At the outset on the Henson matter, I in common with many others had some difficulty with the notion that parents could give consent for 12 and 13 year olds to be photographed with no clothes on in order to make a work of art for public display. In Kim’s second thread tigtog raised an interesting question about consent:
A possible ethical compromise regarding consent for those under the age of legal self-sovereignty might be that if the adolescent and parents consent to being photographed, that the negatives/digital card containing the images be legally sequestered until the adolescent becomes a legal adult, and then and only then could they sign a release form for the image’s publication. How does that strike people with regard to the issue of consent?
I want to explore this question a little in the context of the development path we take from childhood to adulthood, the significant milestones along the way, and what skepticlawyer has called the “bright lines” the law has ruled across this process.
My tentative conclusion is that deferring authority for release is an unnecessary constraint for little if any gain. I’m interested in your views but a word of warning. If you don’t accept that what Henson is doing is creating art, then please go away. And if you think that there is no distinction between art and pr0n, then please go away also. I’m not interested in debating those topics on this thread.
In Kim’s first post she said:
Henson’s artistic interest is in adolescence as a time of metamorphosis which exposes the tensions and strains of living in a body, of being embodied, and of a certain relation of the psyche to the body. He eschews statements of political or sociological intent, though he’s aware that audiences may read such statements into his work. He invites reflection on times of transition, and what it feels like to undergo change. His images are classical and painterly, and ethereal.
The particular time-point of the picture that seems to be at the centre of concern, as with much of Henson’s work, is the transition from the psychosexual latency of childhood to adolescence, where emerging sexuality is part of the growing identity of the young adult. But at that point full adulthood is still a long way away.
The four critical time points that need to be negotiated are as follows.
Age of menarche
This site contains this information from Germany:
In 1860 the average menarche happened at 16.6 years, in 1920 at 14.6, in 1950 at 13.1 and 1980, 12.5 years.
When I was doing an Ed Psych course in the 1970s I recall seeing a graph in a textbook showing that the age of menarche had fallen by about 4 years from 1850 – 1950 in a number of western countries. It seems that it may have fallen a little since then but is levelling out.
Wikipedia suggests that few systematic surveys have been done and draws attention to problems in sampling and data collection. It gives the median age in the US as 12.43 years. It’s probably similar here. Anyway it’s young.
Age of consent
The age of consent is 16 in most jurisdictions, 17 in SA and 18 in Qld if your preference is for anal rather than vaginal sex. The pattern of admissible defenses should you infringe the law is quite diverse.
Legal maturity
When you are 18 you can vote, get a driver’s licence, marry without parental consent and enter legal contracts.
So then you could sign the release of the pics taken when you were 13 although in most places you have been able to have sex with any partner of your choice if they are over 16.
Brain maturity
However recent research is suggesting that our brains don’t mature until we are 25. I believe that is the median, it’s plus or minus four.
In particular there seems to be a problem in the relationship between our cognitive processes and the emotional centres of our brains which inhibits the proper assessment of risk.
In negotiating a path from childhood to adulthood traditional cultures had rites of passage to ease young people through this transitional time, to support them and to grant them recognition when they come through. We have lost these rituals although there are remnants.
In pre-industrial times generally speaking you began to learn the competencies needed for adult life and in fact made an economic contribution as soon as you were able. Growing up on a farm mid last century this certainly began before we went to school. More often than not people left school and some indeed left home to enter the workforce immediately after primary school at about age 14.
In modern society we keep young people in school. So the age of emerging sexuality has been reducing whereas we have been keeping young people longer in schools, which, whatever their virtues, tend to inhibit individual maturity because we are subject to an institution which by its nature limits our autonomy.
Erik Erikson from about the middle of last century sketched out a schema of stages of human psychosocial development from the cradle to the grade, which I’m told by developmental psychologists still has basic validity.
In his schema the transition from childhood (and a psychosexual latency period) to adolescence is the beginning of the struggle for individual identity, which is the main task of adolescence, and does not end with a sudden transformation into adulthood at age 18. Erikson says that in this period of what he calls psychosexual development the main task is to achieve a favourable ratio between Identity and Role confusion.
Towards the end of the teenage years, certainly at age 18, we are engaged in another transition, one from individual identity to achieving a favourable balance between Intimacy and Isolation. The stakes here are very high. This is the period when we learn to form intimate relationships with others at a time when our economic role in often far from settled. In psychosocial terms it is a more difficult transition, I think, than the earlier transition into adolescence.
But each transition is made more difficult by the increasing emphasis on individuality in modern society. In pre-industrial societies the individual was relatively embedded in family and community. The modern emphasis on individuality, convenient as it might be for isolating us to serve as producers and consumers in the modern economy, leaves us more alone than we are designed to be, if you take account of the history of our species.
In earlier times the future adult role was relatively clear. In our society young people are not just encouraged but are obliged to create their own individual identity (condemned to be free, cf Sartre), and this at a time when sexually they are more advanced in development than was the case in earlier times.
My own view is that we are fundamentally, essentially, ontologically if you like, social beings, and that the current emphasis on individual identities is stretching the design concept of homo sapiens as it were. It’s a big topic.
My bottom line in the issue at hand is that I would question whether we are better placed at 18, by ourselves, to make such decisions than we are at 13 with the help of those who love us and whom we trust.
In the specific case of Henson and the processes he appears to use (I’m discounting all that business about sourcing subjects from Eastern Europe, it’s not knowledge until better sourced) I have become more comfortable. The ABC TV program (you can catch it on ABC 2 on Sunday at 7pm) showed him to be a significant serious and careful artist. If he sources his models from the sons and daughters of artist friends where posing nude for artistic purposes is normal as suggested by tigtog that is further cause for comfort.
The distinction Henson makes between intimacy (as in listening to your favourite Mozart) and familiarity together with the notion of distance (see the transcript dk.au kindly gave us) provides further comfort. I’m still not comfortable with such images being used in promotional material in print or on the net. But now that a kerfuffle has arisen I think we need to see and know.
Art to me is a process whereby we reconcile inner and external worlds. I’m very hesitant about saying that any area of human experience is off limits. My starting position is that it is important that everything should potentially be a subject although there will inevitably be unease. After all understanding our own humanity is one of our most important tasks.
So I’m glad that an artist as talented as Henson with his evident due regard to process has chosen to explore the important theme of adolescence. It can only expand our understanding of our own humanity in the circumstances we find ourselves in (I’m thinking specifically post-industrial society with what Zygmunt Bauman has called fluid identities).
More generally, though, it does leave us with the question as to whether we should trust any artist to address any topic of their choice I think the answer has to be no. We can’t assume that artists will do no harm. Furthermore, unlike the professions, there is no guardian at the gate. Anyone can proclaim themselves as an artist. There is a story I’d be interested in as to how Henson established his reputation early in his career.
