Image by Bill Henson - sourced from DailyServing.com
I’ve made my interpretation of Bill Henson’s images of adolescents clear in a previous post, and I want to talk here about some of the issues raised by and about the “debate” on Henson’s photography and the subsequent charges laid against him and the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery owners.
The first point to make is that whatever the “debate” is now about, it’s not about Henson’s images as such. They literally disappeared from view on Thursday afternoon, and the interpretation of the image that’s attracted the most angst has been heavily slanted by its reproduction in numerous tabloid media outlets, with black bars over the subject’s breasts which have made it a sexualised image no matter what Henson’s (or the subject’s) intentions or its original context might have suggested. For what it’s worth, you can see the photo here at Junk for Code. The interpretive context for this image has been shifted, and violently reinscribed as the invisible or altered focus of a media circus where the battle lines have been drawn between “the arts community” (some of whose spokespeople have been doing the debate and themselves no favours, incidentally) and “society” - as represented in part by agents of vigilance such as Hetty Johnson and in part by the instigators of the talkback outrage, the Miranda Devines of this world. As soon as they get up and running, you’ve got zero chance in the so-called public sphere of making any sort of nuanced point, as nuance is immediately equated with “condoning pedophilia” or whatever heights of absurdity we’ve reached.
In the farther reaches of the blogosphere, that absurdity has included equation of any defence of Henson and his images as akin to “an ideology that considers Islamic women being decapitated as the price to be paid for a more “tolerant” world” and of course, those who are pointing out that things might be more complex than “enjoying artistic child abuse” are apparently the exact same “Western liberals” (!) who “opposed John Howard’s intervention to save Aboriginal children from sexual exploitation”. That might make no sense whatever, but then it’s not meant to. It’s all about starting a war - a culture war on the usual suspects - and closing down any possible debate that tries to even slightly question the unexamined and apparently unquestionable premises which are its conditions of (im)possibility.
In fact, according to Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt as well, joyfully employing their favoured method of “selective quotation” and selective ellipsis on The Age’s Robert Nelson as Troppo’s Missing Link points out, it’s all actually about some sort of evil cultural relativism that just as easily “accepts” “beheading women”. Whatever.
When things have taken this turn, you know you’ve lost already if you try to actually say anything intelligent. You’re already inscribed as the evil destroyer of all that is innocent and beautiful, the condoner of the murder of women, and the complicit accomplice in “the stripping and photographing of 13-year-old girls” for “soft porn”. Don’t ask me how all these links make sense - you’d need a better cultural critic than I am to understand what sort of “logic” has lead the culture warriors to this juncture.
In their world, I suppose I just have to wait for the inevitable link and to accept my punishment - loud denunciation as an appropriate slapdown for even daring to suggest that things might just have spiralled a little out of control in this risible “debate”. After all, by suggesting there’s something more going on with all this than “soft porn”, I must be complicit in “beheading women” and “child abuse”, mustn’t I? So there you have it, but in the hope that this is a place where we can have some sort of reasonable debate, I’m going to proceed to ask some questions regardless.
Here are some, and they don’t exhaust the possible range of questions:
(1) What constitutes the “sexualisation of children” and why is it wrong?
Audrey Apple thinks she knows:
Artistic might be capturing images of children running around laughing on a beach, caught between the devil-may-care nakedness inherent to children and the fig-leaf necessity of adulthood.
Placing them in a darkened room and fashioning them into poses not natural to a child does nothing but strip them of their power and turn them into subjects – and to me, that is the great difference between nudes and pornography.
Censorship be damned. The police were right to shut down Henson’s “exhibition”. That none of his fawning audience could see why is proof the art world in general needs to get a new tailor.
What are “poses not natural to a child”? We’re actually not talking here about the sexualisation of children, surely, because this post from Audrey, and every other one making similar arguments I can find, completely effaces the transitional nature of adolescence. There’s apparently some dividing line between being a child and being an adult that you just leap across in an instant. No awkward response to puberty, no fear at an awakening sexuality. Just a line between “innocence” and - well, what?
It seems to me that legitimate questions can be raised about “the sexualisation of children”. But it’s wise to remember that human development isn’t a matter of sudden transformations but of gradual awakenings often accompanied by fear as well as by joy. It’s not that there’s some “original sin” of sexuality that suddenly morphs an “innocent” into something other. I mean, we all know that’s not true, don’t we? We’ve all been adolescents, haven’t we? It’s these sorts of questions I think Henson’s work poses to us. And he’s had his answer - at all costs we have to forget it seems, forget that we were ever something both less and more than a child and both less and more than an adult.
A lot of the prior debate about the “sexualisation of children” revolved around the posing of children younger than the subjects of Henson’s photos in provocative images, almost always created not for artistic purposes but for marketing and advertising and without any reflexivity. This discussion worries about the premature depiction of children as sexual beings offered up for adult consumption, in poses that invite sexualisation. That’s a legitimate concern, although sometimes it ignores the fact that children are sexual beings, but there are questions, I think, about what the glossy marketisation of kiddy sexiness does to socio-psychical development, and ones that can be addressed more broadly in a cultural sense.
But what are we talking about here? It seems to me, anyway, that the flipside of worrying about children being “sexualised” too early is to then want to prolong childhood almost indefinitely. And that, in turn, needs auto-authorised guardians of what is and isn’t appropriate to draw these lines, to impose these lines on fluid human bodies.
(2) Isn’t what is at stake here mainly the dissemination of these images on the internet? The internet - always constructed in these discussions as a domain existing outside rules, a zone of libidinal and circulating energies and a place where restraint is cast off - apparently functions as a site where we can’t tell who’s looking and why they’re looking. Forget the fact that the images which have now been removed from the gallery website almost certainly wouldn’t have been accessed by the troubling eyes of those who might see Henson’s photos as pr0n… they’re not accompanied by any of the tags and codes that the marketers of pr0n embed to get search engine’s attentions, and they’re not being circulated privately by pedophiles. That doesn’t matter it would seem - in the intertubes, no one knows who’s looking. There aren’t any museum guards to watch the watchers for inappropriate behaviours (though how any thoughtcrime committed without obvious signs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales could be forefended is beyond me). There isn’t a wall around the photos and frames around them on walls which keep out those who don’t see them as intended to be art. That seems to be the logic that’s been suggested in the “internet changes everything” argument made by Clive Hamilton and others.
