Censorship-Jock Sturges comes to Photo.net

From personal experience, if I give a passenger a ride in my car and don't know that the passenger is a snow princess delivering coke, I could be forced to forfeit my car to the police. Many years ago, it was the very worst nightmare of my life.

 

A business owner (Photo.net and Luminal Path) could just as easily lose thier computer equipment if unknowingly, somebody started posting images that an overzealous prosecuter decided were illegal. The legal fight would be tens of thousands of dollars.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, Lannie, John, and Sam, especially.

 

I would just like to underscore that last point by Sam. Mr Sturges was very gentlemanly in his exchange of emails with me, and he reacted to my request in a very polite way. I would not like to see this thread devolve into Jock-bashing. (I'm glad that it hasn't so far.)

 

My actions in this episode have nothing to do with my opinion of Mr Sturges or his work, and entirely to do with photo.net's policies concerning what is appropriate content for the site, and our intent to apply those policies uniformly.

The reason for Mr. Sturges' departure from PN has been clearly explained (Thanks, Brian!). He seems to have been very reasonable, if not gracious regarding the situation. Before this thread degenerates into something ugly (probably inevitable), why not just shut it down? Not delete it, mind you, but simply block any further posts.

 

Just a thought.

Bob Atkins and I both used to work for AT&T/Lucent back in the 1990's. About 10 years ago when the web was still fairly new to most people, AT&T hired an outside firm to block internet access to certain "inappropriate" web sites from inside the company. Both Bob and I recall that for a while, like several weeks, photo.net was black listed. When we tried to access it from AT&T, it would display a large warning sign. Apparently the problem was nude images on photo.net.

 

I can certainly see why Brian does not want photo.net to become a "controversal" photo site, regardless of what your opinion of Jock Sturges' work may be. Jock Sturges posted Brian's e-mail requesting him to remove the under-18 images in his portfolio. IMO both sides handled it very professionally, although it is unfortunate that Sturges chose not to participate in photo.her altogether.

 

<p>Lines are drawn. They have to be but we also have to ask why we are drawing

the lines at particular places. On PN it seems one line is drawn at Jock Sturges.

This thread gives a fair indication of the reasons why and they all have little

or nothing to do with photography. The political climate, fear of litigation,

fear of perverts thinking PN is inviting them to participate, are all cited

as reasons. Yet a website called photo.net presumably wishes to support the

photographic arts. Art, at least the very best art, explicity pushes at accepted

boundaries. That remains one of its fundamental purposes. So, what are we going

to do about Jock Sturges?</p>

<p>Whilst I appreciate Brian's detailed answer and fully grasp the extent of his

regret for the action he has felt obliged to carry out I think it's important

to examine one assertion he makes. I quote-'<i>there are too many who would

claim to be pulling up next to Jock Sturges, but who would actually be charging

past Jock, past any boundary of decency, and into the territory of child pornography.'

'I shudder at opening the door</i>' It is difficult to consider this assertion

without quickly wondering how far away from the door we need to stand. If we

accept Brian's thought as a basis for exclusion of particular images we could

quite logically ban everything. Unfortunately I am reminded of the exasperated

reactions of christian fundamentalists to homosexual marriage. 'What next?'

they call in protesting voices. 'Weddings for animals. For children.'</p>

<p> However, I type this in the south of France, right next to one of those beaches

Brian talks about. I write as someone with no substantial stakes in the outcome

and as such I fully respect whatever decision those who would pay the price

come to. Today I sit on the beach decrying censorship and tomorrow Brian, champion

of free speech and staunch supporter of controversial art, finds himself on

a sexual offenders register. I realise he has to protect himself and the business

he runs and that maybe the political climate in the US is somewhat distorted

at the moment. Lying on a cote d'azur beach waving $25 rather excludes me from

any right to make judgements if Brian or Jock Sturges feel their actual liberty/livelihoods/integrity

are threatened. They've gotta do what they've gotta do.</p>

<p> And yet Brian presents his thoughts with such a tone of regret that I can't

help feeling he very much wants Mr. Sturges to remain using the site. Anyone

reading the critiques Sturges has written cannot but be impressed. Mr Sturges

has understandably pulled his work but he came here for a reason in the first

place and I doubt the reason has yet been fulfilled. So, still, <i>'I am left

wondering if a mechanism cannot be created to allow him to show his works on

PN' </i> This part of my initial question has been largely ignored. Jock wants

to be here. Brian appears to want him here. And today that's not happening.