On su’s notion of an ethics body, I have little taste for it, certainly not under the aegis of the government. Also professional ethicists at times find problems and propose solutions, in my experience, that don’t pass the common sense filter. That leaves us with social workers and coppers. I can’t think of a reasonable alternative. Let’s pray that they are sensitive and wise. There might be a role for a form of artistic self-regulation, but the professions have shown that it cannot be relied upon
I just want to finish by emphasising that constructing a life, especially in the modern world, is not easy work. The path from about age 10 to age 25 is particularly difficult. Personally, my own youth is a half century or more away, so while this issue has a strange hold over me, I had emotional distance. That changed when I read Kim’s comment at 157. Suddenly how I felt during those years was again accessible.
At the time when I should have been passing into Erikson’s adult stage my favourite description of myself was a “nameless, meaningless wisp of nothingness floating on the void”. Sorta lacked a bit of grounding. Unsurprisingly, thoughts of suicide abounded, mainly for 15 years from age 10 on. During that time I actually had positions of significant responsibility, first as the boy in the middle of a family of five siblings, a troubled family where my father largely dodged his responsibilities, as I saw it. Secondly, I was head prefect in a boarding school where that position was key in the authority structure, in a very troubled year.
Then came university and the breaking down and reconstruction of my whole world view, without any of Steve Biddulph’s convenient mentors appearing to guide me through. (Lord save me from men’s groups!)
All the while I was regarded as a sensible, solid sort of child-cum-adult, mature beyond my years.
But I didn’t do myself in, did I, in large part, I think, because of my mother’s belief in my essential worth. Gradually I realised that I wouldn’t, so I’d better get on and construct a life. That wasn’t easy and it’s still a work in progress.
If you want to discuss political topics you know to go here and the general thread is proceeding for everything else. I won’t be moderating all the time so please behave!
Thanks, Brian – excellent post!
If we remove the idea of delayed consent from the Henson controversy and think about it more general terms, there are practical problems with it.
For instance, I work as a documentarymaker. If those documentaries have characters who are minors does that mean it will be sequestered for a number of years? Does that mean that any film, television, photo etc, containing a child couldn’t be seen for years? And then that it couldn’t be screened if one of the child characters objected?
How does that effect the financial investment? No-one would invest money in childrens television anymore given the uncertainty of the outcome. So, no childrens tv. No film or television with children in it at all actually, because of that uncertainty.
So much to unpack there, Brian, and I have to go out soon!
Certainly the age at when we are actually capable of making mature, considered, reflective decisions is quite debatable, and also highly variable with the individual. The legal view of adulthood has tended towards a standard of the age at which we should be capable of independent competence instead, which is quite a different thing, and is more objectively generalisable.
The view on when we are capable of making responsible sexual decisions sits rather uneasily between the two. Again, the concept of posing for nude images is presented as automatically tainted with notions of sexuality. Certainly that is a common cultural prejudice, but is it sufficiently objectively established that it should be the primary lens through which the arguments about the nudity of children being photographed are examined?
Sorry, I’d like to engage further, but I really have to get ready to go out.
Good points, Fine. My idea was just a thought experiment in ethics. I fully expected that it would have shortfalls.
As I noted on another thread, the subject at the centre of the storm about the image that was highlighted as problematic, has refused to speak to police:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23775911-5001021,00.html
As Brian observes, I was talking on another couple of threads about my own experiences of adolescence, cancer and bodily transformation (amputation of a leg, chemo, being horribly ill) and how I found photography a way of reconciling myself with both my own changed body and making friends again with the ghosts of who I’d been and how my body was when I was younger.
I think that a large part of the task of achieving an integrated personality is reconciliation with one’s younger selves and the acceptance of responsibility and understanding of decisions and events earlier in life. This is very hard work to do – as are all kinds of work on the self! As Brian illustrates so well in the post, our current social arrangements work against the formation of an integrated personality in so many ways – and integrating the self is a particularly difficult task in a society which in a sense encourages personality development in the direction of schizophrenia (see R. D. Laing and Deleuze and Guattari, etc.) – we have lost rituals and we are far more isolated in our selves, and all the time are pressured in all sorts of incompatible directions at the precise times in life when making sound decisions is difficult. So an ethics of love and care (and not just in families – because often that’s very lacking or completely distorted – as with a lot of cases of child sexual abuse) is one of the most important things – at a basic, causal and etiological level we should be trying to build.
Further to that, it seems to me that Brian is right in highlighting the care Henson himself took with his subjects. But I think this issue does uncover something else – which Brian’s post brings out – the way that all sorts of nasties on a bit of a continuum are fostered and enabled by our society. In a sense, then, the reaction to Henson becomes a bit of a defensive and projective reaction illustrating a failure to confront much more pervasive issues about what all of us in this society and its power structures do and say that makes childhood and adolescence so paved with pitfalls and sometimes horrors.
Yes thanks Brian for a thought-provoking post, especially: “I just want to finish by emphasising that constructing a life, especially in the modern world, is not easy work. The path from about age 10 to age 25 is particularly difficult.”
Looking back on my own childhood from the vantage of middle-age while mother to a child in primary school, I’m struck by how much more physically and mentally independent we were as children in the 1960s and teenagers in the 1970s – though emotional maturity is a completely different thing! (Actually, I dislike that word, ‘maturity’ – perhaps I mean ‘coherence’.)
We (my family and our milieu) travelled to school on public transport from kindergarten onwards. We roamed the neighbourhood after school, with not an adult in sight, sometimes encountering scary physical risks and having to deal with them ourselves. Our parents hadn’t a clue what schoolwork we were doing, they just read the annual report card. They didn’t involve themselves in school projects (of which there were hardly any compared to today.)Our teenage culture of fashion and rock music was completely seperate from the culture of adults. When I went to university, most people I know had left home or tried to leave home as soon as they could, so we lived in share households from age 18-19 onwards, often with people who were several years older than us. (No emphasis on individuality at that point – it was all about the collective.)Although we were well equipped for a certain facade of independence by then, in my own case I’d had virtually no help from either parent in becoming an adult, as the post-school world I was entering was vastly different from the world they entered in the early 1940s and there was a virtual schism between adults and teenagers.
[And of relevance to this discussion, from age 13 onwards I attracted verbal and visual harassment from men in public which my mother could hardly believe (she disputed my accounts of things that were said to me) because that hadn't happened to her when she was 13 in 1937! - it was a far more genteel public world then (though of course with an undercurrent of sexism, 'flashers', etc.]
The independence of my childhood is a very stark contrast with the world that children and teenagers (the ones I know) live in today. They all spend a lot of time with adults – in supervised after-school care, in weekend sports (which parents attend in big numbers) and in a mutual DVD-watching, film-going, music-listening culture. Most of the school-leavers still live at home and will do well into their 20s.
I don’t know how that is going to impact on their transition from childhood to adulthood. In some ways I feel sorry for them, as they have to contend with that ‘morbid protectiveness’ that Paul Norton referred to on another thread. On the other hand, there seems more potential for genuine friendship and mutuality between parents and their offspring these days, so there would seem to be more potential for accurate guidance than in my day – though if the adults are f*cked up (as many are), their ‘guidance’ isn’t much use.
Brian, that’s a great post. I was particularly interested in the place where you address Tigtog’s point about what is regarded as normal. My understanding of the damage caused by child abuse is that some of it, beyond the immediate trauma and the effects of that, is to do with the differential between what has happened to the child and what is regarded as normal and acceptable in the child’s immediate world.
