The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

I work out at the Y five or six times a week, so I see a lot of naked women.

There are very elderly ones who stand crookedly in the shower, bones protruding, washing their thinning, silver hair. Others have bodies so wrinkled, the folds of skin fall like ripples from their shoulders to their thighs. One woman of about 60 has had a double mastectomy; she stands facing out under the hot air dryer on the wall, scars running diagonally, like a geometry problem across her flattened chest.

These women neither frighten nor repel me. But there are many who do.