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Reader Feedback I have just finished reading Noelle Oxenhandler's essay and Sally Mann's response. I have been looking at Sally Mann's images for years and have always found them vaguely disturbing. I consider this a positive thing, as I think one of the functions of art is to unsettle. After reading Oxenhandler's essay I think I can put my finger on the source of the disturbance. Mann's images capture the tender human bodies of her children in their place in nature, a place that is far from the appalling costumes of Anne Geddes' flower and vegetable babies. When we see Mann's vulnerable, defiant, naked, amused children covered with dirt, sleeping near those distressing fairy tale burlap bags, or otherwise lurking in the mess of nature, it reminds us -- perhaps too much -- of our own connection to the natural world. This is a connection that has become masked and perverted by the Disneyfied images of animals, the Martha Stewartized images of gardens, and those godawful Geddes babies which represent "nature" for many of us who are not involved in the messy ongoing process of relationship with the natural world. Mann's images remind us of the mess of life from which we have removed ourselves, and of the dark, glorious, implacable indifference of the natural world. That is a disturbing and valuable thing to be reminded of, I think. As for those Geddes products, I cannot understand why there is no outcry against them. These are infants and toddlers -- not free-ranging children -- caught not in the act of living their own lives (lives which may include colluding and collaborating with their mother's art), but caught, literally imprisoned, in the bondage of the colorful and "cute" costumes. KR 10/5/98 I just have to tell you how awesome this child/sex debate is! It's such a drama, I keep tuning in to see what will happen next. EJ 10/5/98 First, Oxenhandler's essay on Sally Mann started terribly, but admittedly ended with a good point. Pretended bliss where none is, is damnation. Second, Sally's answer was good. Real good. And lastly, thank you for bringing up children and sexuality. It really is distressingly difficult these days. Hardly a day goes by without the gruesome threat of child porn and the Net being highlighted on Danish television. And it is not as if anyone is interested in really investigating whether shutting children off from sex or porn is actually best for them or not. What do children know? EK 10/3/98 I have no idea why you did not invite a behavioral scientist with a specialization in human sexuality and childhood sexuality in particular to participate. At the very least empirical and ethnological perspectives are important ones -- if not the most important ones. There were so many factually incorrect statements made by participants that should have been challenged. For example, insistences that "child sexuality" is a cultural "construct" peculiar to Western societies ignores the fact that all over the world children are groping each other or even having intercourse and nobody seems to care too much about it. Unbridled adolescent sexuality, on the other hand, is a volatile topic in most societies because it is consequential and challenges the economic status quo. Why do the opinions of your invited authors matter more than the opinions of the average person on the street? For the most part these opinions are motivated by political concerns with truth considerations secondary to advancing sex-political postures. Moreover, I have not been in the presence of so many eggshells since my days as a cook making eggs benedict brunches at a Columbus Ave. Bar in NYC. PO, Ph.D. 10/3/98 What strikes me about the discussion so far is not what is being stated so much as what is not; or if it is, it is done so as an aside, mentioned-in-passing what is really the heart of the issue. It gives me the impression that the roundtable members are either ignorant or possess completely warped senses of priority. The issues which concern me and are, I believe, at the heart of this subject are as follows: 1) Adult (postpubescent) humans are genetically programmed to be interested in sex, which is the only purely natural form of reproductive activity. This is so that, no matter how stupid we get as a society (witness the Shakers), the species will continue. 2) With the obvious exception of genitalia, the bodies of prepubescent boys and girls are essentially the same. Thus, the process of puberty is twofold: young persons' developing minds become more interested in the opposite gender at the same time their bodies change to make them more interesting to the opposite gender. Also see 1) above. 