Brian’s reflections on vulnerability at different stages of development and Fine’s comment at #2 have made me think of what’s probably been the biggest and longest-running project in the history of this kind of documentation, where the results were up for mass consumption: Michael Apted’s 7 Up series. The subjects of that doco have probably been more vocal than anyone else about the damage it has done them, and the more I think about it, in the light of Henson-related discussion over the last couple of days, the more uncomfortable I get. Apted and his minions have, ever since 1964, been eliciting those subjects’ most intimate reflections, as well as ruthlessly exposing them physically with and to the camera (I’m thinking in particular of the torture inflicted on poor upper-class Suzy at 14, at a particularly unfortunate phase of her development, with the camera right in her face as she struggles find an appropriate response).
Was that child abuse? What kind of abuse is it now that those subjects are all over 50 (next stop, 56 Up, and I bet there is one) and forced, every seven years, like something out of some Grimm fairy tale, to have their youthful selves re-run on the teeve for the umpteenth time, all around the world? The ‘informed consent’ thing kicked in with some of them at 21, but the images of the dropouts as children are still part of the 7-yearly docos, screened over and over again.
We haven’t seen them physically naked. But their psychological nakedness has been complete, confronting and protracted.
I’m asking these questions because while the 7 Up story is troubling, would we all have been better off without it? Should the series never have been made? It seems to me that the logical conclusion to some of the fears being expressed is completely absurd. A teleological tone is creeping into these discussions: are we, in the end, to stop documenting everything human? Will we end up keeping children in a big plastic bubble, and how old will they have to be before we let them out, and how will that affect the way they treat their own children (if they ever work out how to have any)? Anti-Henson commentators in the blogosphere and elsewhere keep asking ‘But where do you draw the line?’ I’d ask the same question, only in the other direction.
There are already “borderline legal” sites on the web that feature “child models” and “child art” for the benefit of pedophiles. I wonder how the young girl in question will feel as an adult knowing that inevitably her image will forever more be a masturbatory prop on pedophile websites such as these. Is a thirteen year old mature enough to seriously consider and weigh up the significance of this nasty reality? I accept Henson’s work is art but this doesn’t alter the fact that it is also a pedophile’s delight.
I think if the decision is left up to social workers and police we will end up with quite inconsistent application of the law with a quite strong probability of some people being prosecuted and others not for reasons outside of what they actually did. In the end the court system will need to find some objective measure of what is acceptable and what is not (or we’ll end up with essentially random results depending on what juries get selected).
I think the debate is misplaced when it focuses on the legal notion of the age of consent, this of itself is incapable of identifying or defining exploitation or abuse.
I see parallels with Gary MacLennan and John Hookhams objection to Michael Noonan’s PhD. thesis “Laughing with the disabled where, according to Catholic ethicist Nocolas Tonti-Filipini in his support of the criticism, Noonan’s two stars were incapable of giving consent to being involved in a movie. In the first instance this was not correct, the two men were very capable of informed consent and were in fact co-writers and editors of the roject. However their families and support organisations were also part of the consent process – a process required by law. However, MacLennan, Hookham and Tonti Fillipini refused to acknowledge the family and professional support and consent insisting that simply because the two men were intelectually disabled they were being exploited whether or not they gave consent or their carers gave consent. In reality, according to the stars and their families, involvment in the project was (and continues to be) a very positve experience
Same with Henson’s models. The simple age of the model is no standard by which to judge exploitation or abuse. If the model is happy and their families are happy then I cannot see any basis for the suggestion of exploitation. Exploitation should be measured from the perspective of the models involved, not from the perspective of the state.
This issue also arises in the present and previous governments insistence on extinguishing Aboriginal customary law from legal defense. Here again, the defining point of abuse is the age of consent. An 18 year old is just as vulnerable to elder abuse as a 15 year old. A 14 year old bride may take great pride in her elevation to womanhood and life with her husband in accordance with ancient law and culture – with the full support of her family. But simply by the legal age of consent she is defined as a rape victim. There are questions of different cultural notions of youth and adulthood (I suggest that adolescence is a product of western industrialised society, not a natural phase we go through) but that is not what is at issue here. The issue is, was informed consent given (by the models and their families) without coercion or being mislead? This issue of informed and supported consent is the defining point that distinguishes between what Henson has done and child-pawn. Others have more eloquently described the artistic and iconographic difference between Henson and pawn but, as has been made obvious, such interpretations of art are never universally held. My point is that there is an objective standard of appropriateness and that is informed consent.
It is true that some parents have offered their children to prostitution or child-pawn, therefore being technically consentual. However consent, especially supported consent (parents, carers etc.) must be transperant and accountable, as Henson’s is. From what I have read, the transperancy of his consent process is exemplary and a feature of his work. This is in no way comparable to the dirty secret deals that lead to familial child exploitation. This is not at all what I would consider to be informed consent where the carers are clearly not acting in the interests of the child.
Questions of the parents responsibility to their children, e.g. what might be the effects on the future that the model may not be mature enough to foresee? If the consent process is transperant and accountable, I support the families themselves to sort this out, not the state. The question of what is the right decision for a parent to make about their children is the central anxiety of parenthood – on all issues. Sometimes we make the right decisions and sometimes we don’t. I have made some bad decisions about how to bring up my children – choice of school, responses to particular flashpoints, what sort of food I fed them, etc. They have to live with the consequences of my bad decisions on their behalf. (as well as all the great decisions I have made on their behalf). This is just the dillemma of parenthood.
I hadn’t thought of the 7 Up project, but of course.
‘Informed consent’ in documentary is very problematic, regardless of age. The subjects need to sign a release form up front that gives the filmmaker total control over their representation, within the bounds of the law. How ‘informed’ can that be when no–one knows what future events will unfold, which is the point of many documentaries? You’re always asking the subject for trust and hopefully you’ll go through that journey together, whatever happens.
However, the subject still has power. They can sabotage filming, not let you know what’s going on, simply stop opening the door to you. The filmmaker also has to trust the subject to include you in their lives.
As for 7 Up, although some of them complain, most of them still let Apted keep filming.
“The question of what is the right decision for a parent to make about their children is the central anxiety of parenthood – on all issues. Sometimes we make the right decisions and sometimes we don’t… They have to live with the consequences of my bad decisions on their behalf. (as well as all the great decisions I have made on their behalf).”
Very true. But of course there is a continuous interplay between private and public, even in what we think of as personal decision-making. For example, to circumcise or not to circumcise a baby boy is not just a (possibly) anxiety-producing question for new parents but a culturally-inflected issue.
Parents, of course, spend a lot of time checking with each other about what’s ‘normal’, what’s allowable for the average 10 year old these days, etc.
“A teleological tone is creeping into these discussions: are we, in the end, to stop documenting everything human? ”
What about the kids whose every move is documented by their ever loving parents blogging about every aspect of their babyhood and beyond, essentially recording these things for prosperity in the public domain simply because they have the impulse and technological ability to do so.
