The suspended exhibition of Bill Henson’s photographs of pubescent nudes provoked an excellent discussion over at LP. I haven’t written about the matter here until now because I’ve had to sort out my feelings on this one: as someone who grew up in the social nudist movement I hate the way that nudity in any context has come to be automatically associated with pornography, and yet I see the necessity of ensuring that minors are not exploited for sexual imagery as well.
At this point it should be emphasised that none of the photos display genitalia, so no charges of pornography can possibly be laid (although charges of “indecency” may be, despite the opinions of the NSW Law Society), and indeed only a few of the images show nipples on an undeveloped breast. I have to wonder whether being interviewed by the police, and the inevitable revelations at school about having modelled for Henson’s photos and the consequent marginalisation, are not going to be far more traumatic than the experience of posing for photos exploring the sense of bodily transition during puberty could ever have been. In the normal run of events the exhibition’s short run at small Paddington gallery would not have led to such broad publicity: Henson has had exhibitions for years which have only received art press, and indeed a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of NSW a few years ago, of work with very similar themes, brought no howls of protest whatsoever. The artistic community, including now-adults who modelled for Henson as minors, is very strongly defensive of the artistic merits of his work, especially in light of PM Rudd’s denunciation, while at least one psychologist claims that any image of naked teens will encourage paedophilia.
Ms Lamble says that although she believes Mr Henson is not a pedophile, his photographs still send the wrong message about the sexualisation of children.
“We’ve got mixed messages going around. We are trying to tell society that it is wrong to sexualise our young people, we are up in arms about push-up bras and make-up and all this clothing for young people, but then we say it’s OK to hang photos in a gallery and call it art.
“Even if they are beautiful, even if the mood and lighting and the composition is beautiful and it’s a very talented artist, it’s still giving the wrong messages because you don’t know who’s viewing them,” she says.
The latest outcry demonstrates that society has become more sensitive to any hint of the sexual exploitation of minors: the question is, have we become too sensitive? The gallery owner is receiving threats to both herself and the gallery in the wake of the publicity, and Hetty Johnson of Bravehearts is contending that any nude images of children are obviously pornography even if the law says that only photos that include genitalia can possibly meet that definition. Ms Lamble’s last line in the quote above is a classic slippery slope argument and it troubles me: it’s well known that paedophiles get aroused by looking at underwear catalogues for the children’s section of major department stores, should we ban those as well because “we don’t know who’s viewing them”? Let’s extend that slippery slope all the way to reductio ab absurdum, shall we – all sorts of fetishists become aroused looking at all sorts of images: if someone gets sexually aroused watching horse races because they get off on torturing horses, should we then ban all broadcasts of horse racing?
Since I wrote very strongly against the sexualisation of young girls in advertising in 2006 (and on particular images here), my position on Henson’s photos may seem confused, but it’s actually very clear: sexualisation is not just about how much skin is showing, it’s about the way that the skin is presented and posed, what is emphasised and what is not. The girls in that advertising were photographed in “come-hither” poses, by all reports these photos of Henson’s continue the themes of his earlier work, which is anything but “come-hither” in its presentation, as he is examining the awkwardness and awareness of change rather than posing the minors in sexy adult positions. I certainly understand the argument of Michael Reid:
“I think the sexualization of children is an extremely important (issue),” said art market analyst Michael Reid. “The question is: ‘Was there consent?’ which I can’t answer, and ‘Has the image been sexualized?’ In my opinion, it wasn’t.”
Reid is quoted in more depth by the SMH:
“I have noticed people are prepared to give their opinion without actually seeing the photographs,” he said. “I find this quite disturbing because this debate is very important.”
Mr Reid said he judged the artistic merit of the work to be valid and not pornographic.
“The main photograph in question is in the style of the Old Masters,” he said. “The model is enveloped in a black velvety shroud and she is backlit. She is very still. There is not any sexual charge about the image. It is quite restful and contemplative. She is demure.
“I was aware of the child sexualisation issue but that does not exist here in my opinion. Bill Henson had done a huge body of work that goes across a whole range of areas . . . this is a debate that has to happen – but rationally.”
Rationally, then. Surely the way to combat our society’s fetishisation of nudity as always sexual is not to hide nudity away more than we do already, but to allow social nudity to become more normalised. This would involve a deeper understanding, hopefully building to a natural awareness, that people enjoying the sensation of the breeze on all of their skin are not necessarily indulging in a sexual display. Certainly when one is part of a social nudist community, sexual thoughts are simply not automatically provoked by the sight of “private” skin: people are chatting, cooking, playing sports and supervising toddlers while naked and it’s just not a big sexual deal.
