“Nudes Without Dignity”: A Look Back

There's a certain level of humiliation that comes from taking your clothes off in front of other people—and for some folks, that's the whole point. In fact, the more humiliation involved, the better. That may be why we found artist E.Z. Smith's 1996 photo series, "Nudes Without Dignity" so amusing. The pictures show naked people engaged in decidedly unsexy activities, which provides an interesting take on the theme of degradation in porn ... or if you don't want to think that hard, they're just kind of funny. They're also kind of old—they date back over a decade, an eternity in internet time—but we don't have much dignity either, so we have no problem linking to them now. Like the subjects that are made to look foolish, it's so embarrassing that it almost makes us look cool. Er, right?

· Nudes Without Dignity (e-z-smith.com)