A victory for fundamentalists forces and an abject defeat for art and freedom

of expression. Smile everybody.</p>

<p>Is there a solution? Possibly. It's far from idea and requires a huge amount

of largesse on the part of the artist in order for it to work.</p>

<p>Years ago an artist told me life is a survive and compromise process. The question

remaining today is whether Jock Sturges is willing to compromise his selection

of photos in order to participate on the site. I presume it remains permissable

for him to post a link to his own or any other website which was willing to

carry any photos deemed unsuitable for photo.net. Jock Sturges knows the world

he is in. I wonder if asked by the New York Times to submit a photo for an feature

article they were running about him and also asked to only submit one of his

less controversial pieces, what his reaction would be. If he would willingly

submit the requested photo to the NYT then it follows that he can continue to

post images on PN which apply by the given rules. </p>

<p>I'm glad Mapplethorpe's dicks and bullwhips were displayed in galleries but

I think the work of his which touched the finer artistic heights were his universally

acceptable photos of flowers. Today on the Cote D'azur the breasts are still

bared, percentage with implants increasing day by day. To my mind, cutting open

something as beautiful as a breast, shoving artificial material into it, stitching

it back up and naming the process 'enhancment' is a serious obscenity. Yet there

are an abundance of photos of chicks with fake tits on PN. We live in a world

of dumb and deadening ironies, contradictions in taste and expression, false

drama and need. The artist provides balm when we ask. The great artist provides

balm even when we say we don't want it.</p>

<p> </p>

 

Well said Mr. Darrell M.

"I'm glad Mapplethorpe's dicks and bullwhips were displayed in galleries. . . ."

 

May I ask why?

 

Would you also be pleased if photos of women rubbing their lubricating vulvas were likewise on display in the finest galleries? What about explicit photos of couples in the final throes of the act, with bodily fluids very much in evidence from every possible angle?

 

What if we went a step further and went beyond depictions to the real thing: real women or real couples for us to witness as we march by, all in the name of "living art," or some such?

 

Would you be pleased if Hustler's cover photo of an inverted woman being fed head-first into a meat-grinder were displayed at MOMA or the National Gallery? Would you feel edified?

 

Would you be pleased if the best ballet companies offered nude presentations of _The Nutcracker_ to the kiddies every holiday season?

 

More important, is anyone at this particular on-line gallery obligated to fulfill your, my, Sturges', Mapplethorpes', or Hustler's artistic vision, regardless to the cost to themselves and to the site/gallery?

 

ARE THEY OBLIGATED TO PUBLISH ANYTHING AT ALL, MUCH LESS EVERYTHING?

 

If so, why are they so obligated?

 

I, too, would be delighted to see some of Sturges' work on this site, now that I have had a chance to see some of his work. I do not, however, agree that PN is obligated to suspend the rules for Sturges while enforcing them for the rest of us, and to say to him: "You are welcome to publish anything and everything that you desire. Furthermore, we feel obligated to publish whatever you want to publish, even if it costs us our fortune or freedom."

 

Yes, this whole episode is regrettable. In the grand scheme of things, however, Sturges' unwillingness to accept the site's rules is not exactly a great tragedy.

 

Indeed, it increasingly appears quite comical. The great artist looks to me like just one more prima donna. The refusal to "compromise" appears to be less about artistic integrity and more about petulance.

 

I don't feel like crying about this. I am more inclined to laugh.

 

I'll say it again: the guy was not forced off the site. He left on his own. I like his pictures, but I increasingly don't care if he comes back or not.