Parent “Happy eighteenth birthday, sweetheart. Now you can vote and there is the little matter of this blog (and various other pictures and stuff from your childhood) that we’ve had going from the moment of your birth. Do you want that made/unmade public,or perhaps you’d prefer it was deleted forever. This is a big deal honey, this matter of consent is the first adult decision that you need to make. What do you say?”
Birthday Person “Can I go to the pub now?”
Steve munn writes:
“I accept Henson’s work is art but this doesn’t alter the fact that it is also a pedophile’s delight.”
Well, sure, some aberrant people will find this work arousing. But, really, so what? Should that be used as a measure to censor art? We should be wary of any depiction of children that someone, somewhere might find arousing?
Lest that seems a ridiculous “slippery slope” argument, note that there have been flow on big media reports from the Henson case with the following reasoning:
1. Some people find images of children in nappies arousing (a specific example being the TV add where a young child begins to remove their nappy while preparing to sit on the toilet – “I’m a big kid now”)
2. Such ads should therefore be banned.
I mean, really, how bizarre.
Who’s next – Anne Geddes?
(NB: Come the revolution, I may well advocate for Geddes to be one of the first against the wall. Till then, though. . .)
I think part of that is just living in the internet/digital age – people are commonly publicly sharing photos of themselves and others (both adults and minors) without getting consent. A decade or so ago they would have been restricted to photo albums in the home, but now everyone gets to see it if they want.
Just an editorial note – can we please keep discussion on this post focused on the specific issues Brian has raised? Anything broader can go on this general thread:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/28/questions-on-the-bill-henson-sexualisation-of-children-debate-continued/
That’s a very insightful phrase from tigtog, incidentally. In our culture, we find it problematic to “live in” our bodies, because most of our understandings are premised on a mind/body split and not that of an embodied self. So we have this sort of relation to ourselves which revolves around mastery of the body – hence all sorts of things – eating disorders, self-objectification, identity issues – which tend to affect women and girls more than men and boys. Perhaps that relation is really inscribed through the process of adolescent development – it’s really hard to remember whether as children we have the same element of distancing with regard to our bodies – because we’ve done the doing of that distancing. Maybe that’s another reason why photos of adolescent bodies are confronting, and maybe that’s another thing that Henson is representing/documenting.
I’m still thinking that a lot of all this is about the imposition of lines (as Brian and SL say) and the effacement/forgetting of the scary fluidity of transitioning between childhood and adolescence.
Just a word on scientific consent. The current process is kids can be entered into studies with the consent of their parents. On their 18th birthday they get to decide if they wish to consent for themselves and, if they don’t, are removed and any sample destroyed. I have always felt comfortable with this and sort of feel this should be more widespread. If my folks had put me in “Spellbound” then on my 18th birthday I’d want the whole thing re-edited with me not in it.
Messy, expensive and difficult but things often are.
John – As to Nicholas Tonti-Filipini, another in a long string of “meh”.
Part of the issue is that there are two streams to competence. The first is age. There comes a time where the law assumes you to be competent. You then need to be demonstrated to be incompetent before that assumption is revoked. It is most definitely not the case that all people with an intellectual disability are incompetent, most make their own decisions. It is also possible, certainly in Victoria, to be deemed competent in some areas and not in others.
I personally feel there should come an age where one’s freedom is assumed and a significant effort required to strip it. The problem with a sliding scale of competence is the onus reverses, so I must take my freedom rather than be granted it.
Amen to that!
I think that’s part of what Brian is getting at – that freedom itself is highly problematic – on one hand we’re meant to be autonomous individuals capable of choices but on the other so many things are working to fragment our subjectivities. But on the other hand because of that fragmentation, actual respect for others’ choices seems lacking, and there’s a general presumption that those choices are somehow deficient and a too easy rush to judge others’ capacities for choice. All this is very complicated, but it’s worth teasing out.
My own view is similar to Brian’s – freedom as such can only be achieved on social foundations. But not some reified “society” – whatever that is – that often seems to me to be just a screen for vested interests and the imposition of norms. We need to think more about how we can disseminate care and respect throughout the whole of the show. That’s something I think maybe ethicists should turn their minds to more – like Brian, I think a lot of what professional ethicists do is casuistry.
Kim, I’m not sure where the boundaries of the topic quite are and they are likely to be bit porous. All I’m saying is that I might transgress too, and if I do I don’t mind if you point me the way!
Lots of thoughts stimulated by the discussion, but staring near to top with tigtog at 3 and Dr Cat at 8, norms and what’s normal are important and can of course change. And I have always thought should with respect to nudity. Not so that I could see what was very much unseen growing up in the 40s and 50s. But I figured that clothes logically were for protection and decoration. On our farm as males we typically wore just hats and shorts for much of the year. Nothing on our feet which were almost as hard a leather. Clearly there were norms about shorts that went beyond protection, but I figured that some protection in that region was sensible and functional.
I’d figured that so-called primitive people could dress in a way that made the whole business of norms unproblematic, so why not us? Here’s a secret. One night I snuck out of the house on a moonlit night, took off all my gear and went for a walk in the bush. My dad was a genuine pioneer taking up a block of bush that wasn’t even fenced. I always wondered how the Aborigines would have felt. Their presence didnt seem all that far away, somehow.
When I lived in Adelaide in the late 60s I knew people who had kids and wore nothing in the house. Not possible in Brissie, because the houses are too visually open. But I think there were more nudist clubs then than now and there was Nimbin and all sorts of alternative collectives.
In 1969, I remember seeing a topless young woman in a suburban supermarket and the following year in Townsville I saw one dancing on a counter on Saturday morning. Then there was the nude scene in Hair seen by more than 2 million people in Sydney alone.
But it all pretty much closed down and clearly now clothing is being co-opted into an unhealthy sexualisation.
Dr Cat and Fine, if people are hurt in making documentaries, then no, we have to find another way of gaining whatever insights the film might yield. There is one principle that says we should work for the greater good, another that we should do no harm. The second trumps the first IMHO.
It is often said that the ends justify the means. My response is that where the ‘means’ are in fact also in themselves ‘ends’ and must be treated and respected as such. There might be a philosophically more correct way of saying that but I hope my meaning is clear.
On thing is clear in all mess: 9 or 100 will not rest until this 13yo is out from behind the camera, and back where she should be: getting sloshed on low-tax alcopops.
In a hoodie, in a stolen car.
“Well, sure, some aberrant people will find this work arousing. But, really, so what? Should that be used as a measure to censor art?”
You missed my point. I want to know how the girl depicted by Henson will feel when she is older and realises her naked body now adorns pedophile websites. What’s more, if it causes her severe emotional trauma as an adult should she have the right to sue Henson- and perhaps more controversially- her legal guardian? My answer to that is yes, since she was under a legal disability when she gave consent and could not be expected to understand the full ramifications of being the subject of Henson’s photo. Henson should not face the criminal courts but he should face civil action if the young girl feels aggrieved as an adult.
It is also worth pointing out that Henson could easily have digitally altered the face of the girl without materially impacting on the artistic merit of his work. However he chose not to.
