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Are the Anti-Porn Groups on Target?
By
Nan DeVincent-Hayes, Ph.D

Author's Commentary
This article was perhaps the most challenging writing assignment I've ever done. Not only was it difficult finding sources willing to speak openly, but it was equally trying when it came to settling on an agreed-upon definition of the word "pornography," as well as obtaining a balanced perspective via interviews. It's outrageous that the very organizations who want their side to be heard are the very ones who refuse to respond to journalistic inquiries.
Above all, what I found most onerous was the topic itself in relationship to the First Amendment. As an artist, I value my right to write what I please without someone judging my intentions or banning my books, simply because, as an American, our Constitution guarantees me this freedom. My philosophy is that if one doesn't like what I write, then he or she can choose not to read it.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for advocacy groups wanting to return America to its Puritan values.
Hence, I'm left in a paradox. Hence, herein lies the issue.

The Issue
Summed up in a few words, what it comes down to is "morality vs rights" or "art vs reality." On one side are artists who capture the beauty of the human spirit through nude photography, while on the other side are those who claim such photography is pornography, especially since several pictures are of naked children in erotic poses.
In the vanguard are noted photographers Jock Sturges, Sally Mann, and David Hamilton, though they aren't the only ones shooting nude children and putting the pics in book form. Others are creating videos even more risque than the photos taken by the artists under fire. But because Sturges, Mann, and Hamilton have attained a high degree of visibility for their works, they're the ones being focused on, and, in some instances, persecuted and prosecuted.

While these photographers claim their work is "art," protestors counter that not only is it not art but that it's downright indecency, and the worst kind at that ... the kind that capitalizes on children; the kind that's used by pedophiles to bait the innocent; the kind that causes crime rates to soar, especially rape and incest; the kind that demoralizes and cheapens society. These four reasons are the protestors' cause celebre for censoring photographs of naked children.
Because child advocacy and far-right groups believe these artists produce pornography, they have gone as far as publicly expurgating the works--which is a violation of the First Amendment.
"Our rights are important but we also have to do whatever is necessary to protect our children," offers Bruce Watson, LL.B, C.A., president of "Enough is Enough." Statistics show that annually in the U.S. alone, between 100,000 - 300,000 underage children are sexually exploited.

Pornography . . . Retro?
To better understand the premise, let's take a quick look into history as a gauge of how far we've come today.
Since the inception of art as a branch of aesthetics, children have been featured in all forms of art because of their innocence, their cherubic faces, their diminutive features. Knowing the value of portraying children as an artform, the Old Masters capitalized on this by painting murals, tapestries, and frescoes, with the likes of angels in children's bodies as in Da Vinci's "The Madonna of the Rocks," or Boucher's "Diana after the Hunt" where little girls and their mother repose with exposed breasts. Consider, too, Michelangelo's sculpture "David" with genitalia showing, or his "The Creation of Adam" on the Sistine Chapel, along with his preoccupation with the Mannerist movement (a period between the High Renaissance and the Baroque) where nude figures were depicted in violent action. Romanticist Rousseau also encouraged naturalism via women discarding corsets. Thus, renditions of nudism date back to centuries ago.
Art specialists look at these veteran paintings and proclaim them "forms of beauty and resplendence"; the artists as "geniuses, gifted, even mystical"; and their subjects as "enchanting, divine," and perhaps "seductive" in a sacred way. But they don't label the art as "obscene," the artists as "pornographers," or the subjects as "victims."

