Letting others think for me

[andrewducker]

There's been a recent fuss over the fact that an artist put together an exhibition that included photos of her naked 5 year old daughter.  This caused what might generously be called a fuss.  The photos were next to ones of her daughter at age 9 months and age 2,also naked, but these ones apparently didn't cause a fuss.  The Firday Thing puts it better than I can be arsed to:

But what can you do? Short of reformatting the brains of people who are aroused by images of children, you can do nothing. Prohibiting everything that paedophiles might possibly find arousing is not only pointless, it is also pandering to such a minuscule portion of society as to render the whole notion of freedom of expression utterly redundant. Refusing to allow Schneider to show photographs of her naked daughter because a handful of men might masturbate over the images is like banning pineapples because a handful of men have forced the fruit into their babies' bums. So some disturbed individuals are excited by these images. So what?

Besides which, are we really so small-minded that we imagine nudity is really the issue here? Might the following image not also excite your average paedophile?

http://kunst.no/bschneider/Scenes/html/Peanutbutter.html

Perhaps even more so, as it leaves a great deal more to the imagination. How then do we guard against what the sexually perverted do with our children in their heads? If we insist on pandering to the fear they excite in us, where will it end? Mini- burkas till they turn sixteen?

Comments

[biscuitware.livejournal.com]

Someone's been reading The Friday Thing !

[andrewducker]

I subscribe :->

[cx650.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm not a paedophile then. All I can think of looking at that picture is "that child needs a wash!"

[autodidactic.livejournal.com]

I think I fear more the people who are turned on by images of violence and death than I fear your run-of-the-mill nonviolent pedophile.

Believe it or not, even after some of what I've personally been through, I have some moderately controversial ideas regarding pedophilia, rape, incest, and the like.

1.) I'd rather know a pedophile than a pederast.
2.) I think there are instances of informed consent between adults and chidren, sexually. It is, however, exceedingly rare that the child can knowledgeably consent, and that the adult, by all rights, could honestly accept and reciprocate, given how much trouble both of them would be in.
3.) Nude pictures aren't wrong. Forced nude pictures may or may not wrong in and of themselves. Force is wrong.
4.) Depictions of child pornography are usually done without regard to the safety (physical, psychical, mental, spiritual, emotional) of the child. Which is why it is, in my opinion, wrong. But then again, so is working as a burger flipper.
5.) Art will always seek to push boundaries.
6.) The act of a parent taking nude photos of his or her own children in the tub or running in the backyard is now tinted with fear of repercussions for something that overzealous people and rapists put into people's minds. Whatever innocence the picture might have had is now tinted with someone else's dirty thoughts.
7.) Since time immemorial, we have tried to control each others' thinking.
8.) The best way to criminalize and make sick any given human behavior is to drive it into hiding. Nudity and sexual thoughts are more verboten than violence. Where does this leave us?

A.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on all counts. I am also quite disturbed by the entire idea of banning all images that might turn on pedophiles. I have not seen any data on this (and it may not even exist) but it seems likely to me that having images of nude children, digital photomanips of children in sexual situation and stories of pedophilia (assuming that all are done in ways that harm no one) might actually help such people avoid hurting actual children. IME, total repression merely leads to uncontrolled explosions.