Kim at 20 you are right on the money.
Kim, I don’t know enough about the history of philosophy so Descartes was probably very much a creature of his times. But “I think therefore I am” still has purchase in the popular mind and with people who should know better. I remember Paul Davies, that science/philosophy/religion guru, saying one day how amazing it was that an immaterial could cause us to move an arm or a leg. He didn’t realise that the selfsame thought was actually a physical process and his idea of the thought was also.
Mark in an earlier manifestation of his thesis did 15,000 words on that little Descartes thing ending up leading into the next chapter, which I never saw, which was to be about Merleau-Ponty’s social theory. But I expect that’s all been mashed up and served up in a different way now.
Traditional societies had no way of monitoring the age of children – and saw no need to do so. Kids weren’t compared with their like-aged peers, they were evaluated on the basis of what they were able to do and what they were prepared to do.
I have often thought that it would be a good idea to place a ban on anyone aking another person’s date of birth or age. If such a ban was implemented, what would be the implications for us as a society? Specifically this relates directly to the Henson photographs, because the question would then become, “Does the person being photographed have the ability to make a reasonable decision about this?” Not their parents, not based on when they were born, but based on a judgement of this person at this time. It is this child around whom the important questions arise, not necessarily 13 year old children in general.
So much of who we are is defined by our age. And in fact, this preoccupation with age gets in the way of aking questions about who we really are, or what we can or cannot do as human beings.
steve, there is no evidence that the image is posted on “pedophile websites”. If it is, that would only be because of its dissemination far outside its original context. I made the point several times on these threads that pr0n websites have specific code and tags designed to attract the sorts of viewers that they want to attract. Henson’s images were and are on gallery websites which are unlikely to have received much traffic outside of people aware of his work already, because nothing in them would either push them up search engine rankings or make them appear in searches for “naked teenager” or whatever – all his images are untitled, by the way.
I noted above that the subject of Henson’s photos has refused to be interviewed by police. We don’t know when the image was produced, but it may well be that she’s now over 18.
I think your comment ignores all the complexities about her choices and her parents’ choices, and actually most of the information that’s been posted on these threads about what is known about the relations between Henson and his subjects. So I don’t think it’s well-informed or a particularly constructive contribution, to be honest.
Brian, I suspect Descartes was a symptom rather than a cause, but it’s a big topic too!
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23775911-5001021,00.html
If the images are of an underage model, in the nude, then the images evermore remain so.
Regardless of the fact that the underage model has subsequently aged.
Steve, I think you can assume that what you see is what Henson wants you to see after he’s done any altering he wants to do. Or not.
On the question you raise about the later changing her/his mind, sublimecowgirl brought that up on an earlier thread wrt to pics taken of Brooke Shield when she was 10 with the permission of her mum. She sued and the court found against her.
I think any artist has a right to have his/her work treated with respect and ideally should have some recourse if it’s not. Similarly with subjects, and ideally the law should be altered to provide for this. But it has obvious practical difficulties in defining just what such a law should be without making new problems.
In the post I said that I wasn’t comfortable with such images being used in promotional material or on the net. You lose control. If the purpose was artistic, then the settings in which they are seen should serve that purpose if possible.
But I think that in this case Henson is probably the last one that should be in the firing line. But if people are litigious unfortunately they often throw the net very wide.
“If the images are of an underage model, in the nude, then the images evermore remain so.”
By this logic, a copy of ‘Barely Legal Babes’ (featuring … all manner of stuff) is completely acceptable, whereas Henson’s photographs (which have (had) a completely different intent and audience) are not. I am not alone in thinking this is … odd.
Kim, re the girl’s (woman’s?) refusal to cooperate with the police, clearly this stems from the notion of laying charges from the outset, whereas if I understand supercowgirl the more appropriate thing to do would be for the social workers to be in the front line if the state deems it necessary to find out whether anyone has been harmed.
If she doesn’t want to talk, they should now just bugger off and find some real work to do.
I’ve got to go and do some other stuff now.
“So I don’t think it’s well-informed or a particularly constructive contribution, to be honest.”
Kim,
My comment was more about how cases such as this should be dealt with by public policy. I’m not that interested in the particulars of this individual case, nor do I have as much faith as yourself in media reporting of such particulars.
Nonetheless, I found this comment utterly naive and nonsensical:
“steve, there is no evidence that the image is posted on “pedophile websites”. If it is, that would only be because of its dissemination far outside its original context.”
You obviously don’t spend as much time as I do trawling those East European porn sites; the girl in question already appears on them. So do numerous other pictures that are “far outside [their] original context”. Indeed, the term is meaningless in the digital age.
Several years ago I was living in a large house divided into flats where one of my neighbours was a single mother with several young teenage girls + visitors ranging in age from 13 to 15. I got to know all rhese kids pretty well. Now, the point pertaining to this thread is that some of them were very mature in their outlooks, or at least they gave that appearance. Others were distinctly immature.My point is that consent would depend on the maturity of the individual teenager in terms of posing for distinctly nude artistic photographs done by a well-established artists. I suspect not one of these kids would have consented. And in any case, surely one would have cause to wonder with kids that age, how much of the appearance of maturity was sheer bluff anyway.
“Indeed, the term is meaningless in the digital age.”
Context is meaningless because East European porn sites nick images of nude girls?
Who (or perhaps what) defines what equals art and what equates to p0rn?
I’m not making a call either way on Henson’s work, but I do have some sympathy on regulatory bodies. Legally, a firm line has been established on ‘the rights of children’ and what constitutes an infringement on those rights over the past ten to twenty years.
The recourse to ‘this nude child equals art’ would leave a pretty big gap in this line, one would think.
I don’t intend that to mean “Henson should be locked up”, but I don’t think it is as straightforward as commentators of either extreme are framing it.
“Context is meaningless because East European porn sites nick images of nude girls?”
No. Arguments about intent and original context are meaningless because it was reasonably foreseeable from the outset that these images could end up on porn sites.
But let me reiterate- if the girl doesn’t give two hoots then the police and criminal courts should butt out.
“No. Arguments about intent and original context are meaningless because it was reasonably foreseeable from the outset that these images could end up on porn sites.”
I know what you’re saying, but I disagree. Yes, there’s always the chance that things end up on the internet (it’s almost an inevitability). The simple fact that artworks are used for purposes other than there intended aim doesn’t mean that original context is meaningless.
By that logic the music of Wagner or the works of Heidegger should have been banned because it was possible that the Nazi’s could end up using it to inspire them in genocide.
Or that the works of Anne Geddes should be banned, because they too can end up on child porn sites (to cite a currently overused example).
Personally I think Anne Geddes work should be banned, just cause I hate it.
Great, big, fat word Jobby.
tigtog, when you get back to it, I’d be particularly interested to your response on anything raised, being a person of experience and indeed not a little wisdom. I mean that, it’s not tongue in cheek!
Meanwhile in the following sentence I wondered what you meant by “capable of independent competence” and how that may be “objectively generalisable”. I just need a few more words to get your meaning. Maybe we should all have a brain scan to see whether the connections are working right and be stamped “Approved” if they are!
