This is just my opinion, but any parent willing to give consent to have their children photographed in their birthday suit for art is only sugar coating the fact that a minor is being photographed and exposed in the public venue.

How does the parent, the photographer or anyone else know what is going on inside that child's mind when those flashes go off and they are standing, sitting, posing there? What kind of effect does that have on the kid's psyche down the road? What impact will those memories have on the child as he/she grows up? What changes will occur and what would or would not have happend had the child not gone through this?


I dont know, but it sure seems like exploitation...child exploitation to me. I dont agree with it at all. There is enough sexual suggestive things out there that kids are being exposed to in legit media and music, and kids dont need their own parents throwing authorization to photograph them nude.

way uncool.





Cheers!!!!

Yes censorship can be over the top, but in regards to these pictures, there are 2 questions that must be asked.


What is the point of these pictures? None what so ever.


Are they needed? Nope.


So why have them, they are not essential to society nor have any other value of any kind to the advancement of civilization, kind of like popstars and Z list celebraties really.

2 words: Pointless Crap


[edit on 6-12-2008 by Horus12]

double

[edit on 6-12-2008 by Horus12]

As a life long nudist, EMT and medical researcher i find this all absurd.

I will make a statement that will cause a lot of Controversy

The laws against child porn do not stop the pedophile but cause a increasing in the number of pedophiles.

If you see people nude long enough it will become boring and viewing the nude body will no longer be a sexual act.
Adult, child, nudism will no longer hold a sexual context.

This does not mean child porn should be allowed but there should be a CLEAR line between photos of nude children and child porn.

Even in the US there is no clear line it is a jumble of confusing laws.
in some states you can take photos of your own children nude in other states you would be arrested for having photos of your own children nude in the bath tub.

if you don't believe me just google> Images > diaper rash

[edit on 6-12-2008 by ANNED]

Originally posted by bloodcircle
In my opinion, it's a very contentious subject because on the one hand, yes the definition is there. But on the other hand, who knows how a paedophiles mind can twist things.

I don't think it would matter to a paedophile if the child was nude or not to twist things in their minds to make them erotic.

(Reading further I see Benevolent Heretic also made this point.)

How many times have you seen a good looking woman/man* in the street and had a fantasy about them?

Originally posted by Daz3d-n-Confus3d
We wear clothing in society to cover up and hide our bodies from sight.
The reason we do this is because men would never get anything done from staring at all the naked women.

If we lived in an area where clothing wasn't a society norm, then the female and male bodies wouldn't be so sexualised and we'd do our work or whatever just the same way as we do now with clothed people around us.

Originally posted by derfred33
Yes, its a matter of perception and values and culture... no question about that

I was referring to the fact that the artist relied his creation in the exploitation of another being. In that sense it is pornographic.

As you said, art doesn´t necessarily needs to be attractive, it can cause all sorts of feelings, the problem in cases like this is the use of innocent beings as raw material for the creation. IMHO

I don't agree with it being pornographic through his exploitation of the models. All photographs of people or animals that are for sale are exploiting the model to gain money or whatever.
*Delete as appropriate.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
But I say it's porn, and it should not be allowed.
...
I don't say it's definitely porn, but it's very close. One more step, it'd be porn.

So which do you think it is? Porn or not?

Oh, the photographs have apparently been returned to the art gallery now too with no charges against the artist.

Originally posted by Misfit
For a resolve of "art or porn" ........ take all those pictures of 6-16 year old boys/girls to a prison with convicted pedophiles. Give those pedophiles the pitures. Do you, those in defense of this photography, REALLY think those pedophiles are going to be in awe of the artistic quality? Or are they going to see naked little kids, and start masturbating right there in their cell?

Folks keep saying it's art not porn, but if the pedophiles are aroused at these photo's (do you HONESTLY think they would not be?), will you still defend it as art?

That argument doesn't really work, as if you took those same convicted paedophiles a few photographs of fully clothed children playing or in school uniforms there would also be some who became aroused. Should we then ban all photographs of children totally as they're obviously all pornographic?

I'd still defend the photographs as art.
Some people get turned on by large donkeys, that doesn't mean photographs of donkeys are pornographic.

Originally posted by Horus12
Yes censorship can be over the top, but in regards to these pictures, there are 2 questions that must be asked.

What is the point of these pictures? None what so ever.

Are they needed? Nope.

So why have them, they are not essential to society nor have any other value of any kind to the advancement of civilization, kind of like popstars and Z list celebraties really.

2 words: Pointless Crap

Don't those points go towards 90% of all artwork?


[edit on 16-12-2008 by doogle]

Here we go again with more porn to the police, for there right hand past times, sickos.

Just because they are in power positions, they can do what ever they want. sickos

I have not seen the pictures, and if they are very tasteful I can see how many would think it is not a big deal.

But even if the kids weren't pressured or abused in any way, they are still only 12! They are kids that are being used by adults to "put something out there" that they can't ever take back. They are not old enough to give consent.

Who knows what those kids might be doing in 30 years. What if they go into politics? What if they become ultra conservative later in life and don't want that stuff out there for various reasons? Having nude pictures of themselves at 12 years old would NOT go over well in some circles. They are not old enough to make a decision of that magnitude that could potentially affect their future.

I haven't seen the photographs in question, so I cannot comment on them in particular. I am, however, familiar with Bill Henson's work. I am usually one to jump to the defense of artists, but when children are implicated I have to take a step back and evaluate just what it is I'm trying to defend. Most of Henson's photographs--the ones I've seen, that is--are indeed not eroticised in any way. Some of them are, however, and there's no way around that. I recall one that was shown recently in an article about him in which two adolescents were in a clearly sexual position with one another. It gave me the creeps, to be honest--not the fact that adolescents were engaging in perfectly normal behavior, but that a man with a camera had asked them to position themselves in that way for his lense. If the photos in question are anything like his previous works, I'm not so sure I could file them under the "innocent and artistic" category.

I have to question the motives of an artist who seeks out children to photograph nude (didn't Henson get into hot water over a visit he made to a school to find "subjects"?). The guy bothers me on a truly visceral level--perhaps it's just the female, mothering protectiveness I feel. Let's remember that these are twelve, thirteen-year-old kids; these aren't young women and men. And always keep in mind the context. A father photographing his children playing on the beach is a far cry from an artist requesting that a twelve-year-old pose nude for him. Also, the historic paintings of nude children that have been brought up need to be placed in context as well. At the time of those paintings, an adolescent girl would have been a prime candidate for marriage. Sexuality was not limited to our current definition of adult--social mores defined those paintings as perfectly appropriate.

I think this situation requires you to step outside of the artistic bubble and assess the photos using the same standards you would apply to any individual with a camera. I cannot think of any legitimate argument for the validation of photographs that would be criminalised in every other sector.