 

If he accepts the limitations of posting on the site, he certainly may return. The standing invitation is there. If he refuses, are we to wring our hands?

 

You can wring your hands over this great "tragedy" if you want to. As for myself, I would prefer to wash my hands and be done with this whole issue. After all, he is still welcome here, but he will have to recognize that he is a mere mortal with no special powers or privileges.

 

I frankly am not sure that he is up to that.

 

--Lannie

I'm glad Mapplethorpe was displayed because not only was it good art it also

indicated a willingness to accept the human form displayed in an unconventional

and until that point unacceptable manner. Mapplethorpe's vision was villified

by the society he lived him. The displays in galleries and museums were an indication

that said society was evolving-slowly and not without fuss-but evolving

nonetheless.<br>

<br>

<i>'women rubbing their lubricating vulvas .. likewise on display in the finest

galleries</i>' Yeah, why not. I've seen such works displayed in London. Done

with a certain amount of artistry it works. Have a look at <a href="http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/courbet/origin.jpg.html">this</a>,

hanging in the Musse D'orsay, Paris.</p>

<p><i>'Would you be pleased if Hustler's cover photo of an inverted woman being

fed head-first into a meat-grinder were displayed at MOMA or the National Gallery?

Would you feel edified?' </i>Not particually. Did I write something to make

you think I might? Landrum, I put a bit of thought into what I wrote. It's a

shame you didn't read it. If you did perhaps you read it too quickly. Your rant

rather betrays your earlier words and was probably unnecessary-if you re-read

what I wrote I think you might discover our positions are not particually different.</p>

<p>As for ballet-well I'm not a fan but it's always struck me as odd that they

get dressed up for it. But hey, I'm getting off topic here.

Darrell,

 

I am sorry for my over-the-top tone on my last post above. My larger point is not at all to put Sturges into the same category as these other possible postings, but merely to point out that persons' views about art will differ--and moderators and directors in all types of galleries will make decisions with regard to these differences.

 

Editorial decisions are a fact of life. I am not sure myself what ought or ought not to be displayed as art, but I actually do try to keep an open mind about such things.

 

I am sorry if what I wrote came off as a rant or as a dogma. I threw the Hustler case in there as exemplary of one extreme. It does seem to be in a category of its own, due to the infantile and prurient attitudes found among the editors of that benighted publication.

 

It will be interesting indeed to see how social views evolve regarding both art and morals, and it will be even more interesting still (to me) to see what non-dogmatic persons will continue to find revulsive or objectionable. There might indeed be some residue of something called "human nature" that will always recoil at certain types of images, since I do not think that the morality of what passes for art is a mere fashion or convention--although it sometimes seems to be. I do not subscribe to the "tabula rasa" conception of morals, including aesthetic questions having ethical implications. Nor do I claim to have a priori answers to such questions.

 

I am actually glad that you started this thread, and I think that the philosophical questions that it raises have great value. I suspect that we should be examining them on the philosophical forums, and so I will stop posting on this one.

 

I want to affirm that I am not trying to mock you, and I am not trying to compare Sturges' work to some fairly absurd examples.

 

Again, I am sorry if it came off that way. I wrote too hastily, and without sufficient proofing of what I wrote.

 

--Lannie

There is a fine line between child porn and what we would call art. It simply is in the eye of the beholder. We are in a society that is strongly prosecuting people for simply having anything that may be interpreted as child porn. Just recently Oprah Winfrey has offered rewards for child pornographers that are on the FBI's most wanted. A few of these felons have been apprehended and are no longer free to roam the streets. I think the danger of any image, is how it is interpreted. I believe PN has to excercise it's "terms of use" for it own protection. I believe Mr. Sturges has respected PN and realizes that his presence potentially would harm PN's original purpose. Unfortunately, we are in a society where men will forgive and justify some of these images as art. Where as others would see us as endorsers of what is interpreted as child porn.