For instance, in my experience growing up as a nudist, clothing was far more provocative than the naked body. Indeed, when teens hung around together at night at the nudist clubs I frequented, the sign of flirtatious interest was to put on some clothes. Those who stayed naked at night, as they had during the day, were sending a “keep off” signal, as all these social nudist clubs have strict “no sensual/sexual touching while publicly nude” rules.
The nude in art can be vulnerable, certainly, and our society’s prurience and broad fetishising of dominance can make vulnerability be perceived as erotic , but the nude can also be haunting, confronting, disturbing and even powerful, which appears to be more the themes that Henson explores in his work. But is that enough? Bluemilk has an excellent post analysing the various issues of images of child nudity, and presents a different and valid emphasis than my own response, (flavoured as it is by my personal history of social nudism), and quoting Clive Hamilton’s take that it is different now than it was 10, 15 or 20 years ago:
I’ve argued that previously when perhaps it was a more innocent age, then artistic representations of children, as is the case with the Bill Henson exhibition, wouldn’t have provided difficulty.
But in an age where children have been so heavily sexualised by commercial organisations and by the wider culture and where there’s so much more alarm about paedophilia then I think the presentation of a 12-year-old girl, for instance, naked to the public, really has quite a different impact and raises new concerns.
Sadly, Clive Hamilton does have a point. Again, I argue that the ideal solution is more casual and comfortable social nudity, not more taboos against nudity, but I have no specially good ideas about how to bring that about.
Elsewhere:
Rosie Ryan at ABC blog Articulate has a round-up of other blog opinions.
Barista worries about the consequences for the gumnut babies, amongst other things.
Similar Posts:
- For the record by tigtog
- Retired police superintendent’s view on the politicisation of complaints against Henson’s work by tigtog
- Privacy rights in Child Protection investigations: the need for the mass media to disguise identifying features on the minors in the Henson images by tigtog
- The Papal apology for clerical abuse in Australia by tigtog
- We’re just advertising clothes, honest! by tigtog
{ 5 trackbacks }
{ 88 comments }
← Previous Comments
Lauredhel, with regard to my idea of sequestering images taken of minors until they reach legal age (sorry that I missed addressing this earlier):
I’m not sure that Henson pays any models as such. I believe they receive their own gallery quality copies of their favourite images from the shoots, which with an artist of Henson’s stature amounts to an investment.
Dan– I see what you mean now, and I agree. Sorry to have misinterpreted, and I shall be sure to read more carefully next time. :)
That’s OK Beppie–there was a bit of a congitive lapse in the sentence structure :)
There was a bit of an uproar over Zeffirelli’s 1968 film of R & J, though, with its nude teen actors. I was taken to see this movie with my form when I was at school.
The texts are different now on the first year literature-to-film unit I teach but wen R & J was on it, students were serious and careful in thinking through the ethics of treating such a story as entertainment. Few people were inclined to let it pass just because it was written by the great WS – his status isn;t unquestioningly accepted any more – although I think that did incline them to give the play a fair and careful scrutiny which they were less willing to give Trainspotting, which we also studied.
I left out the main thing I meant to say! Which was to add to Dan’s comment about R & J in the current climate, that I very much doubt a filmmaker could cast the thirteen year old Olivia Hussey & not much older Leonard Whiting in the parts now particularly if they were going to do the aubade nude. Claire Danes was sixteen when Baz Lurmann filmed her, and she didn’t take off her clothes.
I should also perhaps say that Dan emailed me privately and I’m sorry I was standoffy when he posted at my blog (he mentioned it earlier, thought I’d clarify.)
I know the Zeffirelli film. I would conjecture a film like that done today would have some difficulty passing the censors. It probably would eventually after much fuss.
All of this business with Henson reminds me of Sen. Dianne Kelly (NP) making a fuss about Lolita (was that 10 years ago now?) suggesting that it promoted and celebrated deviant sex and had no artistic merit whatsoever. I also remember about 2 months later a video came out of Australia Navy personal doing a barstardisation ceremony. It was very graphic and Kelly’s reaction was “well boys will be boys”.
