Art or Child Pornography?

[Serendipity]

From The Guardian 10th March 2001:

The Saatchi gallery has been raided by officers from Scotland Yard's obscene publications unit and warned that they will return to seize pictures in its current exhibition, I am a Camera, unless the offending images are removed before the gallery opens its doors to the public again.


*********************************************

What do you think? I've sen the photographs in question, and to my mind they're not pornographic, they are affectionate and amusing photos of the artist's children. The children have no clothes on, true, but there's no sexual suggestion in there at all. Amid all the fuss it has been suggested that a certain British Sunday newspaper (the one with a reputation for trying to stamp out child abuse by kneejerk methodology) might be involved in brining attention to these photographs - which have been on display for weeks and have been reviewed in all the major broadsheets, with much praise from the critics. Whether the pictures are art is a different matter, they certainly are not pornography.

[paulgro]

I'd have to ask how old they are to make a judgement.

------------------
"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

[Idnew]

I would have to know that also. I think if they are older than 1 then it would be child porn to me. Again not seeing the pictures it is hard to make a rational decision.

------------------
(ö¿ö)Too Many Freaks, Not Enough Circuses(ô¿ô)

My Home Spot (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/Doing_Whatever.htm) My Family (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/MyFamily.htm)

[Serendipity]

Yeah, I'd like to show you how to get to the pics, but as they're under investigation the Guardian has decided not to put them on their site - it wouldn't do for a national paper to have child pornographic pics on its site - so I'll tell you. One pic which there's a lot of fuss about is of the artist's two children on the beach. They're facing the camera, and they're wearing masks of a dumb blonde cartoonish kind (?) They're otherwise naked. They're not posed, they're just doing what they like to do (they're not "doing" anything, just standing in front of the camera). A brother and sister, she's (guessing, their faces are covered) maybe 9, he's maybe 7. If you look at this picture and decide that it's pornographic then you have a funny mind. The point is, this shot is about the artist's relationship with her kids, which is a normal healthy one. This is how her kids behave, and she's taken a photo of it. I've never seen child pornography, but I should imagine that it involves pictures of kids doing things they don't want to do or don't understand, but any adult would understand. Well, I understand - that these kids are being natural. What's pornographic about that? Why should age make a difference? I detest censorship, BTW.

[cleoeo]

Everyone's sensibilities are different. I remember a moving photograph years ago of a naked 9 year old Vietnamese girl running from her burning village, which had just been bombed with napalm. I think it was published in LIFE magazine. Anyway, a fair number of people were horrified by the photo because the girl had no clothes on!

[~wildangel~]

Thats hard to say dippy because you or I wouldnt think anything sexual about a child doesnt mean unfortunatly now a days there are many dispicable people that do think things like that...and as much of a wonderfull mother she is to her children it's the simple fact that these "pedifiles" are also looking at these photographs and thinking bad things.
Maybe she should just keep them for herself and not make them public, after all the child may be as old as 9 you said and the boy 7? Thats a little old for this day and age to walk around naked unless it's a nude beach and in that case the pictures shouldnt be shown to the world.

------------------
My Palace! (http://fairmayden1.homestead.com/fairmayden.html)

[paulgro]

Dippy, I understand what you're talking about. In America that would be considered porn because of our society and the laws. I don't say everyone here would think that. Wearing the masks I think caused alot of the problems. If she didn't feel it was porn, then why cover their faces.

------------------
"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

[Ada_Doom]

Sounds like everything has gone a touch mad again. They don't sound like porn to me, but maybe I'm too influences by the fact that the photographer was their mother and not a random stranger, though that doesn't necessarily make it alright.

I would actually kill my mother though, if she made our family photos public (not that they are pornographic though)


------------------
Cake or death?

[Idnew]

I just can't see a mother displaying her children like that and maybe the kids don't think nothing of it now, but someday I'm sure it will be quite embarrassing for them.