Is this why Hetty Johnson hasn’t made a complaint to the police about the Art Gallery of NSW? Aside from the fact that a small (private) Paddington gallery probably better fits the stereotype of “edgy artist”? Are we to assume that the officially sanctioned temples of art are safe from any lurking eyes?
(3) And who exactly is Hetty Johnson “protecting”?
Is it the subjects of the photos? They seem to be an afterthought in all this. Perhaps thought of belatedly because (rightly) the exploitation of children and adolescents for the purpose of producing sexualised images does appear to be the most central aspect of the debate about sexualised images. That’s true whether we’re talking about images taken by pedophiles or whether we’re talking about advertising images of eight year olds whose parents are happy to celebrate their kiddies’ burgeoning “careers” as models…
But the objection - first off - appeared to be about the images themselves, and secondly about their dissemination online. Here another question can be raised. If someone finds such an image titillating, is that the responsibility of its creator or its publisher? Isn’t it proverbially the case - recorded in so many fictional representations of puberty and adolescence - that prior to the existence of the internet, adolescent boys would pour over medical texts in school or public libraries for images of female bodies? Or perhaps even get turned on by the figure of the nude in art books? Were the publishers of those texts held to account? Should they be? Do we need to be “protected” from ourselves?
How about other sorts of images produced for purposes which have nothing to do with sexual excitation? (And I think there is a difference between pedophilia and forms of fetishism aetologically, but as with most differences in this case, it’s being effaced, and what I’m talking about is the responsibility of the image as such.) I, for instance, might post photos of myself online for all sorts of purposes - I could be dressed ever so demurely, but because there are people out there who fetishise amputees, any image of a woman with one leg is going to provide voyeuristic fodder for someone - and perhaps therefore be in some contexts a “sexualised image” no matter how asexual my intent or its context. Do I need to take this into account? Should I?
Or should it be up to adults to regulate their own behaviour? We all know not everyone can do this successfully or effectively (and indeed I’m sure lots of us get turned on by looking at stuff we find sexually exciting - which in my case certainly doesn’t extend to images of children - but I’ll be damned before I allow others to take that ethical responsibility out of my own hands). But what appears to be missing in all this “debate” is what it does to the cultural representation of adults - who are figured as predatory. Or rather adult males are. Perhaps they’re also in some ways feminised because they might be those dreaded art-loving “pervs” (an easy equation the loathsome Glenn Milne made today). One thing this is about is protecting the “innocence” of girls against the male gaze, and Henson’s own gender is significant in it, as is the fact that there are similar images of boys in his work has been completely erased.
There are some questions anyway. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I think there is an obligation on us to discuss this issue seriously, and not rush to loudly condemn. There’s enough of that about, that’s for sure.
Elsewhere: A ton of relevant links at Troppo’s Missing Link, and Skepticlawyer looks at the legal questions surrounding the prosecution of Bill Henson. At Hoyden, tigtog also sees “so many knees jerking, so little real debate”.
Update: Audrey Apple responds to her interlocutors, and does some rethinking in a long post.
Further update: [by MB] A post from Pavlov’s Cat which is well worth a read. And Laura’s take in another excellent post.
Should the legality of the images depend on why they are created? Also in the end Henson would profit from the sale of his art so in some sense they were made for commercial purposes. Would it make any difference is some large corporation bought the rights to one of the photos and stuck their logo on it with some marketing spiel?
All great questions, Kim. I wonder if the photos had been taken by a woman would there have been the same uproar?
I also wonder why the moral guardians aren’t demanding that the State Galleries give up their Henson photos.
It also reminds me a story I read about the Yorkshire Ripper. If you remember he murdered many women in the north of England during the ’80’s. When asked if there were any books or films which influenced him, he said ‘Yes. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky”. Which of course makes sense when you think about it and shows that the pornographic imagination can feed on anything.
Another good question, Fine!
Chris, on the legal issues, see Skepticlawyer:
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/05/the-bill-henson-kiddy-porn-fiasco/
I don’t know how in practice his intent would be judged, because I’m not a lawyer. Most artists I think would like to make their living from art. And in practice, as I said early on the other thread, someone of Henson’s renown would make all the money he wants without having to do commercial photography, and advertisers would in any case be very unlikely to want to appropriate such an image, for a whole range of reasons.
I think a workaround while we wait for the charges and/or trial - please contribute to the defense btw. thank you - is to reproduce the images online as widely as possible, right around the free world.
Mid-term it is vital to win this case and pour scorn on those idiot police.
Longer term we need to get the Gilead types out of government*, establish a proper democracy and lower the age of consent in line with documented science.
*No representation without taxation. No God - No Master.
Worth a thousand words:
Link on interesting video about Bill Henson’s photographic work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEi9ESRB8o
I believe if your an adult you can make up your own mind,I sure I don,t need to be told by some bunch of harpies what I can or cant see,its my business I,m afraid.
Devine, Hetty Johnstone,uncle Tom Bolta and all have no right to interfere in my private life,if they dont like it don,t go see it,I would not go and see it but thats up to me,all these stupid twits do is publicize it same as Jones with Salo,I did not know it was on till the right wing idiots opened their mouths.
Sorry that,s what I think,no one has the right to tell you what you can or cant see,its none of anyone’s bloody business
Can I just point out that in many cases the transformations are violent and sudden. That a large number of us (as many as one in three but estimates vary) never have the freaking luxury of this soft focussed “gradual awakening” that you speak of- an extraordinarily idealised portrait of adolescence that definitely does not apply to “us all”. Why am I not surprised that people keep reiterating a narrative that obliterates the experience of abused children and then have the gall to say that it is the Hetty Johnsons and other moral hysterics of the world who are overly idealising childhood?
Isn’t the flipside to worrying about prematurely ascribing adult sexuality to children a debate about where the boundaries are? I don’t believe I have ever seen anyone moaning about the premature sexualisation of 17 year olds so I doubt indefinite prolongation of childhood is really at stake.