3) Modern Western society relieves us of most of the survival issues which our evolutionary design was meant to overcome. Long life spans and low infant mortality rates are not accounted for in our genetic makeup. Some of the rules have changed, and society needs to react to those changes. Each of these points carry implications both in and of themselves and as they relate to each other. Point 1 means that teenage boys and girls are going to be interested in each other despite any conscious decisions on their part, and regardless of any information they receive from parents, teachers, peers or the media. How teenagers react to this interest, and the actions they take, are a result of conscious decisions guided by what they have learned from parents, teachers, peers and the media. Thus, one can complain till blue in the face about the content of media messages which teenagers receive, but it is the human beings in their everyday lives which have far more influence. Plus, we cannot have it both ways; if teenagers are going to be flooded with sexual messages from the media and each other, parents and teachers cannot remain silent on the subject. Short, meaningless phrases ("just don't do it till you're married") are also of no use in comparison to the complex messages teens receive from the combination of movies, TV and their own bodies. Point 2) carries heavy implications relating to nude photography and Lolita. The body of a young person cannot be reasonably considered visually sexual until puberty has set in to make it that way. Until that time, the body can be visually or artistically interesting, which should not be confused with being sexually interesting. Adults who act upon this sort of confusion are justifiably branded "pedophile" or "pornographer" as they very much have the potential to harm children whom they have contact with. Obviously, not all young people will reach puberty at the same time, but the key issue is that their bodies will likely go through their dramatic changes faster then their minds can learn how to react to these changes. The problem is that teens aren't born knowing exactly what to do with this information. Left to their own devices they would eventually figure it out for themselves, as genetic survival compels them to. But our civilization is more complicated than that, and teens need to be informed about STDs, unwanted pregnancy, and the ways to avoid them. For the longest time parents thought they could remove sexuality from the lives of their children entirely, and they had some success. But it involved not only protecting children from sexual messages but separating them from the opposite gender entirely. Well into this century in this country, dates were chaperoned. Modern parents cannot have it both ways: if they are not going to actively guide their kids to responsibly deal with the sexual messages coming from our society and the sexual impulses from their own bodies, then they cannot expect them not to engage in sexual experimentation on an unchaperoned date. Thus, you either tell your daughter what a condom is and how to use it, and tell her why her body and mind are changing the way they are, and explain that she does have the option of not having intercourse at all and this is probably the best decision for her to make and why -- or you go along with her on dates, never let her out of your sight till she's married, and then wonder why she ends up hating you for her entire adult life. DC 10/2/98 Images of naked children, even posed provocatively, don't "sexualize" them. Children are already sexual. A girl who volitionally poses spread-legged or a boy who volitionally poses with an erect penis will probably not have the same erotic response as an adult to the taking or viewing of such an image, but a look at enough real lascivious nudity (or even a look at erotic art by Hamilton and countless other artists) demonstrates that young subjects really do understand that there is a sexual component being expressed. Assuming the photograph was not taken using force, the photograph created requires a collaboration between subject and photographer. You may not like the fact that the photographer elicited an erotic response from the child, or that the child offered an erotic response and the photographer encouraged it or at least didn't forego photographing it, but to pretend that this is somehow "projecting" a sexuality which isn't there is puritan silliness. Ron Raffaelli, the California photographer who is known for his erotic images of adults, did two series in the early '70s which are now considered child pornography. The first was entitled Nymphe, which was published in Baden-Baden, Germany in 1978. That series showed around a dozen prepubescent and peri-pubescent girls playing in Raffaelli's studio, spreading their legs for the camera. Big grins on their faces; some of the facial expressions downright sultry. The second series was actually published a few years earlier in California -- called Little Lovers. This one showed a boy and girl (in fact, one of the girls from the Nymphe series) posed around a wooden school desk, engaging in suggestive sex-play. The pictures in both series were mostly black-and-white, arty, well-composed. The children look like they are having fun -- and they probably were. What is remarkable about Raffaelli's images is that he was showing a child sexuality that actually exists. You can run away from the subject, or condemn it, but trying to dismiss it by claiming that it's