I think we can all agree that there is an awful lot of stuff to pick through in this issue that can very quickly get personal, nasty, creepy, blah, so I’ll leave it for a little while. Let’s see what – if anything – pans out. Besides, THE really fun iss-you at the moment is which Luvvie will catch the collapsing KKKapitalism!!!

I reckon if the Luvvie Plodders, Webdiary, and the various wymyn’s blogs took to the streets and started talkin’ about a revolution, Tanya Plibersek and Albo would hitch up their Armani skirts, grab their nearest Gucci handbag, and head for the hills. Or maybe Palmie. Perhaps Luvvie Quiggin will join Margo Kingston and Lefty Kim on stage for a rousing rendition of “Our Talking points united, we’ll never be defeated” or some such.

But what about the rights of children? Aren’t those rights ultimately higher than the right of Bill Henson to explore adolescent sexuality through his photographs? Surely, they are.

Indeed. In an actual case where there was some conflict of rights the rights of free speech would be secondary to the right of children to be free of…. what?

What?

The crux comes from a misunderstanding by this fellow himself, he writes:

…my empathy and understanding towards children, who live in a world where the predatory damage found in some adults (mostly men) is far too frequently a part of their lives, wins out. If Bill Henson’s desire to explore these themes…

Well yes I agree. Except Henson is not attempting to explore sexual predation nor is he seeking to arouse desire. I first encountered his work when I was 14. 14 year old boys find almost everything pornographic, but this – no. The adolescence mind is a dark and romantic terrain and Henson makes pictures of it.

We are told that this might prove to be pornographic to paedophiles. Will it? I find it easy enough to believe. However paedophiles are likely to find a whole range of images arousing. Are we to prohibit baby photographs? Classical painting? Where does it end exactly. Shall I remind you that actual child pornography is produced. There is nothing in the annals of Henson and his Models to suggest any comparable scenarios take place in front of his camera. One model said: He made you feel safe. I don’t think those used to make sex movies for rockspiders would feel that way somehow.

Do his models suffer the symptoms of the sexually abused? Any of them?

Now before I proceed let’s be specific. We’re not dealing even with paedophilia. These are adolescents hence the correct term is ephebophilia. The distinction might seem trite but it’s pathologically a different matter. It’s not okay by any means. But we should attempt to understand those things about which we express opinions, yes?

Ephebophilia is distinguished from paedophilia because, no matter the legal definition of ‘child’ the facts of biology make it clear that adolescents have developed sexual characteristics. In fact that is what adolescence means – as in ‘blooming’. I put it to you, Alice, as I’ve put it to so many others who are, as you say, ‘unwilling to see’ that Henson’s work explores this stage of life. Its psychology.

Given the changing mores and the more extreme consequences of liberalism we 21st century people must deal with phenomena that our grandparents either didn’t know about or didn’t want to know about – paedophilia, ephebophilia fits into the latter category. Despite the protestations of arch-conservatives to the contrary I’m afraid that these things existed, nay were nurtured in bosom of Judeo-Christian institutions. The paedophilia phenomena has been n the defensive because of sexual liberalism not despite it. Fact.

Still the licentiousness that comes of moral gray zones can lead to debauchery. I’d understand the anxiety of a parent who lives in a world where this sort of thing is common.

Your link has references to Henson’s models making mistakes because they were his models. There are no specifics. No quotes. Just again the assumption that nude modelling for an artist is exactly the same as appearing in a John Holmes movie and the lude assertions of masturbation material that follow.

I haven’t read Marr’s book. Perhaps I’ll do so, sometime. The writer seems more upset with Marr’s dalliance with Alan Jones then anything else. And perhaps over-anxious to disassociate homosexuality from paedophilia.

Okay. But to use his words against him, his views, your views, have:

….nothing to do with Bill Henson, and everything to do with what they decided Bill Henson represents: a projection of themselves

Exactly. I must say that the assertion of pornography says more about those doing such then it does about Henson. Exploitation? Sexual molestation? Sure. Find some evidence. Henson’s rights to express himself are not more important than a child’s right to be free from sexual predation. But Henson is not a sexual predator. His work has nothing to do with sexual predators. And the argument that they may derive some nefarious inspiration from it would have everything from the Bible to the Beatles banned.

Again. Evidence. I’m always willing to listen.

Henson isn’t ’sexualizing’ these ‘kiddies’ Nature is. And Henson’s behavior isn’t out of order. At least that’s what the people involved have said. So what happens?
.
Is partially anxiety about a wider matter being focussed here? Is it the Herd screaming down on the Witch – why do they always need someone else to die for their sins?

There. Are. Questions.

We ask them. Given that this is emotionally a very charged situation we know that we won’t be able to answer them objectively. Not perfectly; but we should at least attempt to impose the cold light of reason to the matter.

Also I think Marr very much refuses to zip it. He’s understands the consequences of Judeo-Christian hysteria run wild.

He would do well to just zip it.

Poor diddums. Now Luvvie Marr feels simply “terrrible” dahlings. He mewls, “I hate the damage I did to people last week. I damaged that principal and I damaged that boy”. But of course, it wasn’t Luvvie Marr who caused “the damage” at all. Who did cause this damage? Why, his Luvvieness now says it was “tabloid rage capped and validated by the Prime Minister”.

Gee, Luvvie, nothing to do with fact it was you who splashed it all over the Age and SMH or you poncing around the ABC TV and radio all so you could sell your book, was it? Pimping photos of kids groomed by another Luvvie and both for profit.

Being a Luvvie means never having to say you’re sorry. Oh, and that it is OK For you and fellow Luvvies to skulk around primary schools undressing ten year olds with your eyes scoring kids out of ten as potential exhibitors of their bits, eh?

What moral galaxy do these freaks live in?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24493582-421,00.html

No I’m not talking about your personal opinions of the work or your mores in regards to the depiction of the nude. I’m talking about actual exploitation.

For a high profile journalist and card-carrying civil-libertarian to corrupt debate by asserting that the Police raid on the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery was triggered solely by the actions of a ‘right-wing’ journalist (ignoring the significant fact that there were several community complaints to the Police) and an hysterical child-advocate in an over-sensitive climate is one thing – but to invoke libertarian, anti-censorship, democratic principles while in negotiations with his publisher, Michael Heyward (a friend of Henson according to recent reports: http://article.wn.com/view/2008/10/09/With_friends_like_Marr_Henson_not_short_of_enemies/) to write ‘The Henson Case’, is quite another.

Is Marr suffering from delusions of omnipotence?

To assume that the especially cosy relationships between the Oxleys, Sue Cato (Henson’s one-woman PR machine), Jen Minchin (Tolarno Galleries), and Alison Croggon (Theatre Notes) are beyond question or reproach seems oddly naive for a lawyer and journalist of Marr’s standing.

Is this another slip akin to his report upon Henson’s school recruitments?

Has it not occurred to him that there may be something ‘irregular’ (if not incestuous) about the relationships between the artist, the family, the gallerists, and his publisher that could imperil his integrity as an impartial journalist, for example (with the exception of the girl’s family), given their intimate links to Bill Henson during Croggin’s repeated drafting of the 2020 Open Letter?

It turns out Henson approved the final draft (p 82; but p 78 makes for particularly interesting reading!)!

So many violated boundaries have been ‘normalised’ in this selective restyling of the facts, one may be skeptical of the notion that the prosecution failed and the debate died of natural intrinsic, de jure causes, given David Marr’s energetic and contemptuous revisionism.