Oh, sorry I meant to add to my last post that my wife and I were discussing how these scandals seem to be something that we in the English speaking part of the world seem to suffer and to many continental European’s the ’scandal’ side of it just goes over their heads. Maybe they are more culturally ‘grown up’ than us?
Most Disturbing to me is the number of people who can not distinguish between sensual and sexual. In my humble opinion those who can’t see the difference are Pedophiles all ready but don’t see the harm they create. No child sees sexually Only adults do that. Stop treating everything that seems sexual to you as if everyone else sees it the same. Many people get a sexual thrill from seeing a washing machine should those be banned? Some see a nice pair of shoes and that turns them on. Art is in the eye of the beholder and so is porn. Don’t hate the art because it triggers your ideas.
Responding belatedly to Audrey Apple way upthread:
I responded over at Audrey’s to a similar statement to the effect that to me it look more just like she was pushing up after having been crouched down, and that I didn’t see that as inherently sexual.
Now I’m pretty sure that the top photo below (very small here deliberately, and unlike most of the media I have obscured the face for as much privacy as I can ineffectually grant) is the one which Audrey meant. I think a large part of the problem is people viewing images in isolation that were meant to be part of a series. When you look at the shot below, it’s fairly obvious that the upper shot is the girl pushing up from the pose in the lower shot. And that lower shot doesn’t look sexual to me at all, unless you are assuming that another person is with her there, when the rest of the series of images quite clearly shows her all alone. In fact, from what I’ve seen of the series of images of this particular girl, it all seems to be about wandering around the shadowed space and closely examining it. In the context of the whole series, there is quite clearly no implication of a sexual experience happening.
To take up your point about seeing these pictures out of context (and mutilated in many other ways), I couldn’t even be clear from that first picture alone whether the subject was a girl or a boy.
Thanks for that tigtog. I had been talking about the bottom photo but definitely take your point about seeing them out of sequence.
Seeing them out of sequence is what the media’s isolation of an image here and an image there forces upon us (as do perhaps some of the less better designed courses in art history that feature him – how much do they focus on the theme of a series rather than the effect and techniques of a single image?).
I didn’t know that much about Henson’s work before last week. I’ve learnt a lot from what bios etc are available on the web, and the one thing that’s abundantly clear is that he just does not design images that include people as a single shot “message”. It’s all about a collection of shots exploring a setting, and to view them otherwise is rather like aliens viewing a photo of an ear and attempting to imagine the rest of the human. The result would be sketchy at best.
While I find that his images evoke profound emotional responses, and thus definitely are art, I can’t imagine wanting a Henson on my wall, not even one of his landscapes. They’re all too dark and ethereal. I would go and see an exhibition though.
cj little:
A perfectly valid response to art is trepidation and fear (and concern and protectiveness). It’s not helpful to cast those who have that reaction to a perception of sexuality in these images as paedophiles themselves – that’s only if they find the images are sexually arousing.
Where art education comes in is that it allows people to feel those reactions and step back and examine them, rather than the uninstructed response of finding the reactions so disturbing that it induces unexamined outrage. (Sometimes the end result of examined reactions is still outrage, of course – that too is a valid response – edited to add – even if in this case it’s not a response that I find persuasive.)
There are definitely questions raised about the process of creating these images that society should ask. Like:
How safe were the adolescents who posed? Now that I have an understanding of how he operates and how he chooses his subjects, I have every confidence that they were totally safe, not just physically but also emotionally during the shooting sessions, having grown up around art and artists.
That to me is the primary consideration. The other questions people are asking, such as whether allowing Henson to “get away with” photographing naked adolescents will give abusive predators a free pass to also photograph naked children and use the “it’s art” defense – I can see why people are asking but to me it’s way too simplistic. It’s pathologising nudity for a start, but it also assumes that investigators cannot determine whether the subjects of such photos have been treated ethically as Henson does or not.
First there’s whether the poses are sexual or not, which generally is fairly clear. Then, if a photographer can show the police evidence of a subject’s consent (and parental consent), and there’s no evidence that the parents are negligent or abusive, and the subject attests that there was no suggestive speech or inappropriate touch during the photo session, then I see no ethical cause for a prosecution.
I have other thoughts, but this comment’s already too long.
I wouldn’t choose a Henson for my house either, too intense for me to deal with every day. Even supposing I could afford one. I wonder if Malcolm Turnbull has his out or are they stored? I’d be interested to know what else he collects.
