Rache

'It's been stated elsewhere in the media that the most common items found in the raided homes of pedophiles are Target and K-Mart catalogues showing children in their underwear.'

The problem is that you believe this propaganda. Of course almost every household in Australia receives the trash from Kmart etc. The line begins when some pervert undresses a 12 or 13 year old child for gain and calls it art. I thought that was obvious without clouding it with another issue.

Runner,

I'm not one of those people who try and stop parents taking photos of their own kids at public sporting events or beaches because they "might be pedophiles taking photos to share on the Net".

Art, like porn - is in the eye of the beholder. The same photo (and there was only one photo in dispute - not the whole twenty-odd that were taken away) using a thirty year old woman would not be considered pornographic.

It's much tamer than what you see openly on display in Newsagents and on most TV programmes.

I understand that you may find it personally offensive and I sincerely and humbly respect that position.

It's the argument posed by some that it promotes and actually causes child molestation that I have a problem with.

Johnj,

What a sensitive and intelligent answer.

Johnj: "I have always found Henson's images (with or without figures) rather bleak and disturbing. David Marr described them as creepy and I have to agree. But the visceral feelings they engender suggest to me that they're actually pretty accomplished art.

Henson's teenagers confront precisely because they are obviously not quite children any more. They're not adults either, but they soon will be."

I agree absolutely — thank you for putting it so precisely. I think some people find these pictures disturbing not because they are sexual but because they are not. They are hard to read, and for that reason, rather scary.

"The moral panic of this episode leaves me feeling depressed."

Me too. It's hard for me not to agree with NGV chairman Allan Myers that this episode reflects our cultural immaturity.

"It's the argument posed by some that it promotes and actually causes child molestation that I have a problem with."

This sort of argument is outrageous, in part because of it's duplicity, but mostly because so many use it fallaciously on choice subjects and convince themselves that it's a perfectly acceptable argument.

For example, often on OLO advertising is evil according to many leftists/feminist types. Advertising for them is 'evil' and synonymous with mind control, and ironically their political agendas derive a lot of positive responses from people and policy makers they manipulate with such arguments.

Here is the fallacy though. You have films of all types promoting many 'criminal' acts. You have a variety of entertainment sources doing this. It's so prevalent in fact, that I find it almost unbelievable that the argument can so often be passed through to politicians and others without being rejected. Of course, it is used to promote *specific agendas* and there is the real reason for using the argument. The agendas almost without deviation are about promoting and increasing censorship.

For goodness sake, we live in a twisted world where child sexual abuse is rife. As adults it is our obligation to protect the children. Our children need to keep their clothes on it has to do with respect, morals and decorum.....It is as easy as that.

Children need to know that it is not okay for them to be naked in front of adults whether posing for pictures or not. If we say it is okay sometimes then we are putting our children at risk. It should never be okay for a young child to be posing naked. It is just WRONG....

Jolanda: << It is just WRONG.... >>

While there have been some reasonable but ultimately fallacious arguments advanced by the pro-censorship crowd, I think Jolanda expresses perfectly the intellectual level at which the 'moral panic' hysterics have responded to this beat-up - i.e. at a visceral, mindless level. Nude adolescents should not be artistically depicted because "It is just WRONG.... ". Truly deep.

Vanilla: << ...this episode reflects our cultural immaturity >>

I agree. What's depressing to me is that I had assumed that our society had generally moved on from the 1950s, but in so many ways I seem to be have been deluded. This current epidemic of neo-prudery is just one example.