Anybody got pics of themselves when their parents thought taking nude pics of you in the tub or whatever was cute? Not too cute after the age of one and when you get grown and your friends are looking through the albums. I certainly wouldn't want the world to see them. Here's an example of what happens to pictures. I'm sure this was a very special moment for somebody but look what someone did to the picture.

http://www.zing.com/picture/p868fe83563526554e4b1ff9cabb472e5/fec8e08d.jpg.orig.jpg

------------------
(ö¿ö)Too Many Freaks, Not Enough Circuses(ô¿ô)

My Home Spot (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/Doing_Whatever.htm) My Family (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/MyFamily.htm)

[saint]

i would not think it is porn i may have some thought about it. but i don't act on those thoughts.thought are thoughts.
but i would not consider porn.
i would say there are about 2 or 3 factors 1.how old was the kids?
2.what where they doing? was there any one else older naked(maybe16)was it any thing sexual?
3.where they developed(ithink that is a better way of puting it)u know (girls)a nice size chest not flat as a wall (boys)i don't know how to put this one but u know where i am going with this
any rate different ppl develop differently
as in when they develop what
now in our soceity we consider more thing vogur. we need to desentise our selves.
i do tarot and if u can't look at the card with out getting horny i feel sorry for u
it means u have a neast mind. and u can get horny off anything.
sorry if i offend anyone
and idnew i would hate to breast feed that kid


------------------
The great mass of people...will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

[~wildangel~]

Idnew I recieved the same picture of the baby in my email (as a joke)Sad really if those are his real teeth, but I thought the picture was parlia...parigr....parligraphed................... ...no **** what's the word again...parilyzed...no...er.....umm.....perilagrap hed....WELL ANYWAYS, I thought the picture was MESSED with!
(does anyone know what word I'm looking for?)
Makes it not such a funny joke...if those are those his real teeth...poor little guy http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/frown.gif

------------------
"Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot"


My Palace! (http://fairmayden1.homestead.com/fairmayden.html)

[Idnew]

LOL wild. Sure it was messed with. My point exactly. You can take any innocent picture and transform it. Same with those two children the artist wants everybody to see.



------------------
(ö¿ö)Too Many Freaks, Not Enough Circuses(ô¿ô)

My Home Spot (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/Doing_Whatever.htm) My Family (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/MyFamily.htm)

[Serendipity]

More info: The News of the World, a leading UK Sunday newspaper, probably brought the pictures to the attention of the police. This newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns The Sun, a daily tabloid (lis will be well enough acquainted with this media baron - he also owns Fox TV and Sky TV). Most days in The Sun there is a photograph of a topless young woman - soft porn.

The article in New of the World ran thus: "Upper-crust 'art lovers' are paying £5 a head to ogle degrading snaps of naked children plastered across the walls of one of Britain's most exclusive galleries."

I've been in many art galleries, there's lots of pictures of naked children in them: Delacroix's Medea shows a naked woman about to murder her two naked children, there's stacks of Virgin and Child pictures where the baby Jesus is naked, not to mention all those cherubim and seraphim. So these are just as "degrading"? I've never ogled a picture in my life, but these idiots seem to think that a naked body automatically denotes sexual intentions. Perhaps in their warped little minds, not in mine, nor of my many art-loving friends.

As for the paedophiles, why should we let them set our cultural agenda? They thrive on power they shouldn't have, so why do we give them yet more?

[paulgro]

I can only talk about the U.S. I don't know the stand on porn in the UK.
The laws here were made to stop child porn. What may not be considered porn to you is considered porn in this countries laws. Children were being sold like sheep here because there are pigs that get their jollies that way. So the laws came into being. You say why give the pigs more power, I say why give them more pictures to get their rocks off. The pictures may be innocent, but pigs like that see it as sexual.

------------------
"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

[Ada_Doom]

Then again, I'd rather the pigs were looking at pictures of children on the beach taken by their mother in all innocence, than that kids were getting kidnapped and exploited by paedophile rings, or that the pigs used real children to get their kicks.

------------------
Cake or death?