Another thing I want to point out is that people keep talking about “paedophiles” but paedophiles are probably the minority of abusers. Paedophiles experience a primary sexual orientation toward children and their targets are mostly boys. The majority of victims of abuse, as far as we know, are girls and so situational abuse is more common than paedophilia.
If between one in 3 and one in 8 children are being sexually abused then there are a lot of predatory adults out there. They aren’t being shipped in from Mars. The awareness of this is just emerging and you seem to want to send us back to automatically presuming benevolence. It isn’t just adult men either. There are two age groups who are most likely to offend; around 14 and about 30.
I don’t believe Henson’s work should be censored but if you want to talk about sexualisation and child sexual abuse (not just paedophilia) then you need to be better informed about the context. You may be capable of self-regulating your behaviour but clearly many people and specifically many men cannot.
“I don’t believe Henson’s work should be censored but”
So what is your solution? The current hysteria isn’t helping anyone.
Kim, you’re brilliant.
The first person with that unique combination of will, sanity, education and ability with language to winkle out the salient underlying components and their relation ship with each other and the whole, to produce a comprehensible and definitive objective adult discussion on the issue.
The essays are gems, tributes to what can be acheived thru intellect, training and hard work combined.
Hetty Johnson had problems with abuse as a kid, so most would take this into account concerning her intensely subjective responses. The cold blooded op ed columnists who have exploited the thing for political purposes totally unrelated to the issue itself are the real problem.How much attention has been distracted away from so many other issues at least as deserving of attention.
re Apple, This writer knows and loves someone with a history similar to Johnson’s and their responses, usually objective on a given issue, have also coloured by recollected pain and humiliation; personal wounds from the past reopened through the current bout of exploitative hysteria.
On another issue, it seems curious to me that this issue has received so more attention than that curious case in Melbourne, where a twelve year old girl has been allowed a sex change operation over the objections of family.
If a twelve year old kid apparently can’t decide whether to appear in a photo, as some claim, how could one possible make an objective, then legally sanctioned, choice for major surgery, at the same age?
I dunno, may be am old fashioned, but the thing has taken me genuinely aback.
You know what I would like to see, Adrian - I would like to see some of the people who spend their entire time pointing out moral panics to engage with the issues to which those panics are a response.
I think you’ve misread the intent of my post, su, with respect. I’m not trying to suggest that “violent awakenings” don’t occur with regard to child sexual abuse, but it seems to me, if anything that Henson’s work can act as a prophylactic to that - in that to the degree it does suggest tensions between innocence and sexuality are normal - that is to say, it is possible to experience adolescence otherwise as a subject rather than an object of sexuality, but that subject position is always unstable and imbued with fear and that’s also normal - anyway, that’s (part of) my reading of the photos.
No I do not.
But automatically assuming that predation is the default for the relations between adults and children is not the answer either. The construction of “innocence” in its day allowed institutions such as churches, governments, etc, to hide what was occurring lest its shocking force disrupt comfortable assumptions about the “safety” of childhood and “care”. But the presumption of predation is as obscurantist with regard to solutions as its opposite.
I’ve chosen to discuss the images in terms of “pedophilia” because both “sides” of the debate are interpreting them this way - and because as I said the cultural hot spot here appears to be the (presumed) analogy between accessing Henson’s photos and the circulation of images produced for pedophile networks.
It seems to me that having an adult and measured debate is the best way to address these issues. Not censoring images. Or regulating speech. I note that you say that’s not what you’re arguing for, but I’m not clear what you are arguing for.
And the solution is? I very much doubt that child sexual abuse per se, where it’s not pedophilia (and I did note that this term has its own etiology) has anything at all to do with images and representations as it’s most commonly found within familial or other comparable contexts. I am happy to stand corrected, but I don’t believe there’s (a) much of a causal link between any sorts of images and child sexual abuse as such and (b) it has anything to do whatsoever with the contexts of Henson’s photos except concerns about the issue of the consent of the subject/s and ethics, where there are some parallels - overdrawn, though, in my view.
Crossed with lots of other comments, su. I do not believe Henson’s photos, as I’ve just said have anything material to do with the phenomenon of child sexual abuse as such. As I’ve said, pedophilia rather than situational sexual abuse has been the touchpoint for the so-called “debate” and the connection between these images and the “sexualisation of children” and its connection with child sexual abuse doesn’t seem to me to have been argued, or even asserted. I suppose we’re meant to infer it from Hetty Johnson’s involvement, but I haven’t seen anything from her which attempts to really place these images in this context with any sort of reasoning.
I would welcome a broader debate on child sexual abuse, but I don’t think Henson’s photos are either an appropriate starting point for such a debate nor that any debate arising from them would be particularly useful in elucidating the issues that are key to the prevention of child sexual abuse.
John Ryan. I don,t need to be told by some bunch of harpies what I can or cant see,its my business I,m afraid.
I’ve seen Hensen’s exhibitions, and I always find them, as David Marr said on the Insiders, ‘creepy’. All the re-assurances about the subject feeling in control and comfortable remind me of Linda Lovelace pre Damascus. But mostly I’m noticing a gender divide. Angry men defending their right to view everything, and women trying to defend ‘art’ whilst having a very bad feeling about this.
Su, I’d ask you to read what I wrote again (and in the previous post) and ask yourself whether that’s what I’m saying. I don’t think I’m doing “idealising adolescence” here - quite the contrary. That’s partly what I’m trying to illustrate with the contrast I’m making between Henson’s images and what Audrey Apple thinks is “natural” and proper to childhood.
Paul at 9, thanks.
Excellent post Kim. Truly. Well done.
What Ms Apple is really saying is that photos of a kid on a beach bring nothing but good connotations here. A sunny-Disney world of tanned kitsch and Coca-Cola commercial wholesomeness. Henson’s photgraphs express some thing, well, darker. And Ms Apple and Mr Bolt and the rest don’t like it. They cannae hack it Cap’n.
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That’s the problem here. The notion that the photograph renders a subject powerless is Jurrasic tosh. In what way are you rendered powerless? A photographic location, studio or otherwise, is simply a place. Apart from the models’ obligations to folow the photographer’s instructions (s/he is after all master of the image) the models are not powerless. They can quit if they wish. Did Henson steal these children? Did he drug ‘em? Did he offer ‘em a fucking boiled lolly?
