Right: Bill Henson admits to a fascination with adolescence as a bridge between the child and the young adult. His photographs strive to capture the essence of this transition.
Arguments supporting a ban and criminal action against Bill Henson
1. Some of the children shown in Mr Henson's work are presented in a sexual context
Part of the legal definition of pornography as it applies to representations of children is that they are presented in a 'sexual context'. Some of Bill Henson's critics claim that this is exactly what many of his photographs do.
Miranda Devine in an opinion piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald on May 22, 2008, claimed, 'Opening tonight at the elegant Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in the heart of Paddington is an exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson, featuring naked 12 and 13 year-olds.
The invitation to the exhibition features a large photo of a girl, the light shining on her hair, eyes downcast, dark shadows on her sombre, beautiful face, and the budding breasts of puberty on full display, her hand casually covering her crotch.
Such images presenting children in sexual contexts are so commonplace these days they seem almost to have lost the capacity to shock.
The effort over many decades by various groups - artists, perverts, academics, libertarians, the media and advertising industries, respectable corporations and the porn industry - to smash taboos of previous generations and define down community standards, has successfully eroded the special protection once afforded childhood.'
Child rights campaigner, Hetty Johnston, the head of Braveheart, has stated, 'Pictures portraying sexualised imagery of young girls can never be called art. It is child pornography, child exploitation and it is a crime.'
2. The children being photographed are not in a position to give informed consent
It has been argued that the children who have supposedly given their consent to being photographed by Bill Henson were too young to recognise the full implications of what they agreed to. As such, it is claimed, they are in no position to give meaningful consent.
Steve Biddolph, a child psychologist, has stated, 'Teenage children are developmentally fragile. They try on any number of selves, and have to be free to do so, without adult predation on their bodies or minds.
What might seem cool and exciting one day to a teenager, they would regard with horror and embarrassment on another day and at another time.
That's why consent is not a justification, as it is almost impossible for a young person to separate their own feelings from those around them, and they depend on adults to both affirm them, and yet give them space to unfold who they are, a process taking many years.'
Similarly, in a letter to The Age published on May 24, 2008, it was stated, 'It is almost certain that a 12 or 13-year-old child would not grasp the full implications of what it means to be photographed naked and then have these images presented publicly. Our focus as a community should be on the best interests of the child and not the right of artists to further their careers through controversy.'
It has also been claimed that the parents of these children have no right to consent on their behalf. This point has been made in a letter to the editor published in The Age on May 31, 2008. The letter states, 'No one, including parents, knows how in adulthood a 13-year-old will respond to having been photographed nude while still a child, and having her image hung on a cold wall in a gallery somewhere for the entire world to peruse, ogle, ponder, marvel at, be moved by or whatever the response of the individual viewer might be.
Neither you nor the artist has the right to take the chance and neither do you have the right to make the choice for her. Defaulting to the position that it was her "aware" decision is a cop-out and insupportable.'
Child protection charity Child Wise's chief executive Bernadette McMenamin said some 13-year-olds would be mature enough to give informed consent. 'But for the majority of children, they need protection from making potentially harmful decisions that may affect them,' she said.
3. The children being photographed may suffer immediate and long term harm
It has been suggested that photographing 12 and 13 year old girls naked could be distressing for them at the time and could also have harmful long-term consequences for them.
Anne Dunell, in a letter to The Age published on May 29, 2008, wrote, 'I cannot think of one adolescent girl, no matter how confident, no matter how well schooled in art appreciation, who would not feel some level of discomfort and vulnerability by being placed in the position of nude model to a relative stranger, no matter how respectful his approach.'
Child psychologist, Steve Biddolph, has stated, 'Photographing teenage children naked and exposed, while it could be innocent and beautiful in a different kind of world, takes their power and their privacy away and lets the world in. It's using them.
An adult model has some power of choice, some accumulated sense of consequence, some developed boundaries of self, and even so it is a dangerous activity.'
Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance director, Simon Whipp, has stated, 'Parents are not often in this area the best people to make the decision. Often the parents are seeking to promote the children.'
Mr Whipp said the debate over the seized images should focus on whether a 13-year-old was able to give informed consent. 'It's not the parents in 10 or 20 years' time to suffer the potential emotional damage,' he said.
Clive Hamilton, author of the report 'Corporate Paedophilia', has argued, 'If we imagine going back 30 years and this sort of exhibition being put on in a gallery and it was seen by its intended audience, that is those who have presumably a sophisticated appreciation of photography as art, then I ... certainly wouldn't have a problem with it.
But when the same pictures become consumed, if I can use that commodified term, by a range of people for quite different and unintended reasons, which will have impacts on the child models in question, through the internet, then I think there are serious worries about that.
I mean, if this girl at age 30 .... has a career and an integrity and, you know, a history behind her and suddenly these pictures pop up in a magazine or on the internet, I mean, I'd imagine there's a good chance she'd be humiliated.
And yet it seems to me that the adults around her who have her interests at heart and organised, approved the exhibition, were not fully aware of these dangers and have probably caused that child some damage.'
4. These works could act as an encouragement to paedophiles
It has been claimed that whatever the intent of the artist, these photographs are likely to be sexually titillating and may act as an encouragement to paedophiles.
