runner, earlier you quoted Judith Reisman. I think she could probably do with some professional help, but that doesn't mean she is wrong. Next you quote a report put together by a QC and a few other people with lots of letters after their name. Very impressive. But does that mean they are right?

The problem in both cases is these people are just expressing their opinions. There is no way of verify whether their opinions are right or not, so all I have to go on is their reputation. I have never heard of the people you are asking me to trust - all the only think I have to go on is the letters around their names really.

Fortunately there is another way. If people give figures, I can verify if their opinions are reflected by them. If they quote sources for the figures, I can check them. For example, take a society that did view porn, and then remove the porn. Show me figures on porn availability and crime rates and show how they change. If the figures so show increasing porn causes crime, and if the figures look to come from a reliable source, and you might sway my opinion.

As it happens runner, I have never seen you post anything that quotes figures I can cross check. Combine that with your extreme religious right wing views, and it is very unlikely I going to take anything you say at face value. As far as I can tell you are not interested in altering what I think - you just want to tell me what you think. But the reverse is sort of true too, runner. I am interested in what you think - but I already know that. So I ignore most of what you say now.

SJF, those words to runner apply to you also. I have no way of checking your assertions, but obviously others disagree - particularly those who purchased the magazine in question this month. So what am I to believe?

While I should not find it surprising that there is a lack of consideration of perspective from children themselves thus far in this aggressive debate (with an exception from Steel in an earlier comment ) I am still a little disconcerted by this.

Yes, this is largely a debate about art and ethics but the debate isn't properly articulated until we understand the broader ethics around the constructions of children we have in our society. There is alarming consistency in the way conversations are structured in Australia around children, their protection, sexualisation, education, care etc but without actually including their voices. I was astonished that the PM and Nelson instantly shunned the comments of the girl involved, Olympia. I wonder whether they would've been more receptive to her view if indeed she'd come out equally as horrified that her image had been used in this way - a sideline musing to my point but still worthy of consideration ...

Of course children warrant protection in our society and maybe the art is questionable in its ability to secure this but by completely ignoring the voices of children and constructing adults as the necessary and only arbiters of debates that directly involve them we continue to treat our youngest citizens as non-citizens - without rights, without position, without power. We need to stop having these debates above their heads - we have no right to assume that as supposed rational adults we are the only ones with a valid voice.

CJ Morgan

You write 'This is a discussion about works of art that feature images of naked children, not about pornographic images that have been implicated in child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory.'

Then why did you not address rstuart who wrote

'Its fairly clear porn does not cause an increase in paedophilia, not does it cause an increase in violence towards women. If anything the reverse is true.'

This was well before I posted anything here. So it is alright for people to divert if they have similar views to you but not if they don't.

JMS

The consensus among my sons and their friends, aged 12-16, seems to be that they find the Henson/Olympia images definitely sexual, but that the whole kerfuffle is just a bit innocuous. But then, these are kids who wear T-shirts with skateboarding zombie skeletons smoking dope and penises portrayed as nuclear missiles - so I'm not sure if they are representative.

But, I do agree with you. More public discussion about this affair by children themselves may have proved enlightening. Perhaps, Jenny Brockie is reading this...

While concious of the need to protect the world against paedophiles, I am worried at the power being given to the thought police, and the attempts to stop anything that might even obliquely be connected with wrong doing.

While taking photos of my kids on the beach I was threatened by an irate dowager. This has to stop.

While the art in question is not to my liking, it is deliberately controversial and has provoked debate, which as I recall is exactly what art is supposed to do. Once art is restricted to the white bread conformity of what the masses like, it is no longer art, but decoration.

I for one am not prepared to sacrifice free thought on the altar of political correctness.

Democritus

It seems as if you want to have your cake and eat it too. If art is designed to be controversial, why get angry and upset that controversy happens?

Thought-policing cuts both ways. Automatically defaulting to accusations of sexual dysfunction and wowserism when people express their disquiet at controversial art is just another version of thought policing.

The pedophilia aspect of the Henson/Olympia photos did not concern me, but I tried to respect the views of those who did find them confronting or even dangerous. I also felt that the issue raised many other concerns regarding ethics and art, artistic responsibility, changing morality standards (e.g. has society gone from one moral extreme to the other?), and the fact that all the controversy focused on photos of female (rather than male) children.

Yet whenever I, and others, tried to raise these issues for discussion, we were treated like sexually dysfunctional religious nutters – which ensured that our feelings and views were effectively silenced.

I also did not like the fact that the police and law were brought in to the Henson affair, and I was relieved that the authorities ruled against the complainants. However, at the same time I am glad that we live in a society in which we can still invoke the law to act as one of the arbitrators on controversial matters. This is all part of a healthy, robust democracy.