Art ..... or child porn!

[Squeak 17]

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The USofA has very prudish standards by Australian, and European standards.

Do you mean judicially? .

No i meant in the public forum ( i am not familiar at all with USofA Law).
From my time spent in the states and from the images and shows we get here from there, The USofA censors a lot more than we do in OZ, and we in OZ censor more than most of Eurpoe.

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[Shotgun 1]

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It seems to be something that you feel strongly about, and I respect that.

I don't feel that strongly about Henson's photos, and I wouldn't try to get them banned. I was just saying that I understand why some people do feel strongly about them.

And yeah, I think one of the problems in this thread is that a lot of us aren't even talking about the same photographs.

[billvon 2,400]

>Ah, so only penises can harm children?

No, and generally you're above that sort of RushMC tactic.

A nude woman (or baby, or teen) is not _necessarily_ pornography; pornography is material whose objective is to sexually excite the viewer. It would be difficult to argue, however, that a picture of a penis touching a woman's (girl's, baby's) mouth has no sexual objective.

[Shotgun 1]

I'm not talking about a simple nude photo. Hell, there are nude photos/paintings/sculptures of me all over the place. I'm not one to get upset about nudity. I guess this conversation is pointless since the "questionable" pictures have not been posted, and therefore we are not even discussing the same photos.

[Kennedy 0]

I have a question for the greenies. How would the Head Honcho feel about posting pictures of these photographs to the forums. If there's nothing wrong with them, would posting them to this thread be an issue?


edit: I haven't seen the pictures, don't have copies of them, and have no intention of posting them to this thread myself. This post is meant to make people who say the photos are fine really question whether they believe that or if they are saying it because it sounds "enlightened" or "progressive."

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[SkyDekker 1,123]

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No i meant in the public forum

I agree, I think that the now infamous wardrobe malfunction displays that clearly enough.

[Butters 0]

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How is a link to a pedophile who targets fourteen year old girls irrelevant given the content of the "art" is nude twelve to fourteen year old girls (with some being in questionable poses)?

How is an internet predator related to photographic art?

The "art" is placed on the internet and thus there is potential harm to the model from internet predators.

PS: This also becomes a gray area that predators can take advantage of when grooming.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[kelpdiver 2]

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The USofA has very prudish standards by Australian, and European standards.

Do you mean judicially? .

No i meant in the public forum ( i am not familiar at all with USofA Law).
From my time spent in the states and from the images and shows we get here from there, The USofA censors a lot more than we do in OZ, and we in OZ censor more than most of Eurpoe.

This seems unlikely to be true.

Video games are a clear example to the contrary. And I recall a long time back that a PG movie like Gremlins got adults only ratings in many countries.

[Shotgun 1]

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I have a question for the greenies. How would the Head Honcho feel about posting pictures of these photographs to the forums. If there's nothing wrong with them, would posting them to this thread be an issue?


edit: I haven't seen the pictures, don't have copies of them, and have no intention of posting them to this thread myself. This post is meant to make people who say the photos are fine really question whether they believe that or if they are saying it because it sounds "enlightened" or "progressive."

My guess is that no one in this thread (including myself) even knows which pictures were actually pulled from the gallery. So we've basically formed opinions about things that we've never even seen, and now we're arguing about it.

Pretty unusual for SC, eh?

[Andy9o8 0]

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I understand that it's the age of the models that is disturbing to many, but I don't think that a nude child or person is a sexual image. I glanced at some of the photos...they did seem ethereal to me. Some of them also seemed a little dark. I am sure that there is a story in the collection. Without seeing the whole thing as the artist would have wanted it to be seen, we cannot make a judgement about what the statement was of this particular show.

Lots of points have been made in this thread. The particular point I have been making is that a nude photo of a 12 or 13 year old minor for art's sake - even if the composition is beautiful and tasteful, and the pose and context are completely non-sexual - is exploitive of the model, because at that age he/she does not yet have sufficient judgment to independently gauge the potential consequences, and therefore he/she is incapable of "consenting" to it. So, from that standpoint, the "statement" being made by the artist is irrelevant.

[base_nz 0]

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The USofA has very prudish standards by Australian, and European standards.

Do you mean judicially? .

No i meant in the public forum ( i am not familiar at all with USofA Law).
From my time spent in the states and from the images and shows we get here from there, The USofA censors a lot more than we do in OZ, and we in OZ censor more than most of Eurpoe.

This seems unlikely to be true.

Video games are a clear example to the contrary. And I recall a long time back that a PG movie like Gremlins got adults only ratings in many countries.

The last GTA game they changed it so if you bought a copy in Australia you couldn't have sex with the prostitute and then they have done the same in the new game.... In NSW sexpo is VERY censored...... They have closed down the majority of porn dvd shops in and around the kings cross area for selling porn that shows actual penetration....

So Australia DEFINITELY censers just as much as the states...sometimes more.


I guess i have come to the decision that we wouldnt even be talking about this if there wernt sick fuckers out there who take advantage of
young kids for sexual gratification.... I guess i just grew up in the environment ( which would i would call anything but prudish)....where you where told to look at naked 12 year old girls was pretty fuckin sick....

