Aesthetically, I think naked women look better than naked men. We're more streamlined! (And I -- mostly -- prefer men dating-wise, so don't think it's that sort of bias speaking). Likewise, physically-fit and healthy people look better naked to me -- and to many people -- than those who are not. So if the despotic ruler of Mexico's got bedmates and his tastes are anywhere near the cultural mean, we can count on 'em being young-looking, female and pin-up pretty.
That doesn't mean those of us with less-than-perfect figures should be sneered at when we wear things rather more skimpy than the WCTU would approve; to claim so is to read far more into the work than is there.
As for "socally-redeeming," why does it need to be? To the dickens with society; someone else can try to redeem it. The boys are tellin' us a story. Boys being boys, it's got naked, pretty girls in it. You would prefer, maybe, that they were into alligators or sweaty, hairy, obese truckers of either sex? I'm very leery of "socially redeeming" as a scale of value; if that's your criteria, which of these literary classics do you rate higher, Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," Pauline Reage's "Story of O," or John Rechy's "City of Night?" --Even Sinclair's screed is art first, despite his intentions and the very unintended actual consequences; "Reage" was writing a wank-book for her lover, never intended for publication and it just happened both of them were A) kinky and B) extraordinarily gifted writers; Rechy was apparently driven to produce his first and probably best work by the events of his own life, despite the taboo subject matter. All are shocking in various ways; none of them are looking for social redemption to justify that shock.
Bobbi
