I've followed the Henson saga and debate here and elsewhere and am curious about attitudes to the taboos re teenage sexuality.

Hensons pics push the edges of our taboos. I don't think that he sexualised his subjects, but he sure as eggs portrayed the sexuality of his teen subjects in the 6 or 7 works of art I saw.

The most common defense of Henson seems to be premised on 2 points; repression of artistic expression and that the antis are victims of and/or proponents of sexual repression. I partly buy both these arguments, but am interested in peoples ideas on the practical reasons behind the taboos.

Seems to me that parents in our society recognise that our children are still developing intellectually, emotionally and sexually and for this reason do not challenge taboos on teen sexuality.

Our society needs time to educate kids into its technical complexities and we do not want them breeding too soon.

We need the energy and creativity of our youth to produce, not to breed.

We are all too aware of those who prey on the naivety of youth and who would take advantage of them in an unequal way.

We are in love with love and wish romantic love for our kids.

Any others, any comments?

Interesting post, palimpsest. However, I'm not sure that I know exactly what you mean regarding "taboos" regarding teenage sexuality. Yes, we have legal ages of consent to sexual behaviour, but these vary somewhat according to the relative ages of sexual partners (and their relationship to the teenager) and also whether or not the sexual activity is heterosexual or homosexual.

In my experience, and vicariously that of my older children, actual sexual activity with peers begins well before the age of 16, which is the most common age of consent in Australian states. Parents and educators are well aware of this, which is why adolescent kids are typically provided with, or able to access, information about reproduction, contraception and STDs well before they turn 16.

Any "taboos" in this respect that I'm aware of tend to involve sexual relations or pornography between minors and adults. My understanding is that they exist for moral and ethical reasons that reflect the overall society's concerns for protecting children, rather than for any overtly functional purpose. During our relatively short history, the moral and ethical standards of our society have changed dramatically, reflecting variously religious, secular and other ideologically dominant paradigms of the day. Of course these are reflected in both legislation and in popular debates (and silences) that concern morality - particularly of the sexual variety.

For example, it's not very long ago that sex between adults outside marriage was generally regarded as "sinful", and the progeny of any such relations were officially labelled "illegitimate".

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<< Hensons pics push the edges of our taboos. I don't think that he sexualised his subjects, but he sure as eggs portrayed the sexuality of his teen subjects in the 6 or 7 works of art I saw. >>

By virtue of the current controversy, I've now viewed a couple of dozen or so of Henson's images of adolescent models, and of those, I think that only those that feature both a male and female model have any hint of actual sexuality (even then, mostly with clothes on). The others seem decidedly asexual to me - particularly the nude image of the 13-year old female model that caused most of the hysteria.

It's a slightly haunting and very beautiful portrait of a young girl, but I think that the only "sexuality" in it has to be in the eye of the beholder.

But maybe that's its point.

hi to all the forgotten australians

well i just want to have my say

i feel it wrong that children of and under the age of 16 should not be exploited fair enough take photo's with their clothes on not while they are nude ,

why does a person have to be nude for these photographers,

i feel it is a breach of the child welfare act

be honest how many sicko's out their would be taking advanantage of what bill henson has shown ,
i can only hope that when the gallerys show the photo's they have every one's name on record who attends and brought tickets , or is that not a concern ,

and in another sence this is harsh but this maybe away some pedophiles maybe caught i can only hope for the later

bill i think its wrong exploiting our young this way as it is an open invation to the pedophiles out their

in another sence the law is diffrent for an art photoghrapher ?

so why is that ?

if their is a law for protecting the innocennce of a child why are such photo's allowed ?

my opinion is im disgusted in knowing the parents even allowed this to happen

we are the forgotten australians and will no longer be forgotten

regards huffnpuff

Taboos on childhood/teenage sexuality are probably justified. Taboos on nudity are not and probably have the opposite of the intended consequences. By equating nudity with sex you send the message to young girls that they are pieces of meat and must be covered up.