That is my major problem.... From day one we have been taught that
having naked pictures of young girls is wrong.. ESPECIALLY if you where a guy....so i still find it hard to shake that feeling somethings wrong when i look at a some of his pictures.

I still appreciate the majority of his work as art!...

.....And you thought Kiwis couldn't fly!!!!

[base_nz 0]

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My porn collection is also fairly impressive.......

I sincerely don't intend this as a personal slap, but I'm wondering if there is any connection between amassing a "fairly impressive" porn collection and sexualizing the photos in question.

just didnt want you to get the wrong impression after you said i was preaching morals....

My question is more centered around whether someone who collects porn has a distorted view of nudity, of women and of sex.

Only if you squint at the TV screen
Seriously though there is a lot of porn out there and can be a BIG difference between movies. Most i have where ones i bought with my partner straight sex, girl on girl, no ass splitting .....( the softer side of porn).......

This doesnt mean someone cant have a distorted view of sex from porn but not me....


.......i dont think

.....And you thought Kiwis couldn't fly!!!!

[jenfly00 0]

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I'm not talking about a simple nude photo. Hell, there are nude photos/paintings/sculptures of me all over the place. I'm not one to get upset about nudity. I guess this conversation is pointless since the "questionable" pictures have not been posted, and therefore we are not even discussing the same photos.

Post a site ...please! I'll be honest, I suspect you have never seen them.

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"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[jenfly00 0]

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I have a question for the greenies. How would the Head Honcho feel about posting pictures of these photographs to the forums. If there's nothing wrong with them, would posting them to this thread be an issue?


edit: I haven't seen the pictures, don't have copies of them, and have no intention of posting them to this thread myself. This post is meant to make people who say the photos are fine really question whether they believe that or if they are saying it because it sounds "enlightened" or "progressive."

My guess is that no one in this thread (including myself) even knows which pictures were actually pulled from the gallery. So we've basically formed opinions about things that we've never even seen, and now we're arguing about it.

Pretty unusual for SC, eh?

Then post a site for the ones you say YOU have seen.

-----------------------
"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[base_nz 0]

Ive tried to find a sight with the pictures that i saw and cant find any of them....Which i find is weird seeing as how controversial they have become?...

I have emailed my friend who showed them to me and asked if she can send them to me. Or tell me where they where...

.....And you thought Kiwis couldn't fly!!!!

[Shotgun 1]

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Post a site ...please! I'll be honest, I suspect you have never seen them.

I have seen pics of his that I consider to be questionable, but I do not know if they are the pics that were pulled from the gallery as mentioned in the OP. As I have already said, I will not post a link because I believe that the pics violate the forum rules, and I do not want to search for them anyway.

And to clarify.... I haven't seen any of Henson's photos that I think are horrific or anything like that - just questionable (which can be said for a lot of art). The comparison I made earlier was a bad one, as some have pointed out, and I apologize for that. I didn't mean to imply that the two things were on the same level.

[Squeak 17]

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FOR more than 25 years, Bill Henson has been called controversial — and bombastic, melodramatic and overwrought.

But it was only the art world that cared. Occasionally it voiced some discomfort, but mostly there was admiration for an artist whose moody use of light and dark subject matter was in the spirit of bad-boy painter Caravaggio and hard-drinking poet Baudelaire.

But this time the police have stepped in, a prime minister has called his pictures "revolting", and "that Bill Henson" has come close to being a notorious household name.

In 1983, he photographed a group of young nude junkies lying about in European museums. The toughest criticism he received was being called "obvious".

About 15 years he ago he produced a series of teenage nudes sprawled across car bonnets. Not titillating; more akin to a nightmarish car wreck. Some of this series of nudes are on show at the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, where they have barely raised an eyebrow, let alone a scandal.

Director of the gallery Ron Ramsey said yesterday: "When that series first went on show, internationally, there was more concern with the way they were presented … with rough edges and some of them actually torn. We have a couple in the collection and there has never been, as far as I know, any concern or complaints from the public.

"They had to go through the (Newcastle) council and the acquisition committee, and there were no objections raised. That's what's shocking everybody — that works similar to what we've put on display are now the subject of a police investigation and all this controversy. We're gobsmacked."

Forty years ago, artist Martin Sharp was famously tried for obscenity because of a piece he wrote for Oz magazine. Last week he received an invitation to Henson's exhibition, which features a topless 13-year-old.

"It was a powerful image. I would call it very beautiful in its vulnerability rather than 'revolting' as the Prime Minister has done," Sharp said. The photograph suggested the girl "gave her trust to Henson … and this trust has been violated by the police and Kevin Rudd's comments

From "The Age" newspaper, a reputable print media source in Australia

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[SkyDekker 1,123]

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Lots of points have been made in this thread. The particular point I have been making is that a nude photo of a 12 or 13 year old minor for art's sake - even if the composition is beautiful and tasteful, and the pose and context are completely non-sexual - is exploitive of the model, because at that age he/she does not yet have sufficient judgment to independently gauge the potential consequences, and therefore he/she is incapable of "consenting" to it. So, from that standpoint, the "statement" being made by the artist is irrelevant.