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No.
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This was done with the consent of these
childrenadolescents and their parents. Henson’s been at this for years. Is he the subject of any complaint on behalf of his former models? Not to my knowledge. Are his models doing anything sexual or otherwise degrading to their person? Not unless you call nudity degrading.>
I don’t find it difficult to imagine that Mr Bolt does find his own nudity degrading. And anyone else unfortunate enough to be present could well feel even worse.
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The schpiel re this is applying adult sexuality to children is likewise the drivel of a boneheaded philistine. Not because it doesn’t happen, but because it’s not happening here. Henson’s photography depcits the psychological landscape of adolescence. The sexuality is adolescent. And like most good visual artists he hasn’t articulated any of this but simply ‘draws’ what he sees with the mind’s eye.
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ANd no Fine he prorbably wouldn’t be prosecuted if he was a woman. Throughout the occassional miscellaneous uproars whereby a photographer is hounded by the forces of ‘purity’ - Sally Manne remains unscathed.
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Check it out - http://images.google.com.au/images?um=1&hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=Sally+Mann&spell=1
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Should she?
What follows is an extract from my article for New Matilda tomorrow (just sent off to NM)
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What did Bill Henson do? He photographed a naked girl. Apparently, that is now enough in this country to warrant serious investigation from police on the grounds of child pornography.
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To realise just how absurd this situation is, let’s take a a few moments to consider the biology of the issue. It was the British anthropologist Desmond Morris who called his 1967 book The Naked Ape.
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Morris’ thesis was that humans, the only predominantly hairless species of ape, were essentially adapted to life as nomadic hunter-gatherers. We – Homo Sapiens - lived in glorious nakedness for more than a million years in Africa, before radiating out into the Eurasian continent sometime around 100,000 years ago.
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The invention of clothing may have been a key innovation that enabled that exploration, from warm Africa to the colder climates to the north. The anthropologists Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stoneking have speculated that the evolution of human body lice is directly related to the development of clothing – which human body lice in fact need to survive. They put the date for the origin of body lice at around 107,000 years ago.
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For at least the last 50,000 years, humans have made art – beautiful, fully formed visual art, as Australian indigenous rock art and the equally beautiful rock paintings in the French caves of Lascaux prove. In other words, visual art is nearly as old as clothing. They are both fundamental characteristics of the biologically modern human being.
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No wonder so much visual art has consisted of depictions of the naked human form – from the Venus of Willendorf to the highly explicit art-as-pornography of Jeff Koons. Indeed, so common is the depiction of the naked form in western art, it has a technical name (”the nude”), and life drawing is still considered an essential part of the curricula of most art colleges.
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Just to spell it out to you again: none of us are born with clothes on. And when we take them off, this is what we really look like – even if we are 13 years old.
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As Catherine Lumby points out in Friday’s Age, “it is now the task of art historians, critics and fellow artists to explain Henson’s work and defend his status as one of our finest artists. Their job is almost impossible.”
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Lumby is right. The hysteria over paedophilia and child sexual abuse is now so extreme that any sensible analysis of the issue is almost impossible. Looked at dispassionately, it’s hard to see how Henson’s images are “sexualised.” There’s no sex act going on, and his models are clearly not aroused. Sure, they’re naked. But sexualised?
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As the anthropologists and aesthetics professors agree, sex is like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. I shake my head at the lunacy of a nation where broadband internet makes the most depraved material imaginable instantly accessible, while zealously policing what hangs in high-scale art galleries.
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How hypocritical are media outlets like The Age, which has posted the offending image on its website here If the gallery and artist are now about to be charged, should not Fairfax? Or Dolly, which regularly portrays young women in an overtly obviously sexual manner, as the University of Melbourne’s Rod Jones suggested in today’s letters to the same newspaper. Should we also ban the British TV drama Skins, airing on SBS right now? This is a drama all about adolescent sexuality – gay and straight.
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The rippling consequences of the police action widened yesterday, with the Albury Art Gallery removing some of Henson’s photographs due to concerns over whether the photographs might be illegal.
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Which is why Peter Garrett’s comments on the issue – an amazing five days after the event – are so inadequate. Our Arts Minister kept mum for nearly a week on the biggest issue in his portfolio since taking office, declining to comment on the matter because it was the subject of a police investigation “except to say that while artists have a right to challenge and confront audiences, they also have a responsibility to operate within the law.”
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It’s a weak statement. Just a month ago, Minister Garrett was happy enough to defend the moral rights of artists in this speech to the Australian music industry body APRA at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion. The speech was entitled “The politics of Art.” Oh, the irony.
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During his speech to APRA, Garrett lauded the songwriting agency for its “strong representation for the rights of songwriters and composers-rights articulated in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, ‘Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he (sic) is the author.’” His speech included a long discussion of Nelson Mandela’s role in freeing South Africa from Apartheid. But hang on, wasn’t apartheid also the law in South Africa?
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That was a month ago. Now that supporting the universal right of artistic expression is actually in danger of costing his government support, our Arts Minister has gone to water. Oh Peter Garrett, just where has your power and passion gone?
Thanks for the link to Sally Mann’s work, Adrien. I think it is relevant to ask the question Fine asked with reference to her images. There is no doubt, as I said, that the gaze is always problematic between a photographer and her or his subject, and I think it’s differently thematised as such in Henson’s work than in Mann’s. Is that the source of some of this?
Just a note as well - I’d prefer to stay out of this thread if I can - I feel I’ve said all I want to. I’m happy to respond to any requests for clarifications, and will look in from time to time, but I’d like to see what comes from an attempt to ask questions to reframe a debate, without being prescriptive about how it proceeds.
RE Female Artists and taking of nude photos, there was a celebrated case about 20 years ago when Connie Petrillo was charged with indecent recording a child under the age of thirteen years, for taking naked photographs of her OWN son.
http://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=196
Great post Kim. I’ve been watching this thing unfold online and thought some kind of central blogospheric repository would be useful. It would be good if this turned out to be it.
