Monday, January 10, 2011

Is the photo below obscene, pornographic or pedophilic?



An Australian hospital thinks it is -- and has refused a $200,000 donation as a result.
A charity exhibition at Sydney Children's Hospital of works by some of Australia's leading artists has collapsed after hospital officials saw one of the works - a photograph by the Archibald Prize winner Del Kathryn Barton - in which her six-year-old son is shown naked from the waist up.

The decision will cost the hospital an estimated $200,000.

The exhibition, organised by the art adviser and broker Virginia Wilson Art, will go ahead in March and the proceeds will be donated to another charity, Midnight Basketball, which runs workshops and tournaments for youth who are at risk.

Tamara Winikoff, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, said decisions such as this were "absurd and tragic". "In our zeal to protect children we are erasing them entirely," she said.

She said nudity was being conflated with pornography, even though representations of nudity had been part of Australia's artistic tradition throughout history.

Source

The hospital directors are the ones who must be perverted to see something sexual in a young boy's chest

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading the source, I don't see a problem here.

The hospital directors did not want to be associated with this photo. They are willing to forego the benefits of the exhibition to stand up for their principles.

Personally, I think they're being silly, but that's irrelevant.

Anonymous said...

It's PC run amuck, but it's their hospital so it's their right. Case closed.

Anonymous said...

Is it their hospital? - I was under the impression that Australia had a National Health system, which takes it out of a business decision.

These directors obviously never visit the Gold Coast - there the boys wear far less and it is not considered anything unusual!

Anonymous said...

"Personally, I think they're being silly, but that's irrelevant."

Then, why did you mention it, Mr. Irrelevant?

jonjayray said...

Sydney Children's Hospital is a public hospital that also receives private donations

TheOldMan said...

It's not pornagraphy or pedophilia but I cannot figure what it is? Are those roud things those little stickon eyeballs that move around?

Anonymous said...

Fits in with the rest of the commonwealth.
In the UK it's now considered production of child porn for parents to take photographs of their own children at school plays and sports events, even if the kids are fully clothed.