Miller’s text engages a fair amount of philosophical rumination, but pertinent to the visual examples under review. Her descriptions are usually quite on the mark, and her analyses, however speculative at times, never seem to emerge from left field. Body Language is an absorbing book for those who take photography and queer representation seriously.

            When Rhein shows Brown his portraits—sinewy young men, sometimes with pierced ears, nipples, and penises—he calls them by name: “William, Jeffery, John, Andrew, Joe, Russell.” Some were lovers, some friends. Some are living, some are dead. Self-portraits show Rhein sitting or lying nude on a primitive wooden bench. At other times, he appears next to his subjects, kissing them in a rumpled bed, or helping to insert an IV.