Perhaps it is the "European mentality" harkened from the eras of the Renaissance and Enlightenment that propagated our current condition of immorality--a liberal mentality that thrives on the likes of nude camps and encourages topless women sunbathing on open beaches; a mind-set that perceives the naked body as exquisite and stunning in contrast to Americans who are quick to brand it as lewd.
Somewhere, from the birth of our European roots, to our present life in the New World, nudism has become gauche because of what it's believed to foment. The bridge between these two points seems to have begun decaying around the 1960s when loose or absent morals, impertinence towards rules and traditions, and the push of freedoms to the near breaking point, grew like a malignancy.
When the push was met with little resistance, the decades of the Seventies and Eighties opened themselves for more perversion and corruption, particularly in the areas of criminal and sexual violence. By the end of 1980s, little shocked us on television, and murder, rape, and pornography soared.
As we end the Nineties and enter the third millennium, we find ourselves in such a state of decadence that fear has replaced anger: Fear for our own lives and fear for our children's safety . . . a fear accompanied by distrust of institutions and individuals. Even the domains of once honored religious and family values have come under criticism and suspicion.
With the disintegration of traditional values and the embracing of counter-cultural ideals (New Age-ism, free sex), our country grows ripe for total destruction of all fundamental ethics and mores.
Rampant today is the ism that we can do as we please if it makes us "feel good" (as no longer are there absolutes of right and wrong), thus giving rise to SDTs, incurable diseases (i.e. AIDS), rape, homicides, road rage, assault and battery, theft, infidelity, lieing, cheating, and deceiving--among a host of other societal ills. Without religious and familial infrastructures, and with the lack of unequivocal ordinances, crimes have dramatically escalated. Pornography--especially the white collar type allegedly represented by Sturges, Hamilton and Mann--is just one example. To protestors, such pornography and its exploitation of children are viewed as an offense not limited to canvases and book pages, but found also in music, the internet, and other media.
Because our Post-Modern condition is foul and failing, child advocacy groups, religious sects, law enforcers, and parent organizations, are taking control by reducing sexual savagery, and promoting self-esteem and respect for others. Their targeting the three artists' photographic books as child porn is witness of their intensity and determination in achieving this goal. These opponents want to return America to her traditional moral values, citing pornography as a major impetus in putting this nation on a perpetual downhill slide into Dante's Inferno.

The Targets
The position of these protest groups is crystalline: Photographs of nude children ravage and prostitute our youth, and contribute to the depravation of societal values, providing fodder for pedophiles in luring youngsters into their dens of inequity.
Carol S., the founder of Families of Sex Offenders Anonymous (no surnames are permitted in this organization), offers, "Photographs of nude children grant entertainment and a voyeuristic journey for pedophiles, the primary exploiters of such works; they render 'imprinting' for them. Photographing children's bodies should be off-limits; no one's eyes should be on anybody's children. The fashion industry reinforces the abuse of our kids. A recent Vogue issue presented a mere child in a half-draped dress, looking seductive and victimized. Often, child victims grow up to be adult pedophiles."
Betsy Rogan, Sexual Assault Therapist for one of Maryland's Life Crisis Centers agrees: "Whether a book of pictures of naked little girls or magazines advertising jeans via sensual pre-teens, it's all the same: The dehumanization and victimization of women which often leads to sexual abuse, domestic violence, even rape."
"We're concerned about the exploitation of children," adds Julie Cartright, Public Affairs director for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "Pedophiles buy, collect, catalogue, exchange, sell, and study the kinds of photos shown in books by those photographers. It bothers me that parents, like Sally Mann who pose, position, and display their children sensually, expose them to sexual criminals internationally. These three artists may do beautiful work but what they create provides virgin prey for sexual hunters. There's a fine line between pornography and art."
To the question if the works of Hamilton, Sturges, and Mann could be conceived as art, Carol S. argues, "What's the difference between posing a child naked in a hazy lighted room, to posing a child sitting sweetly on a sun-lit beach? They're the same: child pornography. We need to pass laws that forbid the photographing of naked children. By doing this, we'll cut back on the dissemination of the work through bookstores, and reduce the exploitation of our children. Shooting nude children is definitely exploitation. These kids aren't even of the age of consent. Sally Mann's photographing her own children is causing irreparable harm to them. She's victimizing them while simultaneously distributing pictures of them to anyone in the world who wants them for however long they want them. One can imagine what fantasies these pictures induce in sexual molesters."

Congressman Robert Aderholt concurs, "Many studies have been done that . . .link . . . child pornography [to] child molesters. . . pornography is often used by pedophiles to coerce children into thinking the molestation they inflict is . . . acceptable."

