I am new here and unsure where to place the following.
We had a situation in Australia last year, where a photographer exhibited photos of a naked pre pubescent girl in an exhibition which was open to the public. Following complaints from some members of the public, the exhibition was raided by the police and closed.
A debate ensued. Were the photos of the prepubescant girl art or porn? She was underaged at the time and therefore informed consent was not possible. Her mother gave her consent on behalf of the daughter.
Coincidentally, it was decided in Australia last year that girls under the age of 16 were no longer permitted to participate in fashion showings on the cat walk.
My feeling was that if girls under the age of 16 are not allowed to participate in fashion showings, then neither should photos of them be permitted to be displayed in art galleries open to the public.
Social Sciences might have been a better Forum for this, but I am fine with keeping it here. If you want, I’ll move it.
Anyway, the photos were definitely porn and definitely illegal. I think that if you really want to do something like that and claim it is, “Art,” then do a drawing, and not one of a real live person, either.
Not really more appropriate, you might get more views there. Also, you might want to change the thread title, I clicked the thread (after first making sure no one was around) expecting an explicit image, so people might avoid the thread thinking that is the case.
well… nowadays Art can be just about anything!.. the definition of an “artist”… has gotten to the point where. .as long as people sponser you and go see or are interested in your works… its all FAIR !
as for what is “porn”… well we mostly know what that consists of… … can an “Artist” blend both these… into a “piece” of art?.. why not.?
I guess it comes down to the culture that is involved… I wounder if there would be such “complaints” against this so called “work” if it was exhibited in say Paris… or Amstradam…?
What if the photographers collection was of a prepubescent squid in lingerie posing seductively? Would that be porn as well?
Adults who are sexually “normal” would not be sexually attracted to images of a prepubescent girl and because pornography requires images to be sexually explicit or for those images to incite sexual desire I would have to argue that one should consider that those photographs would have been devoid of pornographic content. I mean if one was predisposed, one could, as William Burroughs once said, be sexually attracted to a boot. Personally I think it was the engendered fear of the sexual inherent in western culture that caused such a severe reaction to the exhibition. It’s the tradition of Victorian morality, is it not, to deny or hide certain issues that would make a “decent” member of society blush in embarrassment. It was the same logic that led to the punishment of chemical castration for homosexuals in England up or into the 1950’s.
As for whether or not it was art well that is a more difficult question. It did raise issues of morality and decency and if those are two requirements for the making of art perhaps it was in fact “art”. Perhaps it was just posturing by the photographer who expected a reaction and decided to poke a soft spot or an area of contention that he had recognized. Perhaps he saw a beauty in the nude form of a prepubescent girl that was absent of any type of lust or longing and he simply wanted to prove that it was possible to appreciate that beauty without being perverse. Regardless, I don’t think raiding the exhibition and shutting it down was the best method of dealing with the perceived problem.
I suppose it wouldn’t be as much of a problem if adults who were sexually, “Normal,” were the only ones looking at them. Of course, that is probably not going to be the case.
By the way, why would a “Sexually normal,” adult want to look at naked pictures of underage people, for any reason?
Yeah, that wasn’t a cool thing for them to do. Of course, that would have involved (usually) two consenting adult males who had reached the age of consent, and not little kids.
As far as the, “Artist,” is concerned, I don’t know what his motivation was.
No, preventing the exhibition from ever happening in the first place would have been better.
I don’t know. I wouldn’t, I already know what it looks like.
People that want to look at a painting of their own backyard? I’m not going to say that makes them guilty of weirdness, but it would definitely give me probable cause to launch an investigation into the matter.
Good harmonies on, “Motown Philly,” other than that one song, though, I don’t know…lol
I understand your point, but I don’t think this is an Empirically-Arguable matter, just sort of an agree/disagree thing.
Also, a question of Conservative vs. Liberal ideas to be applied to society.
I don’t agree that the perversions of a few should prohibit an entire populace from having the option of seeing an exhibition, and if pedophiles were the only problem that led to the shutting down of the exhibition I would have to ask if the showing of the pictures themselves were creating pedophiles or if the problem existed beforehand. Anyway, if one was a pedophile why would one go to a public exhibition to arouse themselves. Pedophilia is not the problem.
Once one desexualizes nudity itself one is free to perceive the human body as it is. If the photos Henson displayed were of prepubescent girls from a tribe in the amazon that routinely walk around without clothing would that have raised the same moral outrage?
A sexually normal adult would want to view images of underage people because of the unsettling culturally taboo questions they raise. It forces one to deal with issues that are uncomfortable, and it causes one to think ideas one would not normally consider, such as the idea of nudity itself.
I’m not positive I understand his motivations either.
This I disagree with completely. Discussing the issues in an open forum would have been a better way to deal with the perceived problem, but people that are closed off to considerations they find difficult would not be capable of open discussion.
Faust, thank you for providing the photographers name.
Do you agree that the murderous tendencies of a few should prohibit an entire populace from having the option of murdering someone who probably deserves it?
The showing of the pictures could create pedophiles, I suppose. Think about it, how can you know whether or not you like something until you have experienced it? In most cases, though, I doubt if it creates pedophiles.
Probably not, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t. The Amazon tribes don’t live according to our societal standards and that is the justification most people use to make such imagery acceptable. To me, that imagery is still not acceptable.
Why would a sexually normal adult necessarily want to view such images? I am a sexually normal adult and I don’t really care whether I see anyone naked or not, regardless of what their age is. I’m just not into pornography.
I’m discussing it openly, aren’t I? The problem is that the average person is a retard, so you’re going to have some kind of riot or someone is getting shot if you try to discuss this at a public forum.
Hmmm. Federal law, as well as Supreme Court case law, differs. I wonder of the Ohio law has been tested in court.
Either way, there is nothing pornographic about this guy’s work, unless any hint of sexuality is pornography. That’s a tough corner to paint yourself into.
Well you’re bringing up the rule of law. Mobs that take justice into their own hands differ a bit to an exhibition involving images of naked underage persons. But the showing of the images might spur one to think of their cultures values differently as well. It could do more good than harm. Not that I’m prepared to make a strong argument for that opinion at this point.
You would have had the opportunity to refuse to go see the exhibition. Personally I enjoy having to deal with issues that make me uncomfortable because, as I said before, it makes me consider things in a manner I would not have considered them otherwise. I see your point about tribal nudity but think that the context is different because the culture is different. If you’re opinion was extended into their world it would have them dress according to your standards. Different culture different standards of decency.
You are and I respect your opinion. Most people have trouble dealing with issues that conflict with their notions of right and wrong. I was stating the forum option as an ideal way of dealing with the issue. Obviously people have a hard time discussing concepts that are an affront to what they identify with. Child nudity, because it is associated with pedophilia and because pedophilia is abhorrent, gets lumped in with pedophilia itself. Because this is a moral issue and the lines of the argument are not clearly defined because the definitions differ from individual to individual and culture to culture it is impossible to come to any kind of consensus.
It’s interesting that the law states that it is only the act of being nude that constitutes child pornography. Unfortunately I have no more time for this discussion now. I’m interested to see if it goes anywhere else from here.
I don’t know if it has been tested in Higher Courts or not, nor I am sure if it need be. This could be something that they leave up to the States more often than not, I don’t know.
