In the time of classical painting, artists would beg, shove, and bully their way to the front of execution crowds, and squaring their shoulders against the medieval moshpit behind them, make fervid sketches of the accused. What they saw was a rare and profitable face for an artist to memorize: that of the doomed man.
But even more valuable, more ephemeral, more rare, was that of the convicted woman. The bread and butter of the working artist were religious scenes, battles, rapes, mutilations, and suicides. Martyrs, cow-eyed saints, and resignedly lovely Virgins were stock and trade, and each artist jostled with his fellows to observe and capture that pinpoint element of star-crossed tragedy from the bedraggled criminals dragged before them.
And so it is with a flourish of classicism that I present to you ABC News' Accused Female Sex Offenders photobook, a parade of women so dejected, so humiliated, so haunted by demons and yet so deliciously deserving, that one cannot help but muse on Eve, or perhaps Lilith, still walking among us, still defying man's law, and squishily corrupting the stainless boychildren with which they are entrusted.
So many of them bear superficial resemblances to the Playboy Archetype (tan, leggy, blonde, made up) that I theorize they dressed and comported themselves specifically to appeal to the unsophisticated fantasies of the pubescent American boy. This little demonstration of intent is , to your poor mad author, the rotten sugarskull on the flyblown cupcake of pederasty.
Photos: Accused Female Sex Offenders [ABC News]