Being innocent of these things I didn’t know who Anne Geddes was. So I googled her (find the link yourself if you want) and looked at some of her galleries.
I think she has a rare talent. She diminishes everything she touches.
Quite so, Jobby. That one was resolved by dealing with the Nazis rather than burning the works of Wagner and Heidegger.
Similarly the porn sickos are unfortunately part of the human race. We can’t deal with them by starting a war against them, but fixing them is nevertheless a legitimate aim of public policy. People usually at this point turn to the education system to prevent the next generation of sickos from emerging. That’s not totally out of line, but our expectations of any improvement should not be high.
When eduction is finished we can always send in an army of social workers to mop up.
While I’m on education, a comment on John Tracey’s interesting points on the responsibilities of parenting at 11. One of the roles of schools in our society is to give kids with dysfunctional parents a bit of a chance, to give them a chance to go beyond (NB avoiding “above”) the circumstances into which they were born. In other words the emancipatory aim of education, education for freedom rather than domestication. Easy to dream, hard to do.
Brian – a most interesting post, i read it yesterday but thanks for expanding on your reflections.
I do read your stuff closely, but often have so little time to respond.
Understood, and thanks, sc.
“By that logic the music of Wagner or the works of Heidegger should have been banned because it was possible that the Nazi’s could end up using it to inspire them in genocide.”
Quite not so, Jobby. You chose that particular example because it strikes you as absurd, as it would your jurymen peers if such a case ever made it to the civil courts.
The threat of civil action is the best of ensuring artists take due care and self-censor as appropriate.
Speaking of Nazis, I was wondering what Fine, Dr Cat or anyone who’s seen it thinks of Leni Riefensthal’s Triumph of the Will which Wiki says is “one of the greatest films in history”.
Riefenthal claims it’s a documentary and not propaganda. I’ve not seen it, but I’ve heard heaps about it. The expert evidence seems against her.
No-one would seriously want to destroy it now or prevent it from being seen, but it seems it rates unequivocally as art. It was works like this, or the possibility of them, in the context in which it was created, that I had in mind when I said:
Well, actually, steve, I don’t spend any time at all trawling East European porn sites.
Hi Brian,
when I spoke of “independent competence” upthread I was very much using it in the same way as Dr S used “competence” later on regarding “competency trials” to establish “incompetence”. Competence is basically what we view as the fundamentals of being a functional adult: can keep themselves and their living space reasonably clean and tidy, can supply themselves with food, can earn a living (presuming that they can find a job), manage a bank account, remember and repeat a message, keep appointments. This is all behaviour that can be objectively assessed.
When I was a kid it was assumed that most people were capable of this level of independent competence – able to earn a living and pay the bills – at age 16. That was when most people left school and went into the workforce, and many of them left the family home at that age as well. It was acknowledged that some people were a bit sooky about the cooking and cleaning part and preferred to stay with the folks for a few more years, but certainly by age 18 it was expected that either in the workforce or at university people would be basically capable of providing the basics for themselves independently of their family.
There are often stories from areas of war and famine where some child is living alone and finding food and shelter effectively at extremely young ages like 6 or 8. Sometimes they are looking after younger siblings as well. That sort of independent competence is far from typical of that age, which is why the orphans who have it survive and the orphans who don’t have it perish. But by age 16 the ability to be independently competent is the norm, even in individuals who have been pampered and over-protected by their families.
More thoughts later – cooking time.
“Well, actually, steve, I don’t spend any time at all trawling East European porn sites.”
I wrote a mini-thesis on gender and pornography during my Bachelor of Social Science. I’ve maintained my scholastic interest in the subject ever since. Hands on field work ensures I don’t make comments like these:
“Henson’s images were and are on gallery websites which are unlikely to have received much traffic outside of people aware of his work already, because nothing in them would either push them up search engine rankings …”
Porn consumers and purveyors are no less likely than anyone else to frequent art galleries and gallery websites. I humbly submit the plain plastic wrapper you apparently think seals these places off from the seedier side of life is but a figment of your imagination.
steve, I wasn’t insinuating anything about why you might be looking at those sites. Sorry if it sounded like I was.
It may well be that I was over-optimistic about the dissemination of the images on the web. I don’t think it changes very much though.
P.S. this is only a hunch, but I suspect one of the major yet largely unvoiced standards for “compentency” is a benchmark for when the State is seen to be required to step in and provide guardianship of the person. If they can keep themselves fed, financially solvent, and on the right side of the law, then direct supervision of their living arrangements by the State is not required.
That’s a very different standard from judging whether or not a person who has independent competency is a mature, reflective, considered decision maker.
Interesting where this has gone. I should point out that when I supported tigtog’s ‘release and waiver’ suggestion, which is – as Dr S suggests above – almost identical to the regime for scientific studies – I was doing so in part because tigtog was honestly addressing the legal complexities. Parliaments make the laws, yadda yadda, but we lawyers (and the police, in the case of the criminal law) have to apply them to the facts. Law can be a scalpel, but even as a scalpel it’s an imprecise tool.
This means that it is very easy to drag law’s failures, blinking and squinting, into the sunlight. The ’special case’ is always easy to find (and it very often tugs at our heart) but perfect justice is impossible. As Richard Epstein has argued, we have to accept that ‘95% is good enough’. I still maintain (and I’ve said this at greater length at our place) that Henson was a fool to use minors in this way. He’s put himself in the law’s way, which is a little bit like tangling with a semi-trailer. You just don’t do it if you can help it. Does that make this fiasco part of Richard Epstein’s 5%? Quite possibly. Does that mean we should change the law? Maybe. Does this make Henson a pornographer? Of course not. Is he vulnerable to civil suit, as Steve suggests? Most definitely, and at greater risk of loss than he would be in a criminal prosecution, if Justice Hampel (formerly Vic SC) is to be believed.
Hard cases make bad law, simply because there is no right answer. Generous souls on both sides (and I particularly note PC’s comment about 7 Up above and Su’s contributions on one of the other theads) that there is something in the other side’s arguments.
One thing – independent of the law – is the media involvement in this. I’ve been arguing for years that pre-trial media speculation in cases like this (before someone has been charged, which is the point where they have to back off under the current regime) should be regulated far more heavily than it is (yes, you read that right, I’m actually advocating greater oversight of a bunch of corporations). Henson is now at risk of not getting a fair trial, simply because of the amount of piffle generated in the press on all sides.
Apologies for the long comment, I should put this up at our own site rather than parking it here.
Those were brilliantly thoughtful comments, Skeptic. No need to apologise.
Yes, SL, don’t worry about the length, that’s a very valuable contribution!
Thankyou, Steve & Kim. I’ve added the comment as an update over at my place as well, with links to the relevant stuff, including a piece I’ve written on subjecting the media in their role as information providers to the rigor of the Trade Practices Act (especially s 52). At the moment s 61 grants them a general exemption from suit – a bounty no other corporations enjoy.
“I wrote a mini-thesis on gender and pornography during my Bachelor of Social Science. I’ve maintained my scholastic interest in the subject ever since. Hands on field work…”
I’d like to think that was intentional. I’m sure Steve you wouldn’t want to put anything out there that could be misinterpreted by smutty minds.
