Putting a vorpal blade to the Neo-Calvinists

Censorship laws in Australia seem to have reverted to something pre-Don Chip. Although in the bad old days it was Queensland that had problems with naked women's breasts, including a visiting islander troop that had to dance wearing bras! Not New South Wales.

The Age bravely reproduces the image that has got Bill Henson into trouble with the police, and the federal government. I'd do the same if I wasn't unsure of the copyright situation. If you voted for Kevin Rudd last election, is this what you thought you were voting for?

Let's put this in perspective. Here is a photo taken by Charles Dodson, mathematician, logician, amateur photographer, author and Anglican clergyman. I can't find any of his nude photos online, but he did take photos of 11 year old Alice Lidell, who also was the model for Alice, in the book he wrote under his pen name of Lewis Carroll. I'd argue that this photo is far more erotic than the Henson one.

Photos of naked girls were apparently quite common in Victorian England, even appearing on Christmas cards.

Clive Hamilton, Oliver Cromwell of the Neo-Calvinistsappears to argue that it doesn't matter whether the photos are pornographic or not, but whether some perverted individuals might use them for sexual gratification. We know that these sorts of people can get quite excited by photographs of full-clothed young girls at school sports days. What are we supposed to do as a society? Treat everything as though the whole society is sexually perverted and parade our girls, and boys, around in burkhas?

Or use our common sense and apply an objective test to questions of juvenile sexual expoitation?