In the name of art: http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1211513342

Hi Palimp
yes.. when it comes to this area of life, the waters become rather muddy and blurred, and the criteria for evaluationg the moral quality or acceptability of a piece of art seem to be as diverse as there a people offering opinions.

Even when it comes to Biblical foundations, there is nothing specific which we can say is 'The Law'...There is no commandment 'Thou shalt not display nude children' or.. "after the age of such and such, you can display child nudity in art"

Perhaps this is why Jesus mostly spoke in flexible generality and principle, leaving us to work out detail?

There are stages.

-Observing nudity.
-Captureing nudity on some media.
-Displaying Nudity in public.
-Displaying nudity and seeking financial reward for it.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/dkiss/art
is an example of the last one. I wrote to him and this is the reply:

<<Hi David,
I have an exhibition live in Collingwood at present, and offer the images for sale as single prints at A4 size for $50.00 each>>

So.. in this case we might wish to ask what is the age of the model?
I appears in this case she/they is/are a fully grown adult.

As soon as the idea of financial reward enters, we are faced with the issue "What might a person/artist/businessperson' do to enhance sales?
In which direction might they go to achieve this? To what would they make their 'art' appeal in order to sell it?

We have "Taboos"..."thou shalt not's" for usually good reason. The basis for them might be: "God said" or..it might be a myth in which the given behavior is shown to have negative outcomes.

But whichever, there is usually a cumulative wisdom behind it.

The 60s brought a rejection of all that cumulative wisdom, to be replaced by 'miuaug' and most seem to have been doing that ever since.

What amazes me is that there's actually a debate about it. You can't even take a camera to your kids game of whatever on Saturday morning to film your child's first goal, point or success. How could this guy be surprised that even just taking images of under 18's wouldn't line him up for a paedophile label. Someone ignorantly or justifiably interpreted his images in a sexual connotation and complained. Big surprise. Someone saw Noddy and Big Ears as homosexuals and successfully got those books banned. That sort of person is who you're talking about here.

Art is all about interpretation, and SO MANY are blinded by whatever history they have they couldn't see the art for the image. If he takes images of under 18's he must be a paedophile. It's that simple for the majority. I actually haven't see the images. From what I've read and been told there isn't really anything sexual about them. He is just someone else for them to burn at the stake. Throw his images on fire just like the books you've burned as well.

well I for one have not been following this but as I understand it we are talking to something similar to I think it was David Hamilton who did movies of young girls "discovering themselves" and the movies got put into the "adult" category at video stores etc

but has anyone here mentioned that if a power femminist like Greer does this in her book The Beautiful Boy there is no mortal game to complain.

as she said "I suppose they will call me a pedophile, but I dont care"

exactly, she didnt NEED to care as Mr Plod was not about to defy Pru Goward etc and crash into Secret Wimmins Bizness

To me THAT is the Hypocracy of our precious society for last 45 years, ie since PC forced the change of the name of the comic strip Dagwood to Blondie

STG... most illuminating post from you...

<<You can't even take a camera to your kids game of whatever on Saturday morning to film your child's first goal, point or success.>>

You're not actually 'criticizing' others beliefs which have now been imposed on you... r u ? :)

Now..wouldn't that be terrible if u did.. because the H word would then come to mind in regard to your tearing me to shreds in another thread.

If the objects of my own rather frequent critical voice gained more power, you can bet there would be a HECK of a lot of things "you can't" even do.

But perhaps ur one of these people who just 'wonders what happened' rather than one of MAKES it happen?

cheers

Criticizing others beliefs which have become an imposition on my existence is vastly different to being a self proclaimed staunch Christian but being seriously intolerant of other religions. Buddy. I didn't 'rip you a new one' because you criticized Islam. I called you a hypocrite becuase of your intolerance.

"Judge not lest ye be judged".

Take it somewhere else.

StG: "Art is all about interpretation, and SO MANY are blinded by whatever history they have they couldn't see the art for the image."

What an excellent way of putting it.

David. You are getting creepier by the minute. Why are you linking to erotic art of women who are clearly not underage? Meanwhile, your reply to StG doesn't even make sense.