I don’t agree that one needs to imagine other figures to see these poses as sexualising. Whether one would or not in the context of the exhibition and in the presence of the objects themselves is a separate and unanswerable question but on the basis of those reproductions they remind me of nothing so more as the soft pr0n images that have been around for over a century. Maidens with hair swept to one side kneeling with hands on knees, or on all fours and resting on elbows – we have all seen that before haven’t we? The pose itself is simply not a neutral one, it carries with it the ghosts of the hundreds of times we have seen something similar in other contexts. And maybe that is the point. Maybe there is some commentary on how these kinds of bodily positions which are entirely natural have become pinned down to a very narrow meaning and he is asking us to see them afresh ( I can’t know). I just think it is really stretching the case to say that the images could never elicit comparisons to sexual postures upon viewing them.
It sounds to me that Henson’s process was ethical but the problem with gliding over the power differential that Sublimecowgirl tried to explore, and which seemed to be largely ignored at LP, is that we begin to assume that the adult narrative of the process is automatically true. That is a really dangerous thing to do. If we want to examine the ethics of using adolescent subjects in these ways shouldn’t we be asking ourselves (and adolescents that we know) “what power would they have to refuse”, “how does the status of the person in control affect the power of the subject to consent or even more importantly, withdraw consent”? Ultimately this is not just about Henson but about how to safeguard the rights of people who may find themselves in a situation where the process is subtly or overtly coercive. I believe the questions are important. How hard would it be to make a complaint against a high status adult?
Not asking or not giving any credence to these kinds of questions ultimately leads to the kind of comment I just read elsewhere which was in effect “so what if they have regrets as adults?” In different circumstances I am sure that would have elicited some opposition but not now. I wonder why?
Good points, su. You’ve certainly made me re-examine some thoughts, although in the end I’m still not entirely persuaded (while acknowledging that many aspects of analysing these images are subjective rather than objective).
What makes the poses not obviously sexualised to me, (and I’m intrigued by your suggestion of Henson seeking some commentary on the common sexualised poses), is that she doesn’t have the ubiquitous arched back to thrust the breast area forward (which is what we were seeing in those advertising shots from the 2006 Australia Institute report). In fact, the line of her back is so balanced along a straight line that it would bring a smile to the hardest yoga taskmaster, which makes me suspect that this straight spine was very much an intended part of these images.
The power differential and the credence given to the adult narrative over that of the minor should be more examined, you are right. Certainly it is known that some parents can be complicit in their own child’s exploitation/abuse, sadly far too often. That would have to be an awful lot of complicit parents in his studios watching those shoots and permitting violating behaviour right in front of them though – I really struggle to find that scenario credible.
This is absolutely spot-on. This is of course why the complaints against the Henson images do have to be fully investigated, to ensure that everyone involved safeguarded the minors adequately in what everybody must have been aware was a borderline situation in the first place.
My own defences of the images and criticisms of certain processes of the investigation thus far are certainly not intended to be taken as any assertion that there should not be an investigation at all. It’s a defence against the rush to judgement happening due to the media storm, not an argument against the principle of fully examining claims that come under the ambit of Child Protection. Full examination must occur.
On the question of the disregard given to the “regret” issue on LP I’m not sure I entirely agree that it’s a progression from a lack of credence given to the adolescents’ narratives. The dismissiveness, IMO, had much more to do with the vagueness of the original comments about regret (didn’t specify whether the particular regrets we are being asked to consider are mild and rueful or bitter, harsh laments complete with lingering trauma) than about any bias in credency.
I wasn’t suggesting that this is what happened. At all. I was talking about the difficulties of adolescent consent in a more general sense, not about this specific case.
I would like to ask a some questions of the regulars here:
What do you think will be the implications for art in Australia if Henson is found guilty? Guilty on all charges? And I ask this with failure of obsenity trials notwithstanding.
What do you think will be the implication for photographers who want to photograph children?
I can see the possibility that self styled censors might just like to visit art galleries to see what works they can find offence in so that they can do their public service to have them removed. Do you think it plausible someone would want to do this?
And lastly (somewhat satiricly) When my child has their 21st birthday and we pop out the nudy pics on the slide projector in front of an audience of guests should we ask the police to check the slides for offending content first?
Sorry, su – I knew you weren’t suggesting that. I should have been more careful about clearly indicating that that comment came from frustration with some other scenarios that I’ve read posited over the last few days by people other than you.
I can imagine someone setting up a special bus tour around the country with that as the primary purpose.