Referring to the owners of the Oxley9 Gallery, Paul Sheehan, writing in The Australian noted, 'The reality is they knew exactly what they were doing when they used an arresting photograph of a naked 13-year-old girl to illustrate the invitation sent out to prospective customers. Sex sells. Ambiguity titillates.'
Clive Hamilton, author of the report 'Corporate Paedophilia', has argued that the images Bill Henson produces can be mass disseminated, especially on the Internet. Once this happens, Hamilton suggests, these images are likely to be used by paedophiles for their own dubious purposes.
Hamilton has written, 'Well I think the way childhood has been sexualised so heavily, particularly over the last 10 or 15 years, has inevitably changed the way we see children in their naked form.
I've argued that previously when perhaps it was a more innocent age, then artistic representations of children, as is the case with the Bill Henson exhibition, wouldn't have provided difficulty.
But in an age where children have been so heavily sexualised by commercial organisations and by the wider culture and where there's so much more alarm about paedophilia, then I think the presentation of a 12-year-old girl, for instance, naked to the public, really has quite a different impact and raises new concerns.
In particular, when they are placed on the internet, you know they're flashed around the world within hours and even though the website from the gallery in question has been taken down, the images of this girl who is about 12 we believe, are all around the world and can be used for all sorts of unpleasant purposes.'
5. These works are part of a social trend toward the sexualisation of children
It has been claimed that the work of Bill Henson and other artists are part of a general trend within Western society to sexualise life in general and children in particular. Child psychologist, Steve Biddolph has noted, 'Tens of thousands of parents now deal with the tensions in their daughters and sons as they struggle with self-image concerns they rarely had a generation ago, and teens themselves have to deal with the assumption that they will have sex long before they feel emotionally ready.
This is a media-created problem, and art is just another media, though one that we might hope was more creative and less harmful.
It seems idiotic to worry about our "freedoms" when children going to primary school routinely view ads for penis enlargers and brothels towering over our suburban shopping centres.
To come out of sexual prudery is one thing, to be swamped in sexual pressure is as limiting and oppressive in the other direction.'
Paul Sheehan, writing in The Australian, has noted, '...we [should never] forget a larger, wider, more invidious issue - the depiction and exploitation of very young women in our society for commercial gain. Entire industries are built on feeding anxiety in women about their bodies and their appearance. Why, for example, does it remain acceptable for tall, skinny 16-year-old girls to be held up as the gold standard of beauty by women's magazines, fashion designers and department stores even though this body type represents an impossible ideal?'
6. It is possible for work which claims to be art to be pornographic
It has been argued that works which claims to be art can still be pornographic.
This point has been in part made by child psychologist, Steve Biddolph, who has stated, 'It is astonishing that the debate over Bill Henson's photographs has been framed as art versus pornography, as if these were mutually exclusive, tidy categories that settle the matter once and for all. And as if art somehow excuses us from moral behaviour.'
It has further been noted that the artist's intent may be irrelevant. In the past works regarded as fine art were typically viewed by relatively few people, most of whom could be expected to have a sophisticated understanding of what they were viewing, and were unlikely to regard these images as mere sexual stimulation.
The difficulty now is that such images can be readily disseminated through the Internet and viewed by audiences which may well use them for purposes other than those they were originally intended to meet.
Clive Hamilton, author of the report 'Corporate Paedophilia', has argued, 'If we imagine going back 30 years and this sort of exhibition being put on in a gallery and it was seen by its intended audience, that is those who have presumably a sophisticated appreciation of photography as art, then I ... certainly wouldn't have a problem with it.
But when the same pictures become consumed, if I can use that commodified term, by a range of people for quite different and unintended reasons ... through the internet, then I think there are serious worries about that.'
Such arguments may mean that while it may be inappropriate to charge the artist, as it was not his intention to produce pornography, it may be appropriate to ban the work, or limit its dissemination, to prevent it being used as pornography.
7. Artists are not above the law
A number of commentators have stressed that art is not some moral free zone exempt from the operation of law.
Daryl McLure, writing for the Geelong Advertiser, noted in an article published on June 2, 2008, 'I do not think Henson's intention was to produce pornography and I suspect the images of the 12- and 13-year-olds will be found not to be so because there is no sexual activity involved. But are they obscene and/or is it lawful for young children to be exposed in this way? That might be tested by the law.
Artists, despite what they might think, are not above the law. If they want to provoke, confront and test society's agreed boundaries of morals, ethics and good taste, well and good. But when they over-step those boundaries, they must expect to suffer the consequences.'
Andrew Bolt, in a column published in The Herald Sun on May 28, 2008, had also argued that artists are not above the law or the censure of public opinion. They do not exclusively determine the manner in which their works will be judged.
Mr Bolt stated, 'Attention fellow arts lovers: didn't artists at Kevin Rudd's ideas summit demand we take them seriously?
Well, here is the public taking art very seriously indeed, judging that pictures like Henson's have a cultural effect well beyond the walls of some chic gallery or collector's bedroom.
This is no time for the arts mafia to shriek that, on second thoughts, art is theirs alone - to be defined only by them, viewed only by them, felt only by them, policed only by them.'