yesterdfay i stumbled upon a very disturbing situation while doing an online search.

there was an art teacher i had back years ago who was an amazing painter and i recently remembered some of his work and wanted to see if i could find some examples online to show to someone i'd been telling about it. at first i couldn't find anything - then got a shock when i did find something. he had been accused and charged and tried for making and possessing child porn and for sex abuse of children. i never had any concerns while i was in his classes and never saw anything inappropriate in his behavior.

here is where it gets complicated. the evidence was photos and videos in which the kids - his own daughter and a couple of children of the mother of his daughter (but not by him) were playing in the nude - swimming and just goofing around - not specifically sexual. the accuser was the mother - who had a history of mental illness, had burglarized his house to get the photos, and who had even been present when some of the photos were taken. she had also threatened murder/suicide and assaulted him.

long story short: it went to trial and first time he was acquitted. some technicality led to a retrial. but before that happened he was pressured into pleading guilty to one count of abuse - in exchange for all the other charges being dropped.

i am really conflicted about this - no way i can ever know if he was guilty or not. but i do know the FEAR of being falsely suspected or accused for abuse that is not even within the scope of my imagination - to say nothing of ever becoming a perp. so i feel a certain sympathy for mim - but also a fear and anger that it might be true. if it were just a news account about a stranger it wouldn't bother me so much.

and then there is the debate about whether nude images equal porn. i have been in the awkward and uncomfortable position of having students and parents complain about nudes in renaissance paintings and sculptures, etc. in prints in books and images in my slide show powerpoints on art history. i am pretty selective and discrete about it - even found a photo of Michelangelo's David with a fig leaf strategically placed. i really think the complaints were unjustified and overly prudish.

i don't know ... i wish i could just forget about it - but i guess since it is bothering me so much, it must be something i need to resolve. or am i just needlessly over-reacting and obsessing?

lee

I say not. His own kids at play? C'mon. People involved in pornography don't have one image or video. We know they have thousands of them. This poor guy got bullied into a plea. I've done similar... copped a plea on a charge I probably could've beat in a trial. But they stack the deck, Lee. If you resist the one charge they throw the book at you for all the ancillary crimes they can think of. A guilty plea does not always mean a guilty man.

This subject reminds me of that haunting and highly controversial photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe. It was a candid shot of a young girl, in France, if I recall. She was sitting on a wide sweep of low steps in a dress without underwear on. We know this from the low vantage point of the viewer. Yes we see right up her dress. But we also see her looking back at us with big innocent eyes. She is calm, relaxed and stares into the camera without a hint of self-consciousness. She is the epitome of girlish purity. Because there may be the presence of sexual organs in an image does not universally qualify the image as indecent. That said, those images that contain these elements but are not porn are few and far between. I believe context is everything. I like the Mapplethorpe but I could see why people can be up in arms about it. Exploitation is ugly and real.

However, in these cases given the information that I understand to be true I would not put these instances in the category of exploitive images that enganger children. Sometimes we forget there really is a whole innocent world out there... somewhere. Just my $0.02

If they found him with videos of him playing naked with his kids and his kids friends then I say he is as guilty and any other predator and i cant believe that the case got plead down .....Just my opinion.

I truly believe that broader contest should be known to have some opinion. I can't see fertile discussion is something wrong happened if we don't know more details. I don't like idea that some people can ruin someone's life so easily, the true is that some shadow would left around that painter no matter is he guilty or not...
Beside that, discussions about nudity in art, whether nude images equal porn etc. are very disturbing to me. People who see more than is offered there are very troublesome for me, their dysfunction scares me.
I would never be at easy to let my child near such people, but I'm coming from different culture. We all as kids played completely naked at beach, that is very usual here and it is beyond common sense to discuss that matter. Those are my 2 cents.
Pero

I do not know the details of this particular case, but in my opinion... Taking pictures and video of nude children is questionable. The continued taking of pictures and video of other people's children particularly without the parent's knowledge or consent is not alright.

Of course there is nudity in fine art. Mapplethorpe was not an art teacher, but one of the best photographers in the history of the medium. In addition to that, I am sure he discussed the taking of pictures and the final photograph with one or both of the child's parents.

What parent would not be concerned of wrong doing if they suddenly found out the guy down the street had naked photos and video of their children?

Its an unfortunate reality that our laws and our legal system often don't reflect what should constitute justice, or in cases similar to this take into account what may have been a simple misunderstanding or at worst an innocent error in judgement.

Here in Canada we have a child pornography law that makes it illegal to create or distribute sexual images of persons under the age of 18. The intent of the law is to prevent the sexual expoitation of children and youth yet the number of teenage kids charged with creating child pornography for taking pictures OF THEMSELVES is ridiculous. At worst what also happens is a teenage boy or girl break up with the other and one of them post such images on-line to get revenge. While this is serious because then said images are available for the general public to view, the courts need to take into account that the motivation is just kids being stupid and not an instance of hard core child pornographers at work. While the laws obviously need to exist I don't see any justice in ruining a young person for life over a dumb mistake.

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