the figment of some pervert's imagination (or "society's" imagination, as Prof. Kincaid would have it) isn't going to make it go away. David Hamilton's images are clearly intended to be sexual. Hamilton says as much in his book, 25 Years of An Artist. Intent alone doesn't make a criminal or a crime. Mann clearly doesn't intend her images to be sexual. The "shred of dignity" in Oxenhandler's essay was really an observation that Mann's children seem to dare the viewer to look at them as erotic subjects. Many other people interpret the Immediate Family images in this way too, but Mann is fortunately a far more subtle artist for such glibness. Which is not to say that Mann's children don't have dignity in those photographs: they do, as do the subjects of Hamilton and Sturges. On the other hand, Mann once said to one of her past gallerists that she wasn't comfortable selling her images to people who might have an erotic response to them. But she wisely chose to continue to publish and sell her work. Mann's knowledge of the intent of others also doesn't make a criminal or a crime either. And what of the erotic response of the viewer? This is a question that should be answered by research, not opinion. Studies in the '70s and '80s by Danish sexologist Berl Kutchinsky, among others, and a more recent study by Milton Diamond (Univ. of Hawaii) and Ayako Uchiyama (National Research Institute of Police Science, Tokyo) correlate the availability of erotic imagery of children (including child pornography) with a reduction in the rate of sex crimes against children. (You can read about all the studies in my article which will be in the next issue of The Gauntlet.) Given these findings, consistent over twenty-eight years of research -- and the total lack of anything other than the shabbiest anecdotal accounts to the contrary -- do we really need to worry about someone jerking off while looking at images of Hamilton, Mann or Sturges? Lawrence A. Stanley 10/1/98 Mrs. Wolf's attitude is exactly what gives people like myself a negative attitude towards feminists. I certainly feel for her husband! She probably champions some of the causes of Dworkin and McKinnon, two of the most anti-sex individuals in the country. Perhaps a proper replacement would be Camille Paglia who realizes that part of a female's power lies in her sexuality . . . Sexuality is present in all ages and most Americans are scared of that fact. The French recognize sexuality in all ages and are not frightened. Recent movies such as The City of Lost Children and The Professional portray girls that wield tremendous power over men. Part of the power is their sexuality. Why do we as Americans feel so threatened? TD 9/22/98 Have any your your VoiceBox folks actually watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"? MF 9/22/98 I am really concerned as to why you guys picked this particular high school girl. I understand why the others were chosen because they are obviously people who have made names for themselves, but just because this Celine girl is the daughter of a writer of a steamy divorce memoir doesn't necessarily make her an authority, or a credible source for that matter, on children's sexuality. Now I'm eighteen years old, and I'm not much older that she is, but I believe I can give a more informed opinion than she can. I'm not writing this to call her stupid or to disrespect her views on the matter, but she just doesn't convince me. She probably is a highly intelligent person with personal experiences on the matter, but there are millions of people in this country who are highly intelligent with relevant personal experiences. I am not claiming to be an expert on the sexuality of children, but I have volunteered at a day care, and it is obvious among the kids. I also vividly remember when I was younger, flirting with adults to get what I wanted. I don't know if you can call that sexuality, but I did have something and I used it to my advantage. There's no doubt about that. I do understand some reasons as to why you may have chosen her: she's easily accessible because her mom writes stuff that corresponds to the aim of your website, and, duh, she is a child. I also understand that people like me, who do have a lot of interesting stuff to say but are not nationally known figures, are impossible to contact since our existence is unknown. Plus, you may not care what I think because you don't know who the hell I am anyway. But this is the VoiceBox and I'm using my voice. This is to not put down Ms. Rose-Texier in any way. I totally and completely respect what she said and believe that some of what she said is true. But I have to say that if she doesn't believe that kids are aware of their sexuality, then she better get a clue because she is a kid and probably knows how it works. JP 9/20/98 |
Question 1 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Naomi Wolf Question 2 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Naomi Wolf Question 3 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Sally Mann Question 4 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose |