the seductive savoir-faire to blow a kiss to the boys on her firing squad before they gunned her down. Would you? Who knows?

This much, as a sex therapist, I do know: Wealthy American men with submissive fantasies (most of whom are Republican) will pay their mistresses well to "Treat me like dirt, Mistress, treat me like Lynndie treated the Iraqis!" for many years to come.

The Blowjob Photo: Bush's Gay Agenda

Then there's the Blowjob Photo. Former US President Bill Clinton was impeached over a blowjob, but his was consensual. These guys are being forced to simulate fellatio on each other. This appears to be the Bush Way to treat the issue of homosexuality. Let's not let Americans of the same sex have the right to marry; oh no, that would be immoral! Let's have American troops force Iraqis to pretend to blow each other, in order to make them talk, or punish them, or keep them awake, or show them who's "the superior outside force," or to make "good old American pornography," or maybe just because we feel like it.

No longer just made by the pros in the San Fernando Valley, porn is now made by every amateur with a digital camera, from librarians in Kansas City to military police in Abu Ghraib, and instantly distributed through the Internet around the world.

Staged with an eye for drama and composition, The Blowjob looks like a lot of the American porn that the guards and interrogators were probably ogling on their laptops for inspiration in between torture sessions. In fact, in some ways, Bush's P.O.W. Porn is just an extention of the 21st century "Everyone's A Pornographer!" phenomenon. No longer just made by the pros in the San Fernando Valley, porn is now made by every amateur with a digital camera, from librarians in Kansas City to military police in Abu Ghraib, and instantly distributed through the Internet around the world.

Now I'm all for exporting American porn to the Arab World. In fact, I already do that, since The Dr. Susan Block Show (which some call "porn") is on in Israel, where it's translated into Arabic as well as Hebrew (not to mention the fact that anybody can look at my website). I say, hey, if they want porn, we should sell it to them at rock bottom prices, or better yet, give it to them free as a gesture of good will and to "spread American values." But forcing them to act in our porn movies and photo shoots is, to say the least, not good for the business.

Moreover, most of Bush's P.O.W. Porn is not just your basic simulated blow-job, but agonizing S/M, otherwise known as torture, and not the fun, consensual kind. In one photo, guards loom ominously over naked prisoners bound together painfully. In another, a naked man, his body contorted with terror, looks at two snarling military dogs ready to attack him (later photographs show that the dogs do bite the man). Then there's the shackled guy, his back in an excruciating arch, with panties on his head. Is this a fetish show or a prison? Or are prisons fetish shows more than we want to know?

Click here for Part 2