viz.

I'm not sure about the critical sentiment of the American flag, but it clearly matters an awful lot in terms of how one regards the issue of glorification of sexual violence. Of course sex and violence are both at play, but one can consider it glorified only if one buys into the idea of the flag as sincere and if one feels a pang of patriotic empathy with the soliders. If the flag is critical, then it is possible that the photostory is critical of sexual violence, of the hedonism inherent in the processes of war. Then the only question to ask is whether you can make a critical account of war and sexual violence by way of the salacious photospread (on that count I'm decidedly unimpressed...editors are given the right to work blue and lay claim to the moral high ground that would forgive the excessive skin).

One thing I find interesting about the photostory is the diconnect between the title and the images that follow. "Make Love, Not War" is a an interesting title for a series of images that show a brand of love that could only be produced by war. This is surely not merely a pithy slogan for images of war and sex. It seems to me a cynical refusal of the 60s and 70s era ideology of mutually exclusive categories. Love and War are mutually exclusive according to that worldview, and here comes the world of fashion to refuse the distinction.