Which really means that no one under the age of 18 could do any modelling, or acting work or anything like that.

The world is full with exploited kid and teen stars, why only limit it to models who posed for artistic nude photos?

[Andy9o8 0]

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Lots of points have been made in this thread. The particular point I have been making is that a nude photo of a 12 or 13 year old minor for art's sake - even if the composition is beautiful and tasteful, and the pose and context are completely non-sexual - is exploitive of the model, because at that age he/she does not yet have sufficient judgment to independently gauge the potential consequences, and therefore he/she is incapable of "consenting" to it. So, from that standpoint, the "statement" being made by the artist is irrelevant.

Which really means that no one under the age of 18 could do any modelling, or acting work or anything like that.

The world is full with exploited kid and teen stars, why only limit it to models who posed for artistic nude photos?

In real-life application, a reasonable threshold has to be set, and it may be semi-arbitrary because you need a blanket rule that applies to everyone, but it varies from context to context. I discussed that farther up-thread. The particular context we're referring to here is photographic frontal nudity. For that, I don't think the average 12 or 13 year old is capable of formulating the necessary "consent." The potential for damaging exploitation of a child is probably greater with most frontal-nude images than with most fully-clothed images. Sure, we can envision obscure exceptions in the abstract; but this isn't academia, it's real-life.

[billvon 2,400]

>The particular context we're referring to here is photographic frontal
>nudity. For that, I don't think the average 12 or 13 year old is capable of
>formulating the necessary "consent."

That's true of almost every issue concerning a 12 year old. In most cases their parents consent instead.

[Andy9o8 0]

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>The particular context we're referring to here is photographic frontal
>nudity. For that, I don't think the average 12 or 13 year old is capable of
>formulating the necessary "consent."

That's true of almost every issue concerning a 12 year old. In most cases their parents consent instead.

I know that, Bill. What can I say? As I've explained up-thread, I feel that frontal nude photos of a 12 year old for art's sake, should be done only with the model's own knowing and intelligent consent (which the model is not competent to formulate - for that activity), not just vicarious/parental consent; and that absent such consent, it is exploitive. Gotta draw a line somewhere; and with frontal nude photos, that's where I draw it.

[christelsabine 1]

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>The particular context we're referring to here is photographic frontal
>nudity. For that, I don't think the average 12 or 13 year old is capable of
>formulating the necessary "consent."

That's true of almost every issue concerning a 12 year old. In most cases their parents consent instead.

I know that, Bill. What can I say? As I've explained up-thread, I feel that frontal nude photos of a 12 year old for art's sake, should be done only with the model's own knowing and intelligent consent (which the model is not competent to formulate - for that activity), not just vicarious/parental consent; and that absent such consent, it is exploitive. Gotta draw a line somewhere; and with frontal nude photos, that's where I draw it.

No discussion about drawing any line - a girl/boy in this age is no artwork. Period. If parents agree or not: For me it's a simple No.

No. Just the imagination of a photographer, asking that my little girl/or boy should to be shown naked ---- Jeeez!

OK. I "only" have boys. But, people, please..... How is it even possible to discuss about it?

Simply a bit fat NO.

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[base_nz 0]

As i said before i like a lot of his photos ...but SURELY it is possible to capture a dark image of a pre teens innocence without showing her vagina ?.......Would someone like to tell me why it would HAVE to be in the photo and not covered in some way?....

But then I suppose i would have never heard about his work if it hadnt been fo rthe controversy he stirs.....maybe he just just drops the V-Bomb when sales are down?



We make the assumption the just because a parent consents it is not going to affect the child later.....it may.....


And ONE more question for you all....

If tomorrow he is arrested and convicted of child sex crimes ( I AM MAKING THIS UP TO SHOW A POINT!)....Those exact same photos would still be the same photos but now they have been taken by a pedophile who obviously wasnt thinking of the innocence of an emerging woman....but something to whak off over...( maybe he was thinking abotu the innocence)

Would you still love the pictures if you knew his motivation was different ????....remember they would be the Exact same pictures?????

.....And you thought Kiwis couldn't fly!!!!

[Lindsey 0]

I've read through a lot of this thread, but didn't look at the pictures until today. NOPE! Don't like it. If you need to depict children the way he does, then paint 'em. One must be capable of consenting to nude photographs, and 13 y/o kids just need a few more years, imho. At 13, given my life at that time, I woulda said "Sure! Take a picture of my clit." Today I would regret those pictures being on display. He needs to pick up a paint brush.

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[Squeak 17]

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I've read through a lot of this thread, but didn't look at the pictures until today. NOPE! Don't like it. If you need to depict children the way he does, then paint 'em. One must be capable of consenting to nude photographs, and 13 y/o kids just need a few more years, imho. At 13, given my life at that time, I woulda said "Sure! Take a picture of my clit." Today I would regret those pictures being on display. He needs to pick up a paint brush.

linz

the bolded text indicates to me that you have no problem with the youth modeling, more so that you dont perceive photography as art.
Or did you not type what you really wanted to say?

And would you regret those pictures if they are on display in the Guggenheim as some of his work is?

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?