Naked for a Reason

A SuicideGirl named Fractal lost a close friend to cancer. He was a poet and artist, deeply embedded in the Burning Man community—the kind of person whose death leaves a particular, shaped absence. Her response was to do what she and her colleagues know how to do: take her clothes off, get photographed beautifully, and direct the proceeds somewhere useful. She put together a print fundraiser with photographer Cherry Vega, nude and unapologetic, with donations going to the City of Hope cancer research center.

I find this genuinely moving. Not the nudity specifically—though I’m not going to pretend I looked away—but the logic of it. You grieve in the language available to you. You use what you have. If what you have is a body, an audience, and a cause worth fighting for, that’s the combination you put to work. It’s more honest than most charity campaigns manage to be.