I’m pretty sure it was Lumby who pointed out somewhere along the way that we tend to speak of fully bearded and amply breasted ‘youth’ and childhood as though there’s nothing in between, totally avoiding the liminal bits of newly emerging sexuality. We can easily extend childhood using words like ‘dependent’ and concepts like under age, but it becomes more difficult when children start growing bits that inconveniently suggest autonomies we don’t want to know about.
What is a 13 year old girl exactly? For one thing she’s a big problem for easy compartmentalisation. Does she menstuate? Maybe. Is she fertile? Maybe. Is she a fully socialised gender? Maybe. Is she sexually naive? Maybe. Are Henson’s pics of a sexual being or not? Who knows.
Like women of a certain age we seem to prefer it when such hybrids are invisible. At Skepticlawyer Helen said Henson would have been better off using models who were 18 but looked younger, so I’d also ask at what age does a girl become an acceptable subject for the erotic gaze? Is it ok to look at a developing body if she’s an 18 year old late developer? (raises hand) Or got old but failed to develop in any significant way without anorexia? (raises hand again). Is only 17 but demonstrably worldly?
You mention the assumptions this debate makes about grown men, so I’m wondering how the boy/girl ambiguity of ‘undeveloped’ bodies plays out here. Amputees are voyeuristic fodder, and so are other ‘handicaps’ like not qualifying for a bra size that would register on the most sensitive richter scale. Or having an extra thumb. Where does the boundary lie between the sexualised subject and the curiosity?
But what is actualy wrong with a bar on using kids as nude models?
Why, when I enter the artists name in for a google search 2 days ago were the only images shown on the first page (At work so not going to look any futher) only the naked children?
I dont want nuance, parsing or comparing to days of youre, I just would like to think that a clear line could be drawn between naked children and what is considered acceptable.
If I may be indulged to expand an arguement.
150 years ago homosexuality was seen as perverse and evil. No respectable person would admit to it or to even knowing one. (with a wink and a nod sometimes)
Then a process of normalisation began. First by a number of artists (Oscar Wilde through to Noel Coward), then through theatre and the arts, then eventualy to a whole society “dont ask, dont tell” around the 50’s onwards. All this with the law still mounting prosecutions etc.
Then through the work of more mainstream actvists Homosexuality is now seen as an equal and legitimate lifestyle.
My worry is that there is a fairly well worn template to making previously taboo activities in society acceptable. For better or worse the arts community is one of the vital first areas of “raising the profile”.
Finding a sypathetic “victim of the brutal laws” is a vital part as well, wether Henson fits that mold is yet to be determined.
(None of this is meant to be anti-gay, its just the closest example I could think of which involved sex at some level. Another example could be the American deep south segregation, or even the old sodomy laws)
Lyn’s raised a good point, in that the bright line view of adolescent sexuality is borrowed from the law, which needs bright lines generally if only to make it useful. Yes, the law can do nuance, but only up to a point. After that point is reached, then it’s up to other disciplines and people.
I also think Su & catlick have a good point about how this is dividing along gender lines (to which this post is a notable exception, I might add). I may do an update to my own post on this point later, but - in brief - a couple of people at Oxford criminology argue that women (especially as mothers) have always resented this type of male gaze on their children, but have never had the power to do anything about it on their own terms (ie, related to motherhood, rather than to religion or more abstract notions of protection).
In Western countries, women now - as a group - are beginning to win the power to change the laws and reformulate public attitudes (on this issue as on many others) so that ‘child protection’ is on their terms. One academic is doing a large empirical study on this, and I’m very interested to see what falls out of her research.
I don’t know that it’s dividing along gender lines at all. I’m a woman and I’m definitely on the anti-censorship side and I don’t think I’m an exception in this.
An additional four years (maximum) jail under the Crimes Act 1900 - Section 91G
“Children not to be used for pornographic purposes…uses a child who is under the age of 14 years for pornographic purposes” as against “a child who is of or above the age of 14 years“. (Respectively 14 years and 10 years custodial maximum.)
So 14 years old plus one day, treated the same as Linda “Deepthroat” for the purposes of sentencing.
Thats one dividing line for an extra 4 years at her majesty’s pleasure. Interestingly, the common law age of doli incapax (incapable of doing wrong) absolutely, is below 10 years of age. There is a rebuttable presumption that those aged 10 to 14 are also incapable of committing crime.
So, if the 14 y/o (plus one day) photo subjects are likely to have in their possession (and almost certainly will have, I’d suggest) a copy of his/her photo taken by Bill Henson and deemed by the Bolta, Miranda Devine and M/s Johnson to be pornographic, an interesting question arises for them per Section 91H ie
Why are they not urging the police to execute search warrants on the homes of those children. The law is the law and must be enforced. Right?
Ten years max for an adult such as Henson creating the alleged p**n and five years max for the 14 year old “victim” keeping a copy?
Luckily NSW treats those over 14 in the Children’s court with another dividing line ie under 18 years of age, where they would likely never impose a custodial term at all on a 14y/o for that offence.
My point Kim, is that there are so many dimensions, in law, ie more “dividing lines” than one (for child victim or child perpetrator), such that that when the adults are confused, the kids must be gobsmacked.
0-10; 10-14; 14-18 and lets not forget sweet 16 the age of consent.
My point for the railroading brigade wanting to prosecute Bill Henson is this: to be logically consistent, in seeking to demonise an imagined art world enemy of children you must demonise many more. Much more than you bargained for, and including MSM, the Age in particular, and all bloggers with those images posted–even ultimately the so called “victims”.
Kim @11 :
Well you said that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about premature sexualisation and then you described as the norm, a kind of adolescence that was obviously free of those pressures. One of the concerns raised in the Corporate Paedophilia report was that by various mean the gradual process that you spoke of was being accelerated and preempted. That was my point. Early pregnancy for example was one of the concerns that was raised and it spells a very sudden transition from adolescence.
I really disagree with this. It was the unquestioning acceptance of authority; parental and institutional, and the automatic disbelief of children that enabled coverups. Children were often seen as leading adults astray. And I see echoes of this deference to authority in the outraged reactions we see at the moment, in the constant referencing of Henson’s standing in the art world, as if this automatically puts him beyond reproach or examination.
