An erotic life is, for more and more people, that which can be captured on digital photographs and on video. And perhaps the torture is more attracti… - Susan Sontag

The expression of satisfaction at the acts of torture one is inflicting on helpless, trussed, naked victims is only part of the story. There is the primal satisfaction of being photographed, to which one is more inclined to respond not with a stiff, direct gaze (as in former times) but with glee. The events are in part designed to be photographed. The grin is a grin for the camera. There would be something missing if, after stacking the naked men, you couldn't take a picture of them.

Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness. The truths we respect are those born of affliction. We measure truth in terms of the cost to the writer in suffering — rather than by the standard of an objective truth to which a writer's words correspond. Each of our truths must have a martyr.

La sabiduría esencial de la imagen fotográfica afirma: «Ésa es la superficie. Ahora piensen — o más bien sientan, intuyan — qué hay más allá, cómo debe de ser la realidad si ésta es su apariencia».