CJ,

I don’t actually see how it is important that kids are having sex at ages younger than 16. The laws across the country vary but if you are the same age as the consenting partner and over 10 then mostly you are not breaking the law? But how is this relevant to the discussion of taboos or child nudity?

Most of us give our teenagers space when they are going through puberty to allow them to cope with the changes they are going through.

I wouldn’t, and I don’t know who would, photograph their pubescent child in the nude. With a daughter of roughly the same age you would know yourself that as a child becomes pubescent they generally stop wandering around without clothes. They actively seek privacy and don’t react well when it is breached. I wouldn’t, for example, walk in while they were getting dressed.

You say >>” it's not very long ago that sex between adults outside marriage was generally regarded as "sinful"

I wonder if you think that means all taboos will eventually disappear. Do you think pedophilia is going to be OK any time soon? I don’t bring this up because I consider the pictures to be pedophilia, merely highlighting the pointlessness of your line of argument here.

CJ >>taboos are ..” moral and ethical reasons that reflect the overall society's concerns for protecting children,” I agree and I place the photographing of naked teenage children in this category.

My point is that the author himself acknowledges that he is exploring the subject of pubescent children and their awakening sexuality. I think the photographer is intruding into a private area for no good reason.

STG,

I think you’ll find that the greatest book banning recently has been carried out by the PC brigade who have attempted to “clean up” our reading and writing by replacing many words and concepts with PC alternatives. This has been a project of the left of the political divide. But in this case it is mostly those on the right of the spectrum who object to the photos.

Paul.L: << I don’t actually see how it is important that kids are having sex at ages younger than 16. The laws across the country vary but if you are the same age as the consenting partner and over 10 then mostly you are not breaking the law? But how is this relevant to the discussion of taboos or child nudity? >>

palimpsest began the thread by saying he is "...curious about attitudes to the taboos re teenage sexuality", which I took to be a broadening of the discussion beyond Henson's images, that palimpsest suggested "...push the edges of our taboos".

My understanding of the colloquial meaning of "taboo" is in accordance with that of the Macquarie Dictionary, i.e. "forbidden in general use; placed under a prohibition or ban... a prohibition or interdiction on anything, exclusion from use or practice". Ergo, I took palimpsest's interest to be those circumstances where teenage sexuality, or aspects thereof, might be forbidden, prohibited, banned or excluded from accepted social intercourse (so to speak).

What I was trying to get at is that about the only aspect of "teenage sexuality" that is actually "taboo", seems to be the depiction of it. While our society doesn't necessarily condone the actual sexual behaviour of a majority of normal teenagers, we acknowledge that it exists and generally adopt a kind of de facto 'harm minimisation approach', and hope like hell our kids don't get hurt, pregnant or infected in their sexual and emotional explorations.

[cont]

[cont]

The irony in this, as I've said elsewhere, is that Henson's images are generally distinctly asexual in content and composition, unless you ascribe inherent sexuality to nudity. Henson's images that I've seen could only be sexual, erotic or pornographic if the observer implicitly equates the naked body with sexuality, no matter how deliberately the artist has shaded and obscured the very parts of the body that arouse such interest in those inclined.

I said this at the beginning of this debate, and Paul.L still doesn't realise it, but it is he and those of his ilk who are actually "sexualising" the adolescents whose bodies are at the centre of the controversy. I find it strange that intelligent adults can be so obdurately prudish regarding a few relatively asexual artistic images, while simultaneously holding relatively sensible attitudes to the actual sexual behaviour of teenage kids.

Still, I guess it makes for interesting conversation :)

"I find it strange that intelligent adults can be so obdurately prudish regarding a few relatively asexual artistic images, while simultaneously holding relatively sensible attitudes to the actual sexual behaviour of teenage kids."

I understand your pain but where do you actually get convinced that "adults hold relatively sensible attitudes to the actual sexual behaviour of teenage kids" while detailing childish reaction of the self same adults to some pictures

IMHO the "obdurateness" is mainly manifest in the general attitude to that horrible word "morals", which In My Humble Definition simply says:

to make sure no kid of today "goes further" than the assessor of the morals when that assessor was young

I rest my case

Thanks for the responses.

