Almost as prominent as all the adorable, boy-raping Catholic priests. What's your point, runner? That because parents aren't always able to protect children from abuse, we should return to Victorian prudery and sexual paranoia?

runner: << The ABC has also run a few specials on what a fine outstanding citizen he is and Cate and Elton John agree. They have written to the US President saying how this man has been victimized and misunderstood. >>

Come now runner. It's one thing to repetitively spout fundy religious nonsense, but it's another to tell outright porkies.

I put it to you that the above statements are fabrications - or in other words, lies. You should provide some evidence, or retract them.

Runner, I too have been perturbed by some of the stuff I have seen on SBS over quite a few years now. Some of it strongly oversteps the mark of what I think we should be exposed to on our televisions sets… that our kids could easily see, that anyone watching TV could see if they flicked channels and inadvertently lobbed into the middle of a program with much stronger imagery than Henson’s exhibition.

How the hell can they deliver some of this stuff (I particularly remember a very sleazy program on the penis) within the moral and sexual boundaries that our society generally accepts? Yes, these boundaries are highly fuzzy, but some SBS programs just so clearly over step the mark.

How anyone can accept this and then be outraged by Henson’s stuff, which he presents within the relatively tight confines of an art gallery (compared to the very broad audience reached by a mainstream television channel), is beyond me.

BTW, not one of Henson’s works, as shown ABC1 last night did anything for me. Extremely bland and uninteresting stuff IMO…including what I would consider very ordinary nude shots. But I will maintain his right to produce it, if it is working for him, by way of appealing to the tastes of a lot of people. And I’ll uphold his right to display it, in the right forum….which an art gallery certainly is.

CJ MOrgan

If you can't see that I was showing how pathetic the arguments have been in defending photographing nude 12 year old girls then it is no wonder that you would allow your daughter to do the same. Call my credibility in question as much as you want but this article was about a pervert who is supported by others with at least perverted views. The ABC running a special on someone by no means validates the character of a person in case you did not get it the first time.

PaulL., read this !@#$ing thread and the news for 'evidence'

"Your pathetic judgment that, if I’m not...,then I must have..."

I never said that. Learn to read.

PaulL>"This is not a debate about nudity."

What are you smoking, mate? Do you really think there would have been a complaint had the model been clothed?

=-==-=-=--==-=-

Ludwig, I found you prior post about the police interesting and agree with it. There are serious problems with law enforcement that will not be going away without a new governing class.

However, this one about the SBS is bizarre. Honestly, if you have some hang ups then keep them to yourself, because others don't have them. Many people consider breastfeeding sleazy and offensive. Indeed this was a mainstream opinion in Australia at one point (still is judging by the hordes of frigid, prudish bigots in the electorate). Does that mean breastfeeders are? Similarly female legs were once considered offensive because people were repressed by their own ignorance and puritans/prudes. It’s just a nonsensical, needless position that infringes on others who don’t share the hang-ups.

And please stop appealing to the children for emotional reasons. It's one of the diseases of society to trumpet children with that slogan and assert their 'needs' over the rights of adults in society. It's sick. If your child is watching material you think is inappropriate for them, then that is your own fault and responsibility. it beggers belief that most of the apparent 'centrist' opinions here are so out of touch with the mainstream that they are more extreme than the laws of the country that millions of Australians accept. Not only that, they are off the planet in the context of Western society.

Both Europe, the UK and the USA produce adult content that is illegal in Australia. If you can't see how backward it is that hundreds of millions of adults overseas have a legal right to something that is perfectly acceptable to their society, then you are a cultural infant (like most of the governing class of Australia) whose living under a rock.

Ludwig you are right about the discretionary powers and I hope the police do use them wisely in this instance as regards charging. As far as removing the photos...well I guess someone must have made that assessment that they were crossing the line.

"Your comments got a bit lost, Pelican, but I just wanted to agree with what you say here. As far as I'm concerned, we're all against child porn, and this argument is about whether Henson's work constitutes it."

Thanks Vanilla, you have it exactly. You seemed to have copped most flak on this issue and I am sorry that happened to you.

Back to Henson:

I missed the later ABC show last night but did catch a bit of the 7.30 Report piece. I actually think Henson would be quite an interesting man to have around a dinner table but still remain unmoved by the argument that these photos are 'just' Art. Art like anything else does not stand alone, it is merely one part of the fabric of society/ culture and overlaps with every other part.

My final word on this is that we cannot argue that photos of nude children are inappropriate on one hand and then propose if they are hanging in an Art Gallery and involve some creative lighting that it is okay. Two of the photos I saw definitely crossed the line for me, others were not as bad but I would still lean towards excluding them.

Henson made a comment on the show that he finds that transition from childhood to adolescence an interesting time in a person's life and indeed it is, however one can't be so removed from reality to believe that these photos are not sexual in nature. For me, this should not be the subject for artists when children are involved even if the artist is trying to be poetic.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2257270.htm