[Serendipity]

Yep. Photographs/film/whatever in which the kids are being harmed, made to do things they don't understand, all that kind of stuff, that's what the police should be looking out for. Or do we join the Utah crowd, and declare Michealangelo's David and such stuff pornographic? In which case, you'd have to censor everything, which does absolutely nothing to stop real child porn because that's clandestine already.

[Idnew]

All I can speak for also is the US and their views about such things. I'm not saying there are such portraits around I don't go to art galleries, but maybe once in a great while and what few times I have been I didn't see any naked children. Naked women seem to be the main thing. Again we're talking about something we haven't even seen and if the artist doesn't mind showing her naked children to the world then that's her, but it seems she should be thinking a little about how those children will feel when their grown. Porn or no porn. I would never put my children on display like that even with masks on, because what difference does it make everybody knows by now who they are.

------------------
(ö¿ö)Too Many Freaks, Not Enough Circuses(ô¿ô)

My Home Spot (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/Doing_Whatever.htm) My Family (http://members.tripod.com/~freeatlast_3/MyFamily.htm)

[Lis]

perhaps, being art, the masks weren't used to cover their identities as much as they were meant to symbolise something or even just simply......the kids were playing with masks when the photo's were taken.....

I'm not to sure about this, as was mentioned we haven't seen the photo's.....but not all nude art is sexualy intended, infact, much nude art is not sexually intended...

I have to say I didn't see anything wrong with it when I began reading this post....it's the opinions of you guys that have made me think twice about it.....???? *hmmms*

[~wildangel~]

I believe it's totally just art, I think childrens body's are beautiful, not sexual in any aspect and the people that do see it as that way are going to see it that way just by looking at a child, clothed or un-clothed.
[For instance]= I see a good looking man...I SEE a good looking man, it doesnt matter if he's naked (which might be nice) but he's still totally hot! See what I mean, it really doesnt matter if the child has clothes on or not, these pediphiles can see right through clothing!

BUT, I wouldnt take pic's like that of my kids just because I live in the US and KNOW theres lotsa sicko's around here...maybe not there, so consider yourselves lucky(liz, dippy, Ada)
If they think that's sexual than maybe they should be more worried about all the movies with nudity or partial nudity hat kids see all the time? Those are sexual, not a child http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif
It's a sick world when theres people thinking sexual thoughts about a child, a cherub, a portrait of a mother holding her naked child...but It is a world we live in and theres nothing we can do about it.
In the olden days (back when Paulgro was little http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/tongue.gif) no one ever thought anything as sick as they do now, or at least it wasnt broadcasted throughout the whole world if it was.
JMO http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/wink.gif

------------------
"Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot"


My Palace! (http://fairmayden1.homestead.com/fairmayden.html)

[Serendipity]

Originally posted by Lis:
perhaps, being art, the masks weren't used to cover their identities as much as they were meant to symbolise something or even just simply......the kids were playing with masks when the photo's were taken.....

I'm not to sure about this, as was mentioned we haven't seen the photo's.....but not all nude art is sexualy intended, infact, much nude art is not sexually intended...



You're right to *hmmm* at the end there, Lis, I have my doubts about all this.
The masks:- the mother made the masks available. She didn't insist the kids wear them, the kids put them on out of choice.

As for what you say about the sexual intention of art, these are clearly not intended to be sexually arousing images. They're not great art either, but that's a diferent issue. There is art (and I mean art) which is intended to be sexually stimulating, it's called Erotica. If any of you have seen Jeff Coon's work, you'll know what I mean. In a different context it could be pornography, but it isn't, even though it's sexually explicit.
I stand by what I said about allowing paedophiles set our cultural agenda.

[Lis]

Originally posted by Serendipity:
I stand by what I said about allowing paedophiles set our cultural agenda.

and I agree.....we dont all hide our feet incase ppl with foot fetishes are around do we?.....I know it's not the same thing....children are a much stronger issue but you know what I'm getting at right?



[This message has been edited by Idnew (edited March 25, 2001).]

[Idnew]

Ok I deleted the posts as paul suggested that caused this thread to get locked and re-opened it. Please try not to let it get that far off topic again. Thanks

[Serendipity]

Thanks for reopening it, Id, I agree; it was getting silly.