That one was easy. Your other questions require a little time to reflect.
Well it has suggested by a commenter elsewhere that this might cause a new law to be formed so that there could be “rebuttable consent” for similar circumstances. The onus would then be on a prosection to show why that consent to be photographed was not a valid consent(that was my understanding).
There has already been a similar case. WA artist Concetta Petrillo’s case went to court in 1997 and she was found innocent but continued to have her work censored. You can read about it Here.
I can speak of the general situation (as I don’t think I’ve made any legal claims in this whole business, and am more interested in the feminist/ethical analysis): if you asked me, I would suggest you don’t do this in the first place, if your intent is to embarrass and mock. It’s a tradition I’ve never had any time for, much like wedding-toast roasts.
I am not defending the roasting Lauredhel. I know families who have put an embarising photo up on a projector or birthday card. I see now the tone of the question seems to emphasise the embarasment factor; I did not really want to emphasise that so much, but it was a bit a throw away question that almost quotes a comment from the NSW Law Society about the case.
I share your concerns about roasting or mocking people.
Imagine the outrage that instead of photographing a nude under age child we covered her up in fishnet stockings, suspenders and a g string! Wow suddenly its no longer art, How come?
Who has argued that art cannot be pornographic? A great deal of art is pornographic – go and take a look at the figures on some Greek urns sometime. However, a nude human figure is not necessarily pornographic (it’s also not necessarily art).
The costume you suggest is automatically sexualising, as you obviously well know, and would most likely be sufficient to change the perception of the image so as to belong to the category of pornography. That would not stop it being art.
su #71, that idea of a rebuttable consent sounds interesting, and not entirely
likeunlike my idea of separating the consent to be photographed as a minor from the consent to the images being displayed/published later, when the subject is a legal adult. The two ideas together could work well both ethically and as part of a legal framework.They would still have to address the concerns of child protection with regard to, as you mentioned earlier, subtle and covert coercions.
Yours is the idea that I felt most comfortable with, Tigtog. I think if you are going to intrude yourself into someones life in such an intimate way at the most vulnerable time then they should control the image.
The subtlety is very hard to convey to people. There is often no black line between Ok and not. One can segue into the other so that one is never sure where the turning point was and feel implicated in the turning. Or it can be like a subliminal image in a film, so fast that you doubt that it really happened. I don’t think people really get that. Every time people have said something about how this situation is Ok I have been able to think of a circumstance in which the same objective facts are not ok. The difference is so subjective. That is why I understand why people want to draw hard lines, just to escape the anxiety of all that subjectivity.
I can certainly understand the impulse to draw hard, bright lines as well, su.
The problem with that is if you draw a hard bright line saying that child nudity is child pornography and clothed children in photos is fine, then it’s harder to educate people that grooming and subtle coercion can occur when people are photographing little girls in the sexualised manner below (not to say that it ever did, but the possibility is just as likely as with Bill Henson’s nudes):
Hard bright lines are not that rationally or ethically useful when looking at a subject that is fuzzy with subjectivity. Those hard lines can certainly lead to rational and ethical absurdities. However, we do have laws with regard to certain crimes that manage to cope with fuzzy subjectivity quite well with respect to unlawful deaths, so it’s not impossible for the law to cope. If we’re not to pathologise the bodies of adolescents entirely, I think the law needs to cope.
After reading some more thoughts on this elsewhere, and sleeping on it, my other thought is that those wanting to draw the hard bright line seem to want it drawn solely around the concept of whether material can be found arousing by someone/anyone, when what is most important is to have a hard bright line on consent and the protection of the rights of minors.
It’s also a question of where scarce child protection resources should be placed. Children need to be protected from predatory deviants, but that protection is required against direct acts upon a child – the coercion, the seduction, the abuse.
I can understand the ick factor at the thought of the child being viewed deviantly, of course. I’m not exactly thrilled at the thought of pervs looking at photos of me from my nudist club days, but their looking at those images that were taken voluntarily doesn’t actually do me any harm, then or now.
The harm arises when their viewing provides a market for images that have been produced through abuse. It is the abuse that matters, not the images themselves necessarily – often exactly the same image could be produced ethically with consent and oversight. The conflation of all images of nudes with a narrative of overt sexualisation and abuses is where the current social barometer is getting it wrong, and my growing conviction is that this irrational conflation matters precisely because it clouds the issues of consent and protection of rights.