Sally Mann
Lexington, Virginian, Sally Mann shoots her children as subjects of her pictures. She says, "I wish I had known that I could photograph my family. I missed out on so many pictures. . . .
Born to an upperclass family in Virginia--her father was a doctor--Mann claims her interest in photography came as a result of her parents and nanny having left her alone, allowing her to run unrestrained by clothes until she was five. Mann doesn't say whether her children ran naked until the same age, though she does say clothing for them has been optional. She claims the photos she's taken of nude neighborhood kids in Rockbridge County reflect the trust her town has in her, and the respect they had for her father.
Her pictures feature not only her children as subjects, but also her husband who has been shot in sensual poses. She manages to touch a raw nerve in each of us that reminds us that underneath beauty, there are primitive and unrefined human desires, and a lurking evil that's ready to burst from within, as well as from the pages of her books.
Her book, "At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women," has been reprinted but remains controversial because of how it captures the "coming of age" each of us has experienced. In this volume, Mann features young girls on the verge of womanhood who, in turn, will evolve into mothers and sexual beings, thus continuing the cycle, and serving, in a way, as a nostalgic dichotomy of the Creation Myth to the Death/Rebirth Myth.
Mann's adroitness with a camera grants her photos unusual textures and tenors through the use of mixed lighting techniques. In one photo titled, "The Perfect Tomato," Mann has positioned her oldest daughter, ballerina-style, amid rich, red, shiny tomatoes set atop a picnic table. The daughter, Jessie, pales in the comparison, making her ghost-like naked body seem gauzy and diaphanous
Throughout Mann's pictures, we see hints of sexuality and sensuality via glimpses of underwear, bras, and partially covered developing breasts made alluring and enticing. Photos of young girls in seductively tight shorts suggest a purity and lushness primed for investigation.
It's interesting to note that had Mann consented to her children posing naked for a photographer other than she, herself, she would have been brought up on felonious charges. Yet, she provides the sanction for her offspring to be featured naked in her own photographs. She offers, "If [my children] were to decide they didn't want the pictures, I wouldn't take them. . . ."

David Hamilton
Although David Hamilton's work also focuses on nude children, he's best known for his portrayal of females posed as guileless enchantresses.
His most noted title is "Age of Innocence" which features 200 black/white photographs of naked girls aged 12 through 18 in various stages of physiological maturation. While some of the pictures reflect the beauty and natural condition of prepubescent girls, many of them can be construed as controversial.
Throughout his major volumes of work, girls are seen dancing naked, buttocks exposed to the camera, lying or sitting on the beach with breasts or rears uncovered. One photo shows the frontal view of a naked girl, her developing breasts exhibited, with her hands near her crotch. She wears a coquettish expression and looks to be no more than thirteen.
Another photo depicts two young girls, possibly around 15, wading in the water, entirely unclad. The forming breasts and pubic hair of the girl in the foreground can be easily seen.
The sixty-five-year-old Hamilton claims his interest in shooting the human body au natural came about when he himself was no more than a teen, after returning home to his mother in war-torn London and seeing a boy and girl frolicking in the grass. During the pair's romping, the little boy lifted the girl's dress to slide daisies inside her panties. This set off Hamilton's desire to pursue pictorial records of young girls.

Jock Sturges
Like Hamilton, Jock Sturges shoots pics of young girls, with "The Last Day of Summer," "The Age of Innocence," and "Radiant Identities," serving as his prime works. The majority of his black/white photos mirror family relationships and "naturists" on beaches in France and California. He presents adolescent and preadolescent nude figures amid props of rocks, on porches, in sand, at doorways.
His subjects seem to jump out of the pages, filled with unfulfilled sexual dreams and desires. Each caricature gives viewers a sense of throbbing carnal energy, and a flaming, yearning passion. Pages of photos of children with their parents and siblings charge his books, mirroring the passage of time and the stages of growth one undergoes. Sturges chronicles this journey through his persistence in working with subjects over long stretches of time--i.e. over twenty-five years--and not uncommonly from preteen to parenthood and beyond, thus featuring children of children he had once photographed. He tells us that his relationship with his subjects is ongoing--one in which he injects himself into their lives.

It is a photo such as a naked girl bent at the waist, her arms at her breasts, her knee crooked to hide her pubic area, that raises the hair of the opposition, not so much by what is revealed, but more by what is left for us to imagine, allowing readers to envision children as sexual beings.
Without realizing it, it was Sturges himself who sparked the controversy when, in 1990, Robert Course-Baker, the customer service manager of Newell Labs in San Francisco called the police after developing Sturges' nude images of children on the beach. This resulted in the F.B.I. raiding Sturges' home and seizing his belongings. The F.B.I. also ousted from bed Sturges' assistant, Joe Semien, who was charged with 27 felonies and 27 misdemeanors--all of which were dropped.
Thus began a strenuous ordeal for Sturges who was accused of child pornography, including involvement in a child porn ring. The gravity of the allegation weighed heavily on Sturges who said, ". . . what I was facing if convicted was a death sentence. Because crimes against children are deemed so reprehensible by other inmates in any penal situation, that people accused of them rarely survive prison . . . . It never occurred to me that anybody could find anything . . . perverse [in his photography], which is evidence of my having been pretty profoundly naive about the American context." Yet in this same interview, he admits that he's not at all surprised that people find his photos erotic.
Sturges adds, "It's not hard for me to imagine that there are [people] who will buy my book, buy my photographs, look at them, and have 'impure thoughts.'. . . "
In that same interview, Sturges advises us that humans are, by nature, sensual animals that masturbate even at one-and-a-half years old, and that females lose their virginity by ages 14 or 15, which he attributes to the rampage of unwed teenaged mothers.
He tells us that he's "fascinated by the human body and all its evolutions," and that he pursues young people because "There's line, there's androgyny. . . . I was sent away to boarding school when I was very, very young, and it wasn't a lot of fun. So I'm particularly fascinated by that age, the age of my own traumatization. . . ."

