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October 6, 2008
In Innocence defiled, again? The art of Bill Henson and the welfare of children in the Australian Review of Public Affairs Kylie Valentine says that the debate over Bill Henson's photography and child sexuality has largely been cast as a debate about whether Henson produced art or pornography.
Aside from a brief interview with Henson himself, published on the day of the police raid ... there has been very little discussion about adolescent sexuality, about the representation of sexuality, and about the agency of children and young people in negotiating both sexuality and representation. The welfare of children is either defended by those decrying the Henson exhibition, or dismissed as irrelevant to the issue. The debate has largely been between adults over the values that adults should hold in protecting children and viewing art. Children and young people themselves have been almost entirely absent.
She says that this exclusion of children and young people from the Henson debate is not really surprising: there is a tradition of treating children as both incapable of contributing to the public arena and in need of protection from its dangers. Yet there is also an emerging body of work that argues children are both more capable and more rational than is often assumed. Many also argue that children are entitled to greater participation than they are currently allowed in decisions that affect them.
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As Yvette Doll I generated more money than Bill Henson, and I did it in the same line of work, I dedicated new media to the cause of sex liberation, what Bill Henson does, in my view and in the eyes of the law in London is child pornography.
The difference between my liberated views and Henson's is that I set limits, because limits there had to be, otherwise our movement would become Pedophilia Inc.
It doesn't surprise me that Henson was prowling primary schools for new victims. Bill Henson is a pervert from cowtowm, he is not a great artist, he's a porn merchant who sells photos of naked kids to pedophiles.