Agree CJ, should have said 'some of the 6 or 7 pics show the subjects sexuality'.

Seems to me that we (society) are only now facing up to the elephant in the room that is paedophilia and Henson is caught up in this. And that a lot of the arguments I've seen mix the two subjects.

Paul L my experience is that kids get quite modest at the onset of puberty. And their sexual experiences do not get raised at the dinner table.

CJ, I'd suggest the only reason sex ed. exists in schools is because (in general terms) we perceive that sex ed in the home has been inadequate. Our Victorian standards have not totally disappeared tho'.In all this discussion I'm yet to see a frank comment on the nature of early teen sexuality. As PaulL says Henson himself is happy to state that this is his subject, and reading a few reviews of his past shows the reviewers have been happy to acknowledge this too.

I'm happy to agree that nudity does not equal sex (go see a Julie Rapp exhibition} but I wish the pro brigade would not obfuscate on this subject re Hensons work.

CJ

You say >>” The irony in this … is that Henson's images are generally distinctly asexual …, unless you ascribe inherent sexuality to nudity, Henson's images …could only be sexual, erotic or pornographic if the observer implicitly equates the naked body with sexuality,

Yet the irony is that you also said, >>” I didn't say there was nothing sexual about the pictures - I say that they're not pornographic. There's nothing wrong with art that explores the transitional stage between childhood and sexual maturity”. CJ Morgan, Thursday, 29 May 2008 10:27:00 AM BILL HESON: ARTIST OR PORNOGRAPHER?

Which is it? You say they are asexual unless you ascribe inherent sexuality to nudity. This is the same thing as saying there is nothing sexual about the photos unless you are perverted. Yet you later contradict this statement and acknowledge that the artists’ interest is in the beginnings of sexuality in pubescent children. That after all there is something sexual about them. Your earlier attempts to suggest that babies possess the same sexuality as pubescent children was ill-considered and frankly laughable. Babies can’t have babies; pubescent children can and their bodies and personas develop commensurately.

I tend to agree that the pictures probably don’t deserve the tag “pornographic” but “exploitative” and “inappropriate” are tags I can live with. The photographer has admitted that he is interested in the awakening of sexuality in pubescent children. Whilst I agree he does not pose them in an obviously provocative manner, the nudity clearly indicates that it is this budding or blossoming of sexuality that interests him.

You say>>” What I was trying to get at is that about the only aspect of "teenage sexuality" that is actually "taboo", seems to be the depiction of it. While our society doesn't necessarily condone the actual sexual behaviour of a majority of normal teenagers, we acknowledge that it exists and generally adopt a kind of de facto 'harm minimization approach “

TBC

cont',

But this is not a reasonable comparison. The general public does not find it acceptable for ANYONE to have sex with a 13 year old child. For example, a man the age of the photographer would be literally skinned alive if he were to have sex with a 13 year old girl. That is highly taboo. You are comparing apples and oranges. Your comparison may have been valid had the photos been taken by the teenage boyfriend and not placed on public view.

Finally, you say >>”I said this at the beginning of this debate, and PAUL.L STILL DOESN'T REALISE IT, but it is he and those of his ilk who are actually "sexualising" the adolescents whose bodies are at the centre of the controversy

Given your regular contradictions on this matter I would say it is incredibly arrogant of you to suggest that I am not REALIZING “it is he and those of his ilk who are actually "sexualising" the adolescents whose bodies are at the centre of the controversy”. Just because you said it doesn’t make it true CJ, or have you not yet grasped this key development. You haven’t proved anything, quite the contrary, you yourself seem confused. That you don’t realize that the above is just an opinion and not an absolute fact is astonishing in its ignorance. This kind of statement might be appropriate if you were declaring the sky to be blue, but you are a world away from the concrete certainty of this proposition when you imply that your opinion on this matter is an incontrovertible fact.

