Link 2. Sorry but it just wasn’t working for me and I’m not going to download software specially for the occasion but it is clearly a video of surgery. Naturally that makes me wonder why you would provide it. The contentious issue was mutilation. If I was to argue that a caesarian operation mutilated a woman I would obviously be showing the scars not showing the operation. It does have the appearance that you lack confidence in your argument and are seeking to show gore for an emotional effect to override your lack of argument. There are still pictures below and commentary. I presume that is the best they can do. I note the substitution of an upset black baby when the bleeder baby is clearly white. Doesn’t that embarrass them? The natural inference is that the black baby was upset but the bleeder was not upset. I don’t know how honest the annotations below about anaesthetic not being used are. I live in Australia and it seems to be normal here. Perhaps America is different but I wouldn’t taken their word for it. The commentary claims that topical anaesthetic creams can be dangerous. How! Dangerous if you eat a bucket of it or just if you have an unusual allergy? I suspect they are fibbing.

Link 3

A link to some loopy anti-circumcision website which funnily enough makes the claim that it is mutilation. Of course that is just a rhetorical description to prop up their claim that circumcision should be banned. A irrelevant horror story of someone who is injected with too much anaesthetic related only because it occurred during a circumcision is given and a number of incorrect assertions are provided. Hardly compelling. Do you want a more detailed analysis?

To other contributors,

Sorry for this diversion but I believe Steele’s lateral attack on religion by condemning Jewish custom (now broadened to circumcision generally) should be challenged as it is plainly incorrect.

Steel,

Effects vary with individuals. Do you know any of these ‘models’ who were photographed 25 years ago? They could be real weirdos for all you know.

You are twisting and turning. The topic has arisen now, not 25 years ago. And what you call my “ignorance (you love that word) and blindness” is not in question. I don’t make laws.

The laws mentioned do exist in South Australia and, obviously, the police are investigating Henson and the children’s’ parents. You seem to be overlooking that fact. Perhaps you could check laws in your state, and others, to find out who you are batting against.

It’s all very well to take a position of your own on this matter, but is it permissible by law.

A nude photograph is not a “celebration of humanity” or anything else; it’s a nude photograph. How did “aid workers and photographers” put starving native african (sic) children at risk? You have again sidetracked and brought an entirely different culture and an entirely different set of circumstances to bear.

You opinions of the law in South Australia are too incoherent to comment on.

Henson and anyone else can take as many nude photographs of adults as they wish, but children must be left alone

mjpb,

Link 1,

There are two videos in my first post.

Here you use a mocking tone to describe a neuroanatomist (and throw in some pejorative terms that have no relation to the video), while later quoting a sexologist. Do you what the difference is between the two?

As for self-circumcision, people are not snakes and shed their skin. Honestly, if the skin is still there with the array of nerves then it's not circumcision, by definition. Otherwise men would circumcise themselves every time they drew back the foreskin? That's what you are arguing and such arguments are to be expected from a 'sexologist'. have you heard of scientologists and astrologers? That's the ground you are on here.

Link 2
And now you compare circumcision of a baby. The removal of a huge amoung of skin without consent of the child to be the same as a grown mother voluntarily having a caesarian, later to be stitched up? That's absolutely stupid. Tell me, if a parent slashed a knife across a child's body as a punishment for disobediance(without removing skin, merely scarring the boy for life), would you call that child abuse?

Furthermore, this is not an appeal to emotion, it is an documentation of reality and abuse. You can observe the mutilation of the baby's sexual genitalia. Much as watching a child being beaten to death might elicit an emotional response in addition to the documentation of a crime.

Mutilation: The removal of the skin on the baby's penis is by definition mutilation. Unless you are for female circumcision, then you are equivocating and merely playing word games to avoid the fact. Those pictures in one of the links I provided are real. Adding to that the operation is done when the person is unable to even speak or understand language while they were a newborn baby, and they will never have any say in it.

Link 3, How is it "loopy" exactly? The only thing that is loopy is your dancing around on this without acknowledging the facts and the evidence before your eyes and particularly your equivocation, as well as your desire to create pejorative labels for those represented in my links.

don't forget to check those two videos in the first post of mine.

mjpb

"My only knowledge of the facts of the case are from the media so I can only go on that... In one case he apparently depicted a naked young girl being held back, exposed, by a naked boy and girl."

The media has deceived you here. It sounds like it conflated a couple of different exhibitions. There is a Henson piece that shows a naked girl being carried by a naked girl and boy — could this be the one you are talking about? That picture is quite old and not one of the photos seized from Roslyn Oxley, but I definitely remember seeing it at the retrospective at the Art Gallery of NSW ten years ago.

"...I would have thought it would fit squarely within standard definitions of child abuse."

Why? Child abuse has many definitions, but involves the harm of a child. I think anyone else is suggesting it's child abuse, including the police — the potential charge is one of child pornography.

"...there does however seem to be an elitist exemption being argued for whereby if a recognised artist takes photos of nude kids for an artistic purpose and the intended viewers aren't expected to derive sexual gratification then they should be exempt..."

Assuming you mean exempt from pornography charges, then I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But he needs to be producing pornography before he is charged with it. That's the source of contention — I certainly don't believe he was producing pornography. Some people do. Other people don't think it was pornography, but feel we should ban it in case pedeophiles derive sexual pleasure from it.

The other issue is consent. The kids and their parents all consented, so the issue is whether that consent was legal because of the children's ages. As I understand it, the letter of the law allows for parents to consent on behalf of their children. But I'm sure we'll hear more on this issue as the weeks go on.

Steel,

You probably realised I meant "glans" not "gland" in my last post so I was saving that correction for an opportunity like this.

Link 1,

There are two videos in my first post.

"Do you what the difference is between the two?"

I have no problem with neuroanatomists. However when someone purporting to be one states something so confidently as if it is known from his area of expertise but is plainly wrong it makes it hard for me to take him seriously. By claiming to be an expert he put something on the line that can be measured and found wanting.

I agree that the receding foreskin is not circumcision. I was using the term "a certain self circumcision" very broadly for illustrative purposes on the assumption that you would read past the first sentence. The point I was making is that the video exagerated the amount of skin because you can't directly extrapolate the length of skin on an adult from the length of skin on a baby's foreskin because it proportionally shrinks. Sexology might not be the ultimate science but by being one Dr Chartham viewed many penises and made an observation which on a smaller scale I have also done. I rely only upon his observation.

Link 2

Babies have all sorts of things done to them without their consent. We aren't talking about nude photos or oral stimulation. We are talking about a medical procedure. I doubt that a young child would volunteer to get immunized but the parent is entitled to act in their interests when they are too young to make decisions themselves.

"Tell me, if a parent slashed a knife across a child's body as a punishment for disobediance(without removing skin, merely scarring the boy for life), would you call that child abuse?"

Yes. Likewise if they stabbed them with a needle for punishment.

"Furthermore, this is not an appeal to emotion, it is an documentation of reality and abuse."

It is a film of minor surgery. It sure looks like an appeal to emotion.

CONT