I spotted this in a book of insults:

The English public take no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral. - Oscar Wilde

There was a lot of response on the letter pages of the broadsheets, with the whole range of opinions. Some accused the photographer of betraying the innocence of her children by displaying these photos. I should say that their innocence was betrayed when she had to explain to them why she was getting visits from the police. Other letters backed her case, as I do.
For a bit of background, The News of the World last year printed the photos, names and addresses of known paedophiles, a move that I think was dangerous and stupid (also they didn't always check their facts, and printed details of innocent men). It would drive paedophiles underground, and lead to vigilatism, which happened - a paediatrician (ie someone who works with sick children) had her home attacked by a crowd in south Wales. Responsible journalism is what's called for, and accountability in the press.

[Ada_Doom]

I agree with that Dippy. I would be interested to know if the whole Tabloid culture is purely a British thing. The French don't have them, and the Germans have only one, the Bild-Zeitung. The action of the News of the World last year sparked off riots in a few places. Plymouth (or possibly Portsmouth) being one that springs to mind.

------------------
"There's always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort...."

[paulgro]

The states have a couple. Most of the stories are made up though.

------------------
"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

[Ada_Doom]

Isn't that the point of the tabloids? http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/smile.gif

------------------
"There's always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort...."

[Serendipity]

The tabloids are serious newspapers though. The Labour Party prioritised getting support from The Sun because it's a major shaper of public opinion (for people who cannot think for themselves, admittedly). There are those that make up stories (The Sport, famous for "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" and other headlines, but is really a soft-porn paper) but The Sun is not in that low league, it's the biggest-selling daily in Britain. (The Sun, its Sunday sister-paper The News of the World, and major broadsheet The Times are all owned by Rupert Murdoch.)

[Ada_Doom]

I know the Sun is a big seller, but Cosmo is a big seller, and no-one would describe that as a serious newspaper. I cannot see that a paper that fills page three with topless women, and puts Posh Spices weight loss on the front page, despite minor incidents such as the Kosovo crisis which gets a small column on Page 5, can be described as a serious paper. I would say the Mirror is not in the low league, nor the Express, but the Sun and the News of the World definitely.

------------------
"There's always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort...."

[Lis]

Not that I dont agree but I suppose that different papers have different priorities?

[Serendipity]

Different priorities? Yep, some want to report the news, others want to sell papers. Put a topless model in there and it'll sell. Ada, leave the Express out of it, Richard Desmond (who owns "Asian Babes" among other porn titles) bought it not long ago, now it's sacking any half-decent hacks who didn't walk, and has become known as the Sexpress. He bought the Star, too, which as far as I know still has a nipple-count column.

[Ada_Doom]

OK, so the Mirror then....

------------------
An organisation is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different branches at different levels, some climbing up, some falling down. The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces.The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but !%!%!%!%!%!%!%!%s.

[Serendipity]

*Deep serious hmmmmz* Piers Morgan....? Viglen shares?

[~wildangel~]

*even deeper and more serious hmmmms* What happened to this topic http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/tongue.gif


------------------
"Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot"


My Palace! (http://fairmayden1.homestead.com/fairmayden.html)

[paulgro]

It turned into selling newspapers.....

------------------
"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

[Serendipity]

I gather the police turned up at the gallery (after the gallery owner and the curator of the display both made it quite clear that the pictures were not coming off the wall), and decided that there was no case at all, it was just The News of the World stirring up its ineffective anti-paedophilia stuff again. I don't know if TNotW had its knuckles rapped for wasting police time.

------------------
Dum spiro, spero.

[Ada_Doom]

It should have done.

P.S. OK Latin boy, what's the sig mean?

------------------
An organisation is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different branches at different levels, some climbing up, some falling down. The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces.The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but !%!%!%!%!%!%!%!%s.

[Serendipity]

"While I breathe, I hope."

Notice -spir- as in respiration, and -sper- as in espérer.