What am I arguing for? I am arguing for a complete reversal of priorities, where the freedom of speech of the privileged white artist becomes less, not more important than for eg the botched rape trial of a disabled child in Aurukun. I won’t hold my breath, though. I am asking for a situation where people don’t make mealy mouthed apologies for a socially conservative Prime Minister while scapegoating a Child Protection advocate - it started with the media remember with Devine and Bolt. I am asking for people to put some of the outrage they readily muster on behalf of free speech to the service of violence prevention. I am asking that if people sling around the term “moral panic” they follow it up by addressing the cause of that panic (because in this case the cause is real and widespread).
With regard to your final point: People are concerned about distribution of sexualising images in part (this was in the Corporate Paedophilia report) because images can become part of the grooming process. Grooming is not something limited to paedophiles; images can be used as part of situational abuse as well- hence the emphasis on pornography in the Little Children Are Sacred report and subsequently the NT intervention. So no, it isn’t just about paedophiles.
Ah lost all of my blockquotes. Sorry - don’t know how I stuffed that up.
Thanks to all who’ve appreciated the post. I said at 18 I’d prefer to stay out of the debate from here on in, but I just went for a walk and reflected a little more on su’s arguments at 7 and want to do a bit more clarification.
I think, on reflection, that to discuss Henson’s images in terms of child sexual abuse is actually the move that the RWDBS have made - all of them as far as I can see - because pr0n is a convenient hook for them to hang on their equation of everything and everyone they don’t like politically and culturally with “condoning child sexual abuse” - see the wild leaps of thinking I’ve documented in the post which rest on thin air basically.
I recall when the NT intervention was first proposed, it was very widely stated by those who’d looked at the literature that there was no established causal link between pr0n and child sexual abuse, and since, as su said, we’re talking about an abuse of communal or domestic or other intimate relations rather than a sexual paraphilia or pathology as such, that makes intuitive sense. That was the argument made by those who opposed the “ban pr0n” aspect of the Howard government’s intervention.
It seems to me that there’s significant displacement happening here - if Henson’s images are the problem, and if they in some vague sense “condone” or even lead to child sexual abuse, isn’t adopting this non-argument helping to obscure the actual sources of child sexual abuse? I think that if we were wanting to debate seriously that issue (and I’m sure we would all like to see such a debate occur), we’d be very well advised to keep it quite analytically distinct from the issue of the significance of Henson’s images and how they have been reinscribed into a frame where they’re likened to the images taken, collected and circulated by pedophiles. Because make no mistake, that’s the parallel that’s being drawn here.
Su, I’ve added the blockquotes in. For the two reasons I’ve stated (reluctance to participate in this debate in order to defend my opinions as such - I’m just trying to pose questions - and the fact that I think it’s unhelpful to frame Henson’s images in terms of child sexual abuse), you’ll understand if I don’t respond further to the points you’ve made. That’s no judgement of the validity of your contribution, just a result of my belief that:
(a) The links between the phenomenon of child sexual abuse and Henson’s photos are very tenuous;
(b) Debating the phenomenon of child sexual abuse on the basis of Henson’s photos is likely to so obscure the debate as to make it fruitless, if the intent is to think about ways child sexual abuse can be prevented (which is something I would wholeheartedly support - but in a different context than this one right here and right now).
I would revisit the old question sometimes asked of usually male consumers of unsuitable behaviour, (such as: the bare breasted sandwich makers/barmaids/hairdressers.) Would you feel comfortable patronising this business if that was your sister/mother/daughter performing this service? To all those people out there demanding the right to view ‘art’y pictures of naked 13 year old girls, would you feel comfortable if the subject was your sister/daughter? Clearly, for some, the answer is ‘yes’.
No causal link but the pr0n regulation was actually part of the recommendations of LCAS report because pr0n can be a grooming tool. So still problematic and not just for paedophilia but situational abuse as well.
I’m not sure I agree that the gaze is problematic or always so. But here I’d have to agree that that is my perception and the perception of those like me who wallow in the visual arts and even create ‘em some of us. Sometimes it isn’t a problem, usually it is but the problem is how to get the image you want rather than some power play. Models have a lot more power than given credit for.
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This ‘gaze’ of which you speak is much the subject of feminist lore is of course present; and is, as Camille Paglia has extensively elucidated, utterley ammoral. It sees beauty and does not consider moral questions whilst doing so. And it is identified with men for a whole bunch of reasons. Most famed artists been men. But also most perverts, most predators, most sexual killers are men.
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The attention that’s been drawn to pedophilia over the last two or so decades probably has many people overly anxious. This leads to such episodes as suspicion of men who smile at children in public. This of course is not only useless against pedophiles (whose cunning in assuming positions of trust is legend) but also erodes social connections and breeds distrust and alienation.
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In these sorts of moral panics there’s always an almost entire lack of consideration for the actual consequences of the art. Sally Manne’s work does sexualize children. She depicts her children wearing make-up and jewelry. There was an interview on the impeccably serious (hardy-har) 60 Minutes with some notorious old man who’d done huge time for such crimes. He said that letting your kids wear make-up or “anything sexual” was his red flag to a bull as it were. Therefore I’d have to conclude that Manne’s work is pornographic for pedophiles.
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But it isn’t for the rest of us. And pedophiles have their own networks that produce this stuff not to mention the routine abuse of adolescent family memebers going on all over the place to people who will remain unpunished. Prosecuting Henson doesn’t do anything to stop them. It does however make sex a little more shameful and superstitious.
Yes. Okay? Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Please understand. If you wish to perpetuate this ethos whereby the body is at once both an object of deified rarity and also the source of deepest shame then please do so.
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However understand this. I am in no way obliged to subscribe to what I regard as a joyless and twisted negative perversion of my relationship with my body because of some supposedly divine decree that sayeth hate thyself. Paul of Tarsus has no authority over me and neither do you. You wanna make yourself miserable subscribing to a code that has predestinate hypocrisy and neurosis written all over it - fine. Leave me out of it.
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Thanks.
Kim this is a very well written and well thought out post.