“Henson was a fool to use minors in this way. He’s put himself in the law’s way, which is a little bit like tangling with a semi-trailer.”
I can see your point SL but perhaps he thought after 30 years of exploring this particular subject matter without anything like this hoo-ha or any complaints from, or any observable harm accruing to his subjects that it was a non-issue.
And while the law may be a semi-trailer, I’ve seen a few semis in my time jackknifed or crunched up against too low underpasses. Which probably goes back to your observation that
“Hard cases make bad law, simply because there is no right answer.”
The only right question that everyone across the spectrum should be asking is “Is his work specifically causing actual harm to adolescents?” I’ve yet to hear an answer in the positive that couldn’t be politely at best described as “nuanced”.
The age of consent should be either 18 or 19 yrs. Before this age many young people are immature and stupid. Some are not of course. A child will do as its parents say and if the parents are out to make money for instance, and they have a need, drugs, etc. sure, they will give consent and I think personally that these parents are child abusers in letting someone photograph their children like that. They have IMO put their children in harm’s way too.
Ack, I started drafting this over an hour ago, it will probably come out of sequence now.
* * *
Agreed, Steve #54. SL’s comment is very useful wrench back to the topic of the legalities, which is after all exactly what “the age of consent” is.
Special cases do make bad law, but it’s my opinion that what this case does show is that there’s been a huge unexamined premise inserted into our current laws regarding the presumption that any nude pose is prima facie a sexual pose, and that this premise is hugely problematic and requires that rigorous clarification be added to the law regarding the criteria for what is and is not pornographic.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask of a legal system that handles the minutiae and distinctions regarding unlawful killing with so much care.
Margo #58, where to start?
How many adolescents do you know? Certainly many (but not all) children will comply with what society has trained them into believing are reasonable requests – do your homework, be nice to nana, pick up your dirty clothes – but it’s very hard to persuade your average teenager to do their music practise, and I wish you luck with cooperation for the Christmas family photo, let alone to do something so unusual as pose nude for a photographer against their own inclination.
The money in posing for Bill Henson comes from selling the artwork that he gives to his models 20 or 30 years later, when it’s worth serious money. It appears that he doesn’t pay in cash at all. (The artworks belong to the subject, BTW, not the parents). The parents involved in these photo-sessions are simply not the financially desperate and needy creatures you imagine. Some of them possibly seek the dinner party cachet, but they still need a willing adolescent’s consent.
These photo sessions have been described by previous participants who are now adults as physically gruelling because of the time taken to stage the shot and get the poses exactly right – no begrudgingly consenting adolescent will continue to cooperate with that. These subjects are enthusiastic participants.
I think personally that you have not acquainted yourself sufficiently with the actual facts. Nobody who ever modelled for Bill Henson over the last 30 years has claimed that they were harmed while the photographs were taken, and certainly not harmed by having their images exhibited in later years either, until perhaps they have been embarrassed by this last week’s media headlines.
Brian to answer your question about ‘Triuumph of the Will’. It’s no doubt a spectcular film in its deployment of camera, editing and music. It’s absolutely stunning. But, it’s rotten to the core with its politics. Riefenstahl always claimed she wasn’t a Nazi, just an artist, but a biography by Steven Bach came out last year which apparently proves she knew what the Nazis were doing.
Her 1936 ‘Olympia’ is also amazing to look at. A spectacle of gorgeous bodies, a template for sports docos and an absolute hymn to Aryan perfection. Scary stuff.
On tigtog’s point about the actualities of the process of the shoot, I also addressed that from my own experience on both sides of the camera in two comments on another thread:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/28/questions-on-the-bill-henson-sexualisation-of-children-debate-continued/#comment-472516
Thought provoking post Brian, and re Tigtog’s
It certainly appears to address the issue of consent by deferring it. Unfortunately it does not necessarily defer or provide a defence to legal responsibility/culpability for the other parties, in particular a photographer like Henson, to possible charges of prOnography.
As on an earlier thread, where I mentioned that even an under 14 year old could conceivably be prosecuted for possession of his/her own photos (assume now a raid by police, even though the photos had been consented to and not released <18 y/o for example); a legal principle can be extrapolated from what I consider to be nearly synonymous issues, issues more than capable capable of analogy: in any event issues which are closely related, by common age parameters.
Consent for 10-14s and the principle of doli incapax as it applies to 10-14’s( a question still of capacity or incapacity to do wrong) are the issues.
If the law allows culpability to be imposed on say a 13 year old for sexual assault, by for example (in case law–actual case) the prosecution rebutting the presumption of incapacity, by proving that the offender knew it was wrong by covering his/her problematic bonking with a sheet when another person entered the room, then it follows that with consent for the same age group, at the least, the capacity or otherwise of an individual could be tested in a likewise manner in particular circumstances, if necessary, in a similiar legal process.
I’m not suggesting a ‘capacity test’ by rebuttable presumption applies necessarily to issues of consent all the time, in all areas. There are good reasons for the age of consent for sex staying at 16 years. In areas such as art, nudity and children at 10-14 years it has to be conceded that there is a similiar variation in the maturity stakes towards valid consent as there is a variation for capacity to understand wrongdoing. If a 13 year old understands, passes a test for capacity, for a particular wrongdoing, he/she could likewise pass a capacity test for a particular consent.
Whatever happens in the Henson case, I predict some legislation coming to set the “age of photographic consent”. Basically another section could be added to the “art nebulous” anti-prOn legislation to cater for legitimate art and address the difficult issue of consent by ‘young persons’ to the process of making that art.
To avoid criminalising artists unnecessarily, I posit, if we must have it a rebuttable test (rebuttable by the Crown) for capacity as a defence for both young person, the parents and artist, but particularly for the genuine artist. This could apply in tandem with existing sections so it’s no defence for what is clearly prOn by prOn merchants, but with variations from say 13 y/o up to 18 y/o.
Consent has nuance and implications in this area. It is interwoven with issues of culpability and the law, among more than one party, and complex issues in society of protecting children, and finally with free speech/expression/art. Legal rant over.
Steve,
As a child, I quite liked to run around naked, as my parents’ photo albums attest. All quite innocent, but today some of those shots would be actionable.
For me the question boils down to both artistic intent (how reactionary) and viewing context (how pomo). Innocuous images may be sexualised by an adult who has a sexual interest in children. Is that the fault of the photographer, or the viewer? Would a reasonable adult view the image as sexualised or not? An image of a child in an underwear catalogue (or taken at a nudist camp, or a picture of a child on a beach etc) is innocent. An image of a child in an underwear catalogue when found in a collection of child porn images is not. If we nowadays talk about text in terms of “reading events,” recognising the fluid and dialogic relationship with the reader, eschewing the notion of text containing fixed meaning (as opposed to bounded meaning), why not allow this for images as well? One viewing event may be innocent, another sinister, but that is a result of dialogue between image and viewer rather than latent characteristics of the image itself. Meaning is not inherent. To the pure. . .