Worse, the idea, that it’s my opposition to this exploitation of children for the sake of “art” that sexualizes children, is laughable for its arrant stupidity. Further, the very idea that 13 year old kids aren’t already aware of their developing sexuality is naïve. Lastly I would note that for many millennium children discovered their developing sexuality without any input from me or the rest of the anti-exploitation crowd.

Paul, you're quite fixated on those pictures aren't you? Not to mention increasingly shrill (again).

I've tried to help you come to terms with what is obviously a problematic area for you, but clearly it's not enough. May I suggest professional counselling?

CJ Arrogant? Is the pope catholic?

'I've tried to help you come to terms with what is obviously a problematic area for you, but clearly it's not enough. May I suggest professional counselling?'

CJ you really should start a counselling practice, what with all these referrals you give out. Is it really not possible any sane person would ever disagree with you

Grow up Whitty.

Before you spit the dummy and leave OLO again with your bat and ball, please share with us your firsthand experience of teenage sexuality, since you obviously haven't outgrown your adolescence yet.

CJ,

you say>>"I've tried to help you come to terms with what is obviously a problematic area for you, but clearly it's not enough. May I suggest professional counselling?"

I've tried engaging you on a civil level and you have failed miserably at responding in kind. Your arrogance seemingly knows no bounds. Perhaps I have many failings but one I do not suffer is the inability to tell the difference between my opinion and fact. The audacity of your suggestion that I have a problem is mind blowing.

It is just as easy for me to say that you, who wishes to look at photographs of naked teenagers, has a real problem. They show people who do similar stuff like that on the news trying to hide their faces.

I'd suggest that you are the one with the problem since you can't deal with this issue without being arrogant and insulting. What are you covering up?

you say>> Paul, you're quite fixated on those pictures aren't you? Not to mention increasingly shrill (again)."

I mean have you know shame? I was responding to a point YOU brought up about the pictures. As for shrill, Mate I guarantee you I don't get shrill. Face to face I guarantee you you're the one who would come off looking effeminate. Lets at least get that bit straight.

I think it is clear that I have shown your obvious inconsistencies on this issue and you have decided to rant and rave instead of capitulating or getting on with the debate. Sad really. But not surprising.

If you want to waste your posts slagging me off in a desperate attempt to avoid looking stupid, be my guest. I don't think I'll play, however.

Interesting point Palim. I understand you to open up the idea that, though we know that teenagers are sexual beings, society as a whole are not to speak of this, portray this or discuss this. It is taboo.

Why should there be a taboo? Acknowledging this does not mean that anybody who does is interested in this for personal sexual reasons and therefore has unnatural sexual urges or worse is a paedophile.

It is quite possible to see beauty just for and of itself, to be moved by the beauty of any human being, clothed, naked, from baby to aged without getting in any way sexually aroused.

Can we photograph little children naked? Children with no developing secondary sexual characteristics? Are little girls allowed on the beach topless?

For me it is all about the context.

A male known to my family, but not known as normally interested in photography making photographs of my daughter (not as part of an event), even fully clothed, would make me mighty uncomfortable.

A group sharing photographs, or other images, of a diverse number of unrelated children with each other, even fully clothed, would make me suspicious.

There are paedophiles, a very large group has just been rounded up. They are in the lives of our children as family members, friends or other positions of responsibility. Whether we place a taboo, ban or whatever on legitimate artists, not the neighbour taking pictures through the fence, but artists making art for open public display of children of any age, dressed or undressed, will not diminish paedophiles preying on vulnerable children.

It is deeply insulting to all in a community to suggest that any art condones, excuses or encourages any kind of behaviour. Whether paedophilia, rape, murder, torture or crucifixion. It is deeply insulting to all in a community to suggest that we could be tempted by what we see, read or hear without having to take full personal responsibility.

Yvonne - you often express ideas with which I'm generally in agreement, but this time the concordance is almost perfect.

Your last post expresses pretty well exactly what I've been trying to say about those aspects of this issue, but better than I seem to have thus far :)

Paul - when you eventually decide to get the professional counselling you so obviously need, be sure to raise the issue of 'anger management'. Currently, you don't seem to do it very well.