Okay, you pervs (and others)... here is a topic to titalate... from Kim Voynar, MCN's newest star...
Although I recognize that there will be any number of men who will go to see The Wrestler because exploitative websites like Mr. Skin tell them down to the minute just when they'll get to seeTomei's bare breasts on the screen (and that's a subject for another column), I would argue that in the case of The Wrestler, Tomei's nudity is absolutely relevant to the story. The whole point of Cassidy's character revolves around both the way in which she exposes and exploits herself for the sake of a buck, and the way in which the men to whom she's exposing herself view her as "too old" to fulfill their sexual fantasies (also disturbing in and of itself for what it says about both the male sexual obsession with young girls and the way in which men, as they age, become "dignified" while women become "over the hill").
For us to really feel the impact of Pam's awareness of her own exploitation in her stripper persona, and in particular the way in which she evokes that despairwrenchingly onstage in the film's final act, we need to have earlier felt the way in which she accepted (or rather, told herself she accepted) that exploitation as a means to an end. The audience needs to cringe as Tomei writhes on stage for the kind of men who slip dollar bills into stripper's thongs, needs to feel tension as she's taunted by a pack of young men for being too old for them to pay her for a private lap dance, needs to feel the pain of that moment when, after years of taking her clothes off for a living, she suddenly feels utterly vulnerable, naked, and exposed.
The rest...
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/11/voynaristic_fem.html