Leaving aside the gauche way in which the magazine sought to defuse the earlier furore about Bill Henson, parents who defend their decisions to allow the publication of these types of shots do not make sense to me. Even more so be getting their daughter to also defend it in public.
This is exploitation of innocence. Fine in a family context. Wrong in the public domain. Do we not on the one hand condemn child paedophilia, with huge international resources going into tracking down these people. We cannot on the other hand defend this kind of stuff.
Our kids got hold of our film camera and took a series of detailed shots of their goolies. I was shocked when I picked up the film from the chemist and saw the shots. I was sure I had the wrong set. In the back of my mind, I wondered if we would be dobbed in. It was exactly the sort of thing that you would get into trouble for if it was on your computer.
Because it was our kids and they will never see the light outside one of our large cartons of photographs I feel comfortable remembering their pride as they explained how they set up the shots.
Public sexualisation of children is wrong. They are too young to make these kinds of decisions in my mind. It is bad enough looking at the Target catalog some weeks. All the highbrow references to art are bunk in my mind.
Rob from the very excellent Broadsheet Rag highlights another case for parent euthanasia.