Whether this traumatization manifested itself in the then 28-year old Sturges having consensual sex with a 14 year old (Jennifer Montgomery) can only be determined by an expert, but Montgomery, 36, says ". . . that what Sturges did to her was wrong and contends that his photographs of children are unequivocally sexual" but that "she doesn't think he should be prosecuted," and "she has only high praise for . . . [his] prints." Montgomery, now a Brooklyn filmmaker, created a parallel documentary of this event "in which she depicts Sturges as equal parts stupid, sleazy and insincere, a man who used photography [to lure a] young, chubby, confused girl to undress."

The Controversy
Religious activist Randall Terry leads a camp of people protesting the artists through his group Operation Rescue (OpRes). Hearing of Sturges' adventures with the law, and having viewed his works and that of other photographers, former car salesman Terry labeled the art "child pornography" and incited his radio listeners to fight back against America's moral decay.
Spokesman Richard Williams, who headed the protest, says, "The works of these artists are porn, and they admit it in their writings by saying it's eroticism. It's not art; anybody can claim they've created art. I could take a picture of a pile of dog manure and label it art, but it's still dog manure. David Hamilton has pictures in his book of kids masturbating. That's a class C felony; he should be prosecuted. Law enforcers are the first to say that the works of these photographers are the backbone of pedophilia."
Australia's leading forensic psychiatrist, Dr. William Glasser, claims that many pedophiles think nude photos of children give them approval for, and validation of, their actions.
To fight this, OpRes, in conjunction with Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family (FotF) organization, began a campaign against Sturges, et. al, through his multi-million-name mailing list, radio audience, and operating budget. Dobson issued the following statement via an infopak:

The book, entitled Jock Sturges . . . is a collection of photographs of nude children in suggestive and lascivious poses. . . . Unlike adult pornography, portrayals involving children need not include sexual activity to be considered illegal. . . . In our opinion, the sale of Sturges' publications clearly involves the exploitation of children and should be prosecuted as illegal child pornography.

In no time, OpRes and FotF had whipped up fury to a fever-high pitch, rousing supporters--many of whom were Christians--to descend upon bookstores as an act of protest. They stormed Barnes & Noble, and Borders where the books were sold, and ripped out pages in an expression of outrage.
Opponents of Terry claim that his terrorism antics served as momentum in kicking off his election campaign for public office.

Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values (CCV) adds, "Terrorism isn't the answer. Citizens need to go into bookstores and tell the personnel that these books are pornographic and should be removed." By fighting for the highest moral standards in Cincinnati, the metropolis "is free from much of the pornography and obscenity that plagues the cities and even small towns of America. Cincinnati does not have adult bookstores, strip shows, sex shows, or 'red light' districts."
Straightforwardly, Burress proclaims, "Josh Sturges' work is pornography prosecutable by the law. That he and the other photographers are creating work that meets the definition of pornography, and that they are exploiting children, make it criminal. Just because he shoots glossy photos printed on sleek paper and placed in a fancy book doesn't make him any less culpable. On May 15th, a group of us child advocates met with the Deputy Attorney General and gave him copies of the books; the Justice Department is deciding what action to take.
"Pedophiles feed on these types of books. In every case of arrest of a pedophile, child pornography has been found. Yet, there are professionals out there who believe that all material--even pornography--should be protected by the First Amendment. How can they think that when innocent children, who aren't old enough to consent to such exploitation, are featured in books? What if years later these children want to rid themselves of having been displayed in nude photography books . . . how do they do that after their pictures have been shown worldwide to everyone? Publishing and selling these books in bookstores only worsens the problem."
Chris Finan, American Booksellers Association president, says, "The First Amendment protects the artists' right to create art, just as it protects others' right to self-expression." Yet, neither bookstore, Aperture, or the ABA have prosecuted the protestors, nor offered a reason why.
"Just as the protestors have a right to protest, so do the artists have a right to create," says Theresa Haggerty, Manager of Salisbury, Maryland's B. Dalton bookstore. "We stand behind Borders, and Barnes and Noble's right to carry the books, and although we don't have it for sale in our store, we would . . . order . . . [upon] request. No one is forcing customers to buy something they don't want, but they should have the right to choose . . . just as artists should have the right to create the art they desire. We are a free country with our rights protected by the First Amendment."
Mary McGinley of Washington University's bookstore in St. Louis, agrees, "I'll order any book a patron wants, but," she goes on to add, "I'm not sure if what these three artists have created is truly art."