What gets me about this whole farce is the paradox of our society’s attitude to sexuality. It surrounds us and is literally used to sell everything from breakfast cereal (’meet me in the cereal aisle’, ‘I’ll have what she’s having’) to cars and everything in between. But we conflate nakedness with sex and so turn a blind eye to the many sexualised images of young girls that surround us on magazine covers and on our tv screens, not to mention the clothes, bras, and make up being sold to girls as young as four. (When I refer to clothing I am talking about ’sexy girl’ clothing, clothing that is the same designs, short skirts, peek-a-boo necklines and the like, as the adult clothing, that in the adult sizes, the clothes are unambigiously designed to make the wearer look sexy. There is this continuum of clothes, young women’s wear, casual and night club clothes, teenage clothes, tweenager clothes and little girls clothes all following the same lines and designs. The cheaper the little girls clothing the more likely it is to be miniature adult clothing. As the mother of a four year old girl it bugs me when I try to get clothes for my daughter that is affordable and practical and doesn’t look appropriate for a night club). As a society this doesn’t seem to be a problem cause this stuff is everywhere. But we do have a problem with nakedness and as soon as we see pics of naked children, above about preschool age, alarm bells ring. Thus we send our youth a very paradoxical message, be ashamed or protective of your nude body, cover it up - in revealing clothing! IMHO a lot of the clothed images we see of girls of the age group of Henson’s work are much more sexualised than his images.
[But we conflate nakedness with sex and so turn a blind eye to the many sexualised images of young girls that surround us on magazine covers and on our tv screens, not to mention the clothes, bras, and make up being sold to girls as young as four. (When I refer to clothing I am talking about ’sexy girl’ clothing, clothing that is the same designs, short skirts, peek-a-boo necklines and the like, as the adult clothing, that in the adult sizes, the clothes are unambigiously designed to make the wearer look sexy.]
And yet these same parents have no qualms enrolling their kids in Dance classes where they perform routines based on music videos dressed in the same clothing you describe.
Hypocrites.
While Marge, Lisa and Maggie are out shopping, Homer and Bart Simpson, as usual, are on the sofa watching TV. An ad comes on: ‘children needed to pose nude for photos – big bucks on offer’. Two pairs of eyes light up – after all, Homer and Bart are fond of the moolah and usually don’t really care how they get their hands on a ready supply.
Homer: You sure you don’t mind getting your rocks off to pose for this photographer, boy?
Bart: Why should I, Homer? I’ll be leaving Springfield when I’m 18, so no-one out in the big bad world will have heard of me anyway…
[Homer writes down the contact number and gives it a quick ring before Marge gets back. An appointment is made for “Homer’s kid” to attend the photographer’s studio the following day at 10.00 am. Handily, the studio is close to the Simpson residence, so Bart can use his skate-board to get there and doesn’t need a lift from Homer. However, when Lisa gets back from the shops, Bart can’t resist getting one over on her, and reveals that after tomorrow he is going to be rolling in dosh]
Lisa: You better change your tee-shirt, Bart. If a photographer is going to take your picture, you have been wearing that one since the series started in 1989…
Bart: Get with the script, sis…I won’t need a tee-shirt – I won’t need anything…oo-la-la!
Lisa (distraught): No, Bart! I can’t believe you’d do anything so stupid…have you no self-respect…you’ll catch your death of cold…what if the school bullies, Jimbo and Kearney see the photos – they will beat the crap out of you for being a sissy…
Bart: They beat the crap out of me anyway, so what’s new?
[Whatever Lisa says, Bart isn’t listening – all he can see are the dollar signs. Lisa goes to bed, but tosses and turns, unable to sleep. All she can think about is her brother’s plan to appear nude in photos – a project that will even further diminish his wretched reputation. In keeping with her usual self-giving and altruistic personality, she comes to a decision as to what she will do – she will stand in for Bart by turning up at 9.00 am (saying she is ‘the Simpson kid’) and that she was unable to make the 10.00 am appointment. She doesn’t know what she will do when the photos of her are exhibited – all she is thinking about at that moment is trying to save Bart from himself. The next day, Lisa slowly makes her way to the photographers, reluctantly shuffling like a condemned felon making their last journey across the Bridge of Sighs. The photos are taken, but she is so eager to get away, the photographer hasn’t even got time to give her the money. Back home, close to 10.00 am, Bart is ready to get on his skate-board. Lisa takes him aside]
Lisa: Bart, there’s no need for you to go to the photographers…I’ve already been, and got the photos taken…
Bart: So where’s the money? It was my idea, so hand it over…
[Bart is ready to explode when he is told by Lisa she left the studio without it. However, just then, the phone rings. Homer answers it. The photographer is on the line]
Photographer: Mr Simpson…you’re not going to believe this, but when we took the photos of your daughter, we forgot to put some film in the camera! Can she come down again for some more shots?
Homer: What?! My daughter?? My beautiful cuddly little daughter!! Why you asshole…you stinking turd…
Marge: Homer! Who are you calling such horrible names? I hope you aren’t insulting my sisters, Patty and Selma, again…
Homer: No, Marge… I’m just arranging for our happy family to have a picture taken and the photographer is nothing but a rip-off merchant…
Lisa: But, dad, we’re going to a different photographer, aren’t we?
Bart: Yeah! Let’s go to one where we can all get our kit off…
Homer: Why, you…
I would revisit the old question sometimes asked of usually male consumers of unsuitable behaviour, (such as: the bare breasted sandwich makers/barmaids/hairdressers.) Would you feel comfortable patronising this business if that was your sister/mother/daughter performing this service? To all those people out there demanding the right to view ‘art’y pictures of naked 13 year old girls, would you feel comfortable if the subject was your sister/daughter? Clearly, for some, the answer is ‘yes’.
That line of argument does women not much good at all, as it just encourages men to respect women “owned” by them. It does little to encourage them to think of women as fully human.
Yep, it’s never addressed to women although we also have relationships with women and girls!
Okay, I’ve been thinking some more about this and I have an alternative way of interpreting this situation. The frame that I’ve been thinking about is that of what I would call (following some contemporary work in epistemology) ‘visual articulation’.
My starting point is the idea that we develop the way we use our senses through ‘training’ processes. Everybody does this, but different senses are developed in different ways according to use, training and milieu. As an example: you can actually take courses to become ‘a nose’: that is, to refine your sense of smell to be able to identify different fragrances.
Those who have spent a lot of time around art - whether they be artists, critics, art historians - tend to develop certain forms of visual articulation. Their eyes range across the artwork, looks at details, light, colour (there has been research on this, but I can’t find a good link). This form of visual articulation treats images as complex, looks for nuance. This is why those in ‘the arts’ find that they literally cannot see the problem with Henson’s work.
Those who have a developed awareness of child abuse as a problem - through education, profession or activism, or as victims - would tend to have different ways of being visually articulate. Their reading practices when children are involved are honed towards details, but these are markedly different kinds of details. This influences their visual articulation, and will be relatively more or less significant depending on their exposure to other contexts of visual development. This is why some critics can ONLY see the potential problems with Henson’s work.
The visual field is not neutral to these ways of seeing: it yields what is sought where there is something in the work that corresponds. This is not ‘purely subjective’ however: without any correspondence between how we see and what the work does we don’t respond at all, there is nothing in it for us.
I think discomfort, vulnerability etc are there in the art in this case, as is the adolescence of the subject. If you have a heightened awareness of visual complexity in the artistic sense, you register this in particular ways. If you have a heightened awareness of child sexual abuse, you register this in a different way. What makes it more perversely ironic is that I think both visual frameworks contain great potential for empathy, and yet they emerge here at crossed purposes.
This tension is emphasised by the form that the public discourse takes in this case: I take the way that certain voices in the media have framed this discussion as key to this.
Those who have campaigned against sexual abuse are used to this combative mode because they have faced a great deal of resistance in trying to get the issue to be taken seriously. When they meet ‘authoritative’ resistance they know what to do. The responses of artists and arts commentators to censorship is also habitual: there is a long tradition of censorship and prosecution of the arts to draw on.
Hi Kim,
I’ve written a second post on this issue following comments and debate relating to my first one. If anyone cares to read it, they can find it here.
It’s a more thorough analysis of my previous argument.
aa
It’s all about starting a war - a culture war on the usual suspects - and closing down any possible debate that tries to even slightly question the unexamined and apparently unquestionable premises which are its conditions of (im)possibility.
You’re pretty amusing, Kim. The Left Wing is always ready to shut down intelligent discussion about other topics, such as gay marriage, when people of a more traditional bent wish to make important points about possible problems with it. Mention any opposition to gay marriage and one is immediately branded as a bigot or homophobe.
And before you assume too much, no I am not actually Right Wing; I am actually somewhat to the left of centre politically, both with regards to social and economic issues, so please resist the temptation to pigeon-hole.
Perhaps you are just getting a taste of your own medicine.
“If you wish to perpetuate this ethos whereby the body is at once both an object of deified rarity and also the source of deepest shame then please do so.”
I was noticing that whilst some men choose to buy sandwiches and beer from bare breasted women, they feel more comfortable when those women are relative strangers. Especially if their mates are present.
“However understand this. I am in no way obliged to subscribe to what I regard as a joyless and twisted negative perversion of my relationship with my body because of some supposedly divine decree that sayeth hate thyself.”
It’s not your body up there.
Sorry people but I can not agree with many of you on this matter.
If anyone came up to you with pictures of naked children in the street what would your responce be?
In my view it is not acceptable for any child to be exploited even for the sake of so called art.
Where do we draw the line?
What will stop grubs showing photos of naked children in private anly to be busted and get of an a technicality of art?
Its a long bow but if we set a precedent of child porn,and this IS what it is,in this manner it will not stop.
Our children should be allowed to be children not ogled by perverted minds in the name of art.
Audrey at 39, I’d just added a link to your new post as an update to mine. Props to you for being willing to rethink and elucidate your position in dialogue with your interlocutors.
b16fan at 40, please read more carefully. I am specifically referring to the MSM blogiators and columnists and their epigones in the blogosphere as the ones who are constructing this issue in such a way that makes any debate (at least in the MSM) more or less impossible. I’m not making any claim broader than that, and thus the premise of your criticism is invalid. Nor do I think it’s either true or helpful to claim that “all left wingers” do this or that. That’s not the case, and it’s one big red herring you’ve just thrown into this thread.
To all those people out there demanding the right to view ‘art’y pictures…
“Yep, it’s never addressed to women although we also have relationships with women and girls!”
I figured “people” would include women.
It’s a red herring stolen straight from Miranda Devine’s dinner-plate
I didn’t see Henson peddling his photographs in the street did you?
OK then, all pictures of anyone under the age of 18 must be banned, because they all can obtain for some class of person, some sort of sexual gratification. That’s where we draw the line in your reasoning. When I say all I mean all. Including the ones people keep of their kids on their desks at work. You never know when a pedo’s watching do you?
Klaus - Heh!
And thanks for the comment at 38 - that’s a very perceptive way of understanding the different responses from people who are approaching these images from perspectives grounded in good faith but unfortunately too often incommensurable. I think it would be very useful in this whole discussion if people started trying to understand where others are coming from. As I said in the post, if it just becomes a “pr0n v. art” debate or a “luvvies v. society” debate it’s so polarised as to be useless for anyone not seeking to make a political point or issue a loud condemnation but to understand and act.
Thought provoking Su, but an argument of balancing rights nevertheless. And it’s not just the privileged white artist that benefits from free speech/expression. The Oz trials were about the right to political dissent, perhaps even more than they were about free speech issues. The right to be free of violence is granted in a different way of course, with sanctions against perpetrators of violence: positive inherent rights in a liberal democracy (free speech) as against the variably reactive, much more proscriptive CJ system as it operates against violence. I think that when balancing rights which are theoretically linked, one should find a causative link, and if there is one between free speech in the form of Henson’s art and freedom from sexual violence ( re: botched trial) it is nebulous at best.
In my opinion, based on experience as a practitioner in the criminal justice system defending the perpetrators, (especially in a NSW country town of note in the SMH today) I’d go back to the balancing rights argument and reframe it with a powerful causative link: Is the right to buy cheap alcohol and binge drink greater than the right to be free of violence?
My answer is no. Alcohol is a factor in almost all the cases I see involving violence. If alcohol was taxed to the same level as in Singapore, or Europe there would be a significant impact. Better still, if there was a drug that made alcoholic violent offenders violently ill on drinking alcohol ie vomi