What a joke! Now, to be fair I'm commenting on the photo posted in this forum. This is the only Jock Sturges photo that I've ever seen and judging by it, I wouldn't bother to look any further. This photo, had it been an adult model, would rate about a 4. But, do a photo of a child like this, and the controvercy makes the photographer "WORLD CLASS". No matter how good the actual photographer is, using nude children to further your career is discusting at best. Trying to call it art is an insult to all artists of all levels who truely strive to tap the emotions of the viewer. Putting my personal opinion aside, I must ask why anyone feels that he should have the right to post his photos on this site? This is not a government subsidized site. The rules are clearly stated and you have a choice to join or not, based on your feelings about them. The site clearly has the right to remove any photos that they find unacceptable and, as I understand it, went as far as to ask him to remove the photos to which he did. I agree that we don't all see things the same way, if we did there would be no art! I'm sure that Photonet has pulled photos the I would find nothing wrong with, but it is thier right to do so.

The photos in this forum thread are not by Jock Sturges. And when I asked Jock to remove certain photos from his portfolio, he removed the portfolio without a single complaint or harsh comment.

Brian- Thank you for pointing that out, I was unaware that was not his photo. For the record, I do try to give credit where it is due, and I think that both your decision to first ASK him to remove the photos and his decision to do so showed class on both of your parts. I apologize to Mr. Sturges for confusing the artwork as his. Having never seen his work, I will post no direct opinion on him. However, my opinion stands the same on ANYONE who uses nude children to advance thier career, NO EXCEPTIONS.

I have a sister who is a teacher, and she has told me in the past that just one -- exactly one -- unfounded accusation from a student of any age against a teacher regarding any sort of claim of anything related to sexuality, including, I think I recall, a male teacher just looking at a well-endowed female student age 17, is enough to cost a teacher a career (or more, much more) even though the accusation is completely unfounded.

 

Such accusations are toxic.

 

And when a REAL CHILD MOLESTER goes to jail, as an attorney (and as a citizen) I have long known that they are placed in protective custody, for they are the scum of the scum when they are incarcerated -- at least some other prisoner (perhaps one who has children or someone who has been abused, or just one who lacks impulse control and wants notoriety) will find a way to murder the incarcerated child molester.

 

My state, California, has a major problem finding a place to house convicted sexual offenders, pederasts, who have completed their sentences AND who who have completed not only counseling but also are deemed by the courts and others at low risk of re-offending.

 

NIMBY (Not In My Backyard).

 

Public disclosure laws cause their residence addresses to be made public and they get driven out even of the low-rent motels probation or confinement exit people place them in, and they have even ended up being housed 'freely' on the grounds of prisons, able to come and go, because society reviles them so much, they cannot find a place to live (and perhaps rightly so, they have done and some are likely again to do things that are unspeakably horrendous.)

 

Washington State and other states have wrestled with the problem and found (as California once did, and I think has again) created a new classification similar to the old category of the 'mentally disordered sexual offender' -- a classification of an individual who poses a risk to society, and incarcerates disordered individuals AFTER they have served their prison time (because they have shown no ability to control their impulses to offend, though the state engages in the 'fiction' the 'men' ostensibly are 'free' except for the confinement. The only real difference basically is the incarcerated 'men' can read what they want, listen to what they want, and they are supposed to be 'treated' for their 'disorder' (but for what is basically an 'orientation' which the best doctors/scientists say basically is untreatable, and which has horrible societal consequences -- their 'orientation' and society's interests just cannot co-exit.)

 

I once (inadvertently) worked with a man, a kitchen worker, who was a true sex criminal. He worked in the kitchens of Columbia University. He once threatened to slit my throat. (I begged off when he told me he thought I believed he wouldn't do it. I said I was sure he would).

 

He had used that same knife to kill a bunch of old ladies in elevators in Manhattan's Washington Height's neighborhood where he raped them first before killing them; I found his photo on the cab front seat as I left school for home that year -- he had been arrested, and will be in jail the rest of his life. He had been abused as a child by a 'grandmother'.