My deep concern in this case is for the harm caused to the subject, not by the photographer, but by the current hysteria. It’s a point many others have made here and elsewhere, but a valid one.
And I wonder if I’m now in trouble for viewing work by Jock Sturges? or any number of other celebrated photographers who have been fascinated with the liminal place between eden and the fall?
WRT Triumph of the Will, I for one don’t buy for a second Riefenstahl was as politically apostate as she later claimed. For me, it’s clearly a propaganda meisterwerk. My copy of it is unsubtitled, so the language is lost on me as opposed to the imagery. In terms of the latter, as art, the film is a triumph. Riefenstahl invented shots, angles and so on that became de rigeur for future filmmakers. And of course she too is guilty of photographing nudes of subjects whose ability to consent is contestable (illiterate African poor, etc).
I can’t take credit for the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton! Her examination of the concept of self-sovereignty is very interesting.
I’ve been sitting here ruminating and don’t know where to begin. There’s been lots of good comment on this thread. I always set my expectations low when I post, but for me this has been the best thread evah! So thankyou to everyone.
Thanks for the comments on Riefenstahl’s Triumph on the will. I must get hold of a copy.
Craig S that notion of the “dialogic relationship” relationship between an image and the viewer is fascinating. When studying education I was a bit keen on Dewey’s philosophy of experience. Because when you get down to it that’s all you have. An event where you perceive and interact with the image. It’s a single event. If ‘repeated’ you, the viewer, have changed and it’s a different event.
It’s radical to think that there can be an effect back to the subject. It’s a bit like that business in particle physics where the observer can’t observe without altering the object being observed.
A point that I wanted to make in the post, is that everyone changes – the artist, the subject and the viewer. Over time the relationships and how we feel about them can change also. An example here is Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther’s) which Goethe later regretted in part it turns out because of a love it revealed.
So life is fluid and the bright lines of the law can’t really cope.
Lord’ it’s late. Gotta go to bed.
Thanks for that link, tigtog!
Frank posted this on the other thread, but it’s relevant here too – “Mother of model defends Henson”:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/models-mother-defends-henson-20080529-2jjk.html
Craig B at 64. I had a look at that link to Jock Sturges and turned through some of the pages. In Australia he’d clearly be in bigger trouble than Henson. The images are more naturalistic and less transformed. The age of his models varies, but some of them appear younger than Henson’s.
I want to come back later and comment further on the notions of competence or capacity and also on freedom. It might take me a while. The latter could be another post. Luckily it’s raining here and I’m house-bound for what looks like a few days, so we’ll see.
stevemunn at 46.
“The threat of civil action is the best of ensuring artists take due care and self-censor as appropriate.”
Yes. This placates and worries me in equal amounts.
I think it’s worth noting that it’s the fact that the artworks were placed online (in what I think we’ll all agree was a fairly naive thing to do) that creates the possibility for the decontextualisation of the works. Without whacking the images online, there’s not much (or much less) of a threat of them being used for ‘other’ purposes outside of this original context.
It’s interesting the ‘age of consent’ question when it comes to Henson’s photos is always framed as ‘but these girls (and it always seems to be girls), might regret their decision when they’re adults’.
For me there’s three obvious things here. The first is that not one person has stepped forward, out of the hundreds of models with whom Henson has worked over the years, and claimed regret. Even though I bet journos are working really hard to find one.
Secondly. We all do things we regret. There may well be teenagers who’ll regret some of the stuff they’ve put up at MySpace. Regret is part of life and if actions are always refused because there’s future risk involved, then we’ll be leading very circumscribed lives.
Thirdly, we can reframe ‘regret’ the opposite way. Maybe there are teenagers who could regret saying no to Henson, the chance of wrking with a brilliant artist and the recompense of a highly valuable photo. A nice little nest-egg to start with which to start adult life.
“Regrets, I’ve had a few…”
First I decided to go back to the issue of nudity. tigtog keeps reminding us that the equation of nudity with sex and sexualisation is at the base of this problem our culture seems to be having.
Back at 21 I gave some indication of my wish that this taboo should be removed, which goes back to my teenage years at least. I said:
I also said that to me the two basic purposes for clothing were for protection and decoration. For protection clearly there is some priority in some circumstances to cover the dangly bits especially for men, where they are moving through tall grass, brambles etc.
As for decoration, the vast majority of us (95% plus?) look better with clothes on, which produce sleeker lines and cover up bumps and folds. Those with more beautiful bodies are very much advantaged if less clothes are worn. This was very evident with the introduction of the mini-skirt.
Even those with relatively clean lines, smooth skin and nice curves look better with some clothes, in my experience. Bearing in mind that some of these things are culturally conditioned, eg hairy skin seems to be out.
But as we peel off it becomes very clear that there is a strong taboo about revealing certain parts, and here is the space where the opportunities for sexualisation are far greater than with nudity. By revealing much but not all and decorating the hidden bits there is suggestion that stimulates the imagination. This I contend is more likely to be arousing and constitute sexualistaion than if the hidden bits were routinely revealed and became familiar to the eye.
Commercialism thrives on perpetuating desire but never satisfying it.
So my contention is that the taboos against nudity of certain parts of the body are not just an unnecessary constraint on how we decorate our bodies, and on freedom as such, but are actually doing us harm. If we got rid of those taboos the whole ‘Henson problem’ would go away. To me his treatment of faces is mostly more important in achieving his overall effect than showing the taboo bits. But as with all good art there is coherence in the whole and to cover bits of it is to butcher it.
I mentioned back at 21 that back in the 60s and early 70s we seemed to be heading for grater freedoms in this area, but the trend did not continue. I don’t think Henson is engaging the issue of promoting nudity at all. It’s just that he needs nudes to achieve his artistic ends and it’s facile and insulting to say he should choose older models or alter faces.
Looking at Sturges’ work, who uses the children of friends and family, it seems to me he’s saying that nudity is good and nude bodies can be very beautiful. To me it seems a central meaning of his work. There may be others.
It’s interesting that he too ran into heavy weather. Legally he won but clearly it remains a strongly contested area.
If I were Henson I think I’d be heading for Europe where they seem to get their gear off for any old reason. In Germany they recently launched a nude air flight, in the middle of winter, would you believe!
“the equation of nudity with sex and sexualisation”
Is it the equation of nudity with sex, sexuality, sexualisation, or other? They’re all very different things.
I suspect there might be a deeper problem, not with the equation (or, more realistically, association) of nudity with sex/uality/isation), but with the unsubtle reduction of complex notions of sexuality to equate to pr0n.
Fine, last night on Q&A Tanya Plibersek said that when she goes to schools she often talks to students (girls, I think) who are putting images up on the net that are highly likely to come back to haunt them, as when they are applying for a job and the employer googles them.
I’d say that the parent’s consent in this case, even if the young person is 18, is more likely to be in the young person’s interest.
Also in the case of Henson’s models in this regard, they are less likely to be looking for work where an employer would see Henson’s images as a problem. In fact modelling for Henson might be an advantage they could put in their cv.
Jobby, you are right. Actually your last sentence expresses what I was looking for.