The Guardian: Heads You Lose!

Oh goody.

But one wonders if The Guardian will break with tradition and publish photographs that show same-sex couples' faces?

There follows a brief email exchange with The Guardian's Reader's Editor dated April 9th, and headed 'Decapitating gay men'.

Yet another gay story illustrated with faceless gay men, sadly not cake toppers this time.

Have you ever thought how ironic and insulting this is?

Richard Smith
Same-sex marriage: a reform that would put the icing on the cake

Dear Mr Smith

The photographer who took this shot has clearly decided to use a close crop to focus on the hands of the couple as one places a ring on the other's hands. I think that's a reasonable artistic decision, and I don't think using such a picture as a general illustration of a piece about gay marriage is insulting.

There are plenty of articles linked from these pages, with stories about…

gay marriage – http://www.theguardian.com/society/gay-marriage *

LGBT rights – http://www.theguardian.com/world/lgbt-rights

sexuality – http://www.theguardian.com/society/sexuality

… that include pictures of gay men that are not cropped close in this way. It seems to me that there is a reasonable variety of pictures used.

Regards
Rory Foster


Dear Rory,

Thanks for your reply.

It's a visual cliche and it's insulting and shaming.

Richard

* The last photo of a gay couple that comes up when I searched The Guardian today is this double whammy; two faceless gay men hidden behind a rainbow flag!

April 26th.