I wasn’t really talking about the legal angle but a society angle; how we as adults negotiate relationships with children and adolescents. By the time the law gets involved in specific instances, it is already too late whether you are a minor who has been exploited or an artist like Concetta Petrillo.
I am talking about how we view the ethics of instrumentalising adolescent bodies as a process of examining, as adults, our own thoughts or feelings about bodies and transitions. That is what concerned me about the instant dismissal of how such a person would feel about the process later; it conveyed a profoundly rigid adult perspective and an absence of empathy. And although I agree absolutely with you that attitudes towards nudity which are bound up in shame are part of the problem, it remains a fact that in our society nudity represents a further degree of vulnerability and when the subjects are already vulnerable as a result of their age then I think that that is an important consideration. The people who keep saying that any objection is bound up with seeing nudity as inherently sexual miss this angle. The model’s nudity troubles me because she is in a state of ultimate vulnerability before the adult gaze. Of course that is the point, it is part of what we are supposed to reflect upon (perhaps) and yet it troubles me still.
I noted that the director of the AGNSW said that he sees many groups of adolescents who are really fascinated by Henson’s work and I definitely accept that overprotectiveness and overreaction are a big part of the mix. But so is an attitude of ownership of adolescent bodies by adults, and that is profoundly wrong and is at the root of exploitation, sexual and otherwise. Consider what Michael Gow said of Henson’s work:
WTF? He goes on to say that artists should be able to work beyond the limitations that society sets for itself. Again WTF? If we were living in a society where violation and exploitation were rare then I would have a lot of sympathy for that position but we don’t. The causes of violation are all bound up in how our society works and we need to examine every part of it, including these attitudes of entitlement. This is the kind of attitude that sees Roman Polanski as a victim simply because he is an artist. Fuck that.
Again I am talking about the trends I see in the way these issues have been discussed, rather than this specific case.
Your comments are definitely picking away at a what I suspect is a blind spot of mine, su (or at least an insufficiently examined one). Just picking out the concepts that most struck me above:
All of this evokes a big YES in me, and is particularly related to feminist arguments against a culture of sexist entitlement regarding the sense of ownership of female bodies by men. I’m still very interested pragmatically in the legal aspects and how they intertwine with the ethics of individual situations with respect to the dynamics of this particular case, but I fully agree that the examination of the broader societal ethics regarding conceptions of ownership and entitlement and gaze is ultimately more important.
Oh, thank you su: you’ve expressed the things I’ve been thinking so much better than I could. I think it’s also important to note that there is a gender dynamic here: he’s a male artist depicting (mostly) female adolescent bodies – which adds yet another layer of power differential and gaze history to the mix.
The actual images themselves are disturbing in other ways (even ignoring the vulnerability of the nudity). He’s not depicting them as having any power of their own, as far as I can see. In the pictures I’ve seen, they’re vulnerable, surrounded by darkness, crawling around, lying splayed. His interpretation of the emotions of adolescence are a very particular interpretation, and not a universal one at all. (Or am I the only one who, while I may have felt intermittently vulnerable in some aspects, but also felt a strong and growing sense of strength, freedom, and independence around that age?)
Brian made a similar point over at LP, that Henson’s work seems focussed on adolescent fragility without acknowledging adolescent strength. It’s all about hanging back from the brink of change instead of leaping over the gap, which is certainly what some adolescents do. Most of us probably vacillated between these two extremes at different times of the day, even!
The works definitely capture some components of certain adolescent angsts, but it’s far from an entire representation of the adolescent experience.
Hi,
Have followed this event with great interest and passion. For me the main concern was about our beliefs on innocence and our fear related to nudity and sex rather than just about how young people are presented in photography.
I have been making a living from photographing men and women in many cases naked for around 20 years.Whilst my photography has changed over this time my main motivation has always been to present what I find to be beautiful and to combine this with humility of expression.
On one of my websites I posted to say that I would not be 100% closed to photographing someone under 18 nude.I think there were about 180 responses many of which attacked me for such a suggestion. The general argument was that we must protect the innocence of our children.
I believe that many of the adults angered by this event are holding little or no belief in innocence and purity as being real. Society in my opinion has lost much connection to heart and truth and transperency. We seem more about appearances than honesty and a genuine desire to understand the ills of the world.
An issue such as nudity and children is such a sensitive one and seems to have much confusion surrounding it.Surely this is providing us as a society with an opportunity to take away some of the barriers that adults seem to have in regaining a belief in their own innocence and purity.
