Fortunately there is a better realisation today that the sexualisation of children in Australia is a problem that must be challenged. This sexualisation is the result of pressure from many quarters including daily imagery, fashion, music and entertainment industries. Not surprisingly, most of the evidence points to commercial drivers as causes – today I’m writing about one element.
Why is it that recent cases of artistic photography of naked children have been so controversial in the media and a discussion point in every workplace in the country?
I’m not querying why people like the PM, the Opposition Leader, Bravehearts and social commentators have criticised the works of Bill Henson and more recently Polixeni Papapetrou.
What I’m questioning is the uncompromising defence by advocates of this type of exploitation and their complete dismissal of real concerns.
Nobody will argue that if the same images were first discovered in seedy places like password protected laptops or online forums that they would be of interest to law enforcement. We normally call this child pornography. While I willingly admit that artistic merit can be found in work of any possible subject, that is no free licence to push every boundary. Otherwise, where will tomorrow’s artists draw the line between good art and bad taste? They will probably say there is no line.
Bill Henson’s photographs of a then 13-year-old girl have been well documented and the fact that New South Wales police didn’t charge anyone is no lasting vindication. The underlying issue is that our society generally believes in artistic endeavour; but because of our horror at child abuse generally, we are deeply uncomfortable about sharing images of a child’s body. Everyday mainstream Australians know that a child’s body is qualitatively distinct from a bowl of fruit or a panoramic landscape.
Henson is an artist of some recognised ability. However, contrast him with the more recent political stunt by Papapetrou who featured her own then 6-year-old daughter naked on the cover of Art Monthly Australia. Papapetrou says she provided the photo for the arts community in order to make a political statement in defiance of community anger at Henson. Interestingly, no one of any note from the arts world bothered to defend the artistic qualities or even the legitimacy of Papapetrou’s work. (That is, except for her wildly eccentric husband Robert Nelson who wrote the very unfortunate article about the sensuality of children and their latent sexuality.)
I think we can all safely agree that this is not art and it therefore helps us to pick up on the most important point.
The truth is that a child’s body is a beautiful thing, and should be treasured, protected and respected. Our children should not paraded in front of an anonymous mass audience and the exploitation of children shouldn’t be legitimised by the labels “fine art” or “political expression”.
This is not a question of left versus right. Commonsense restraint which helps prevent the misery of abuse is not just a small price to pay for the protection of children – we owe it to them.
Published July 2008, Northern Tasmania News
