SJF, unlike your earlier posts this last one made perfect sense to me. I can't disagree with any of it.

SJF: "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."

While I agree with the statement, we apparently disagree on the extent you need to go to "respect the views". If someone is scared of heights we should avoid taking them to places that might trigger their phobia. Taking them to a roof top restaurant would be right out, for example. But I draw the line at a request to ban roof top restaurants simply because they don't like them. if they don't like them then don't go.

And so it is for Henson/Olympia photos. We are not talking about something that is broadcast over free to air television here, we are talking about stuff that will be seen by a few art house fans. You have to go out of your way to find them. Those wanting them banned are showing scant respect of the views of people who do enjoy them.

'And so it is for Henson/Olympia photos. We are not talking about something that is broadcast over free to air television here, we are talking about stuff that will be seen by a few art house fans'

That's the irony in the whole Henson saga sin't it. At the start, that was the case, but by the end of it all the photos were posted all over every newspaper and uncensored on TV. The body image of the girl they were all so concerned about was trampled over by the pictures of her being labelled disgusting and perverse.

A girl was saved from being the victim of a respectful artisitic appreciation of her body by having it plastered across the world and picked apart for the disgusting perverted poster of paedophillia it really is. Nice work!

Steel

Firstly, I am a she not a he.

Your comment about under-age being a "construct" really astounded me. Whether you like it or not, we do live in a society with laws; laws made for particular reasons are all "constructs" of our society.

You stated the child had no problems with the picture. How can a child possess the maturity and awareness of the consequences of such a decision? Even if the child in question grows up, and as an adult, states they have no problem with it, it is irrelevant to that child being able to make an informed decision when they are six - that is the point.

It would also be nice to read comments from you that are not riddled with anti-women invective.

For those posters concerned with censorship - I don't think protecting children from exploitation is worthy of including in the censorship debate. We are not going to legalise child pornography because of fears of censorship. Censorship has to be appropriate.

I am more concerned about censorship laws that limit freedom of speech for legitimate whistleblowers and protestors in countries whose governments allow for corruption and human rights abuses.

pelican: "How can a child possess the maturity and awareness of the consequences of such a decision?"

I was waiting for that argument to pop up. It always does.

We don't generally trust children to make decisions. Instead we trust their parents to make such decisions for them, and that is what happened in the cases under discussion.

You, I assume, think they made the wrong decision, and would evidently like to force them into making the decision you prefer with by changing the law. You must realise a lot of people will view your attempt to control their lives with deep suspicion. Still, sometimes we do accept such control is warranted. This is always in cases where the child's well being is under obvious threat - starvation, physical beatings and the like. Demonstrate these pictures do threaten the well being of children in the same way and you might get a lot of people agreeing with you. I am sure this is obvious to everyone.

Yet no one here arguing for Tankard Reist's side of the argument does that with any force. We gets lots of bold assertions that the children involved here have somehow been damaged. But not one single, verifiable fact is given to support these assertions. Given the solution being proposed, is that too much to ask for?

CJ,

I just can't believe that you continue to defend your desire to view naked children by declaring those who find it distatseful, wowserish.

IMO, your desire to view these things means you have a lot more in common with pedophiles than I would feel comfortable with.

Get over it.

rstuart
The reason it always pops up is that it is a valid argument.

Parents make many decisions on behalf of their children, usually in their best interests (we would hope). I don't think it is fair to compare a decision a parent might make about which school they should attend to whether or not to take a picture of a child in a sexually posed picture and then make it available for viewing by the greater public.

All of us would agree that a parent should not use their child in pornography which would be breaching the great trust a child has in their parents, let alone the illegality. The participants in this debate are merely disagreeing on where to draw the line and what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate. Those who disagree with the pro-Henson/Olympia side of the debate are being painted as worse than devils with horns.

I am just a bit tired of the lack of substance in the arguments by the pro-Henson/Olympia lobby that art somehow has a special exception when it comes to freedom of expression over the rights of children to be protected from exploitation. We talk about the media's abuse in this regard, why is art any different?