As it stands now I feel like many adults are protecting their children from what they see as a definitive about life. ie; That the world is not a pure place and never will be. That once you grow up you too will lose your purity so for now we are going to let you live in ignorance of how the world is.
I sincerely hope that this incident is not stored by most as confused judgment. I so believe that if humans are prepared to search their emotions deeply that we can create a much more pure and honest world. A world where we would not have so much fear for what our kids will discover when they grow up.
How can possibly be “too sensitive to it?” What does that mean? Is a little kiddie porn okay?
If there was ever a need for a hard line to be drawn – isn’t this the issue?
That’s an awfully generalised argument to be popping in at comment #85. Who are you quoting, just for a start?
The rest of the thread has been all about discussing whether nude photos are in fact automatically kiddie porn in the first place. Perhaps you ought to read the other comments before commenting further.
Perhaps ‘sensitive’ in the sense that smut is perceived to exist where and when it does not?
I would certainly be of the view that that sort of ‘over sensitivity’ actually detracts from the real business of protecting kids from harm.
I re-read Emma Rush’s report and it is a pity the scholarship is so poor because certainly the advertising and fashion (and by corollary the celebrity) industry have some issues to deal with, I just think she could have picked a much better target than DJs. There was a good response to her report in The Age last year, however I cannot find it now so they must have archived it, I thought it covered some of the shortcomings quite well–and no it was not Catherine Lumby.
Conflating Henson’s photography with the representation of children in advertising I think is completely erroneous. But a real question that has to be asked is what constitutes a sexualised image because we all seem to have different ideas about this.
I have read in different forums about the prevalence of the ‘come hither’ look. The scary thing about that look is that it can happen quite unintentionally if the subject being photographed tilts their head slightly forward while looking straight into the camera. My wife friend has an eight year old daughter; they got some family photos done and some of them turned out exactly like that, with ‘that look’. Well, her face looked about 16 in those photographs much to the shock of her parents. So there seems to be a lot of perception and psychology at play here. This is not to brush aside the issue, but I think we really need to start deconstructing what is actually happening here.
I am having trouble perceiving the ‘come hithering’ in Henson’s images.
Just a word on modern girls fashions. It certainly has got much more of an adult look than in times past. It is interesting seeing old photographs from 100 years ago where many children were dressed almost identically and different from adults. I read a discussion with fashion designers about 8 years ago saying that the move in children’s fashion was to make it more ‘casual, contemporary and funky’ and like ‘the teenage styles going around’. Well, teenage styles have generally been rebellious and provocative for some time, maybe going back to the 1920s flapper look. Now we have clothes cut for 16-21 year olds available for 5-11 year olds. I do not really think that the fashionistas thought through the consequences of this. Because it does make your little girl look awfully grown up. And while some of the little girls might like it—and there is a whole celebrity and tween magazine culture there to tell them they should—us grown up’s feel rather uncomfortable about it. All of a sudden your asexual little girl has transformed into a nymphet. And of this with the gender stereotypes embedded within it. Now I certainly do not think that all of this has been motivated by some sort of paedophile conspiracy. Many paedophiles like kids who look like kids. For example, the man who abused me liked to dress me in a smocked dress. Emma Rush’s argument that the poses in the catalogues will give paedophiles the message that kids are ready for sex is absurd because paedophiles already think that anyway, and I would hypothesise many would equally be turned off these images because of their more adult portrayal.
Now this is not to defend the adultification (and consequent sexualisation) of children that has happened in the fashion industry, but I think that the dynamics of what has happened here has not been explored fully. This has been as much about the change in the rest of us as in the fashion/celebrity/tween-pop culture. The constituent elements need to be explored much more deeply.
Re the come hither look mentioned above it is in my opinion not just the physical appearance but more so about the emotion and thought behind it. In my photography I have learnt that the energy of a photo has perhaps more power than the visual.
I have taken body crops where 2 images may look identical but to the viewer evoke a different reaction. This is related to the thought and energy present when the camera clicks.So if this can be felt in shots without faces I am sure it is equally so in shots where the face is shown.A tilt of the head alone does not in my opinion create a come hither look.
My personal belief is that photography of people can be empowering or disempowering.This is such a complex issue and in my opinion needs so much more deep thought to match the levels of emotion that have been ignited.
← Previous Comments
Comments on this entry are closed. If you wish to re-open this discussion, please leave a comment on the latest Open Thread.