Many tend to agree with McGinley on the issue of what is and isn't art, but the government thinks it has a handle on it. John Barrett, legislative aide for Senator Kermit Brashear who authored LB 1349, comments, "The Senator wants to do something about the problem of child porn. He's tried to change the current law that states it's constitutional to own three erotic pictures, to a law that finds it's illegal to own even one. He intends to revisit the entire issue because the three-image law allows sex criminals to hide behind the Constitution. Our concern isn't limited to the purchase of books, but also includes the downloading of pictures on the Internet; there are major crimes going on here."

The Three Photographers on the Internet
According to the opposition, there's a connection between photography and viewing nude children, and pedophilia and sexual molestation. It is this correlation that's playing itself out today not only in photography, but also on the internet which serves as a major source of obscenity. One website validates this: "Books by Jock Sturges, David Hamilton and Sally Mann as well as Family Nudist Videos are available at [website]. These books and videos present nude minors engaged in nudist activity. . . ."
Another affirmation is seen in a statement made by Sturges' interviewer, C.M. Faubert: ". . . we have not used images from Jock Sturges' books . . . [because] . . . Every time an image appears on site . . . invariably it ends up in circulation on sites and . . . news groups that are simply inappropriate."
Thus, porno sites are downloading the artists' photographs for display.
"Enough is enough," resounds the chant across America, hitting the ear-waves of the organization by the same name. Enough is Enough is a national, non-profit association that addresses sexual exploitation, focusing on the internet. Watson offers that "to date, there are 100,000 commercial pornography sites, and at least tens of thousands additional web addresses--all available to children, not counting the 200 websites that are added daily. Because of the proliferation of such pages, college students are hired to design porn websites at a compensation rate of $.25 per click.
"Computer bulletin boards, chat rooms, newsrooms, and instant/private messages are the main tools used by pedophiles," adds Watson. "Playboy's site averages 5 million hits per day, while 18.8 million children under age 18 have access to home computers, with teens logging on at 8.5 hours per week in contrast to spending only 1.8 hours for schoolwork, which gives an indication of whom might be clicking on the Playboy site."

Watson stresses, "Pornography is big business; it's estimated that on the Net it's equivalent to $30-billion in advertising. Cyberporn is easily available to kids who [accidentally] come across it by through spelling errors or mis-use of names." An example is the website "whitehouse.gov" which gives users the U.S. President's website, whereas "Whitehouse.com" is a porno site.
Says Watson, "There is little legislation to prevent porn, and what is in existence, is often not enforced because of the lack of manpower. For example, in the last year, out of the 4,000 active files overseen by the F.B.I., only 200 convictions resulted. There is new legislation addressing the issues but not enough is being done. So it's no wonder that porn sites can feature nude children by Sturges, Hamilton, and Mann."

Conclusion
There are no winners in the war over art versus reality/rights versus morality, for the issue is double-edged.
While the three artists are protected by certain inalienable rights--and freedom of speech is one of them--adversaries take the position that such "art" contributes to the sweeping decay of American values.
Richard Williams of OpRes sums it up: "There is so much evil going on in this world, that if we don't start applying the brakes now, the situation will go way beyond being salvageable. . . . Our nation has rejected God, and now we're paying for it. Things will only change when we put the proper people in office, and we turn back to God."
Yet of tantamount consideration is the importance of keeping our Constitution in tact--a Constitution that states everyone is created equally with equal rights.
Burress puts a thought-provoking spin on the issue: "A photograph is a permanent and actual record of child abuse and child pornography--a record that can never be reversed."
This argument of "art vs reality" or rights vs morality" is a long way off from being settled.

See complete article for legislation timeline and list of resources, statistics, and other information. Request all documentation from the author.

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