  We establish the extent to which photons and dileptons are penetrating probes
of hot hadronic matter by computing mean free paths. Absorption is indeed
negligible for real photons as mean free paths are roughly tenths of
\AAngstr\"oms. However, vector dominance effects, which provide rich structure
in virtual photon mass spectra, introduce nonnegligible reabsorption and
rehadronization resulting in mean free paths of the order of tens of
femtometers. Consequences are illustrated by considering the net dilepton yield
near the rho peak via thermal \pi\pi annihilation from a short-lived hadronic
fireball. Results suggest that disappearance of the rho in heavy-ion collisions
can be due in part to reabsorption/rehadronization rather than solely due to
collective effects.