 

Some child molesters do terrible things to children, almost always under stealth and in too many cases that ends in the kidnapping and murder of the child because the child molester is aware of the consequences if he/she is identified. (it most often is a he.)

(Some child molesters are not murderers and are not violent, but society only understands about the worst cases -- the abductors and the murderers -- all are scum.)

 

The claim they have of kind of 'love' for children is not really 'love' at all; it's sick and disgusting, and society has done the right thing with those people, I think finally, after sweeping the problem under the carpet for much of my life.

 

As a former practicing attorney, I was long aware of the smoldering problem of molestation victims, because my state was a leader in allowing children who grew up to sue their formerly molesting parent(s) for damages for their old molestation (and insurance often paid the bill until later it was written out of policies -- for future abuse -- such recoveries no longer are available funded by insurances. Attorneys made rich, thriving practices out of representing abuse victims against their parents -- and parents' insurance companies -- when I was practicing.)

 

Now compare that with people who just like and/or love to work with children who don't have morbid or sick sexual fascination with children: the little league coach, the girl scout leader, the school teacher, the kindly aunt/uncle/grandmother/grandfather/godparent/neighbor.

 

Once a neighbor's son and daughter came to me from across the street (they played with my children and often were in my house); they seemed to want to be 'hugged' and wanted to cling to me and my wife.

 

I declined. I went to my kindly neighbor, a mortgage banker, real estate broker, and insurance broker and told him what was happening, asked what was going on, and asked for advice on how to react. I told him 'I'm no child molester and I don't want to be accused.'

 

He said he and his wife were fighting horribly, and that I should try to show some affection for his children (because they weren't getting any at homem) if I could (but I couldn't, because of the legal climate I was aware was building).

 

Soon afterward his wife kidnapped the children against court orders, renamed them, and they lived as fugitives. The wife was literally crazy or borderline crazy. Fear of legal consequences had caused me to withhold normal and nonsick fatherly affection from these two children, because of a climate of litigation, and I had the sponsorship and understanding of the father. (About two years he tracked down his children, they were permanently taken away from the kidnapping mother . . . and my former neighbor now is loving father of two grown-up children -- who also have good memories of me, I think.)

 

But the problem becomes what does an ordinary adult do who has to look over his/her shoulder because or the devastating possibility of a false accusation of 'child molestation' of an 'unnatural interest in children'

 

Accusations of 'molestation' are something that bedevils divorcing husbands, my attorney friends tell me; divorcing female spouses commonly make accusations against their hated divorcing husbands, but almost always without any real evidence and solely for spite.

 

Adults who are near children who are aware of realitities of present-day life should live a little in fear of false allegations.

 

The etiology has started in part becuase our (American) forebears swept sexual molestation problems 'under the rug', and there are a great number of adult (American) women who have suffered sexual molestation (men too), and even the Catholic Church (in America) has been greatly implicated: Three of their (American) (arch)dioceses are in bankruptcy to pay their judgments from molestations by priests -- mostly of young boys.

 

There have been real problems and no one should think of minimizing them.

 

But there is a hysteria about.

 

The hysteria is the kind of hysteria that results in a woman who takes the photos of her children playing in the bathrub to Costco, or Walgreens, a clerk summons the police and she's thrown in jail.

 

Somehow, she's arrested for 'child molestation.' Even when she's exonerated, there's no way ever to have her arrest record quashed -- once created it goes into databases that cannot be expunged.

 

Someone once wrote of the worth of the 'science of economics' -- economists, they say, have successfully predicted 50 of the past 10 recessions. In other words, economics saw a recession behind every statistic and sometimes the forecast actually came true. People who 'see things' sometimes get it right, just as a clock that is stopped is 'correct' twice daily (for a fraction of a second).

 

The same applies to 'seeing' evidence of 'misuse' of the adult relationship with children. Sometimes it's true; other times it's just a figment. It's important -- greatly important, all allegations should never be treated lightly, but there should never be any hysteria.

 

Moreover not every underage person is a 'child.'

 

The State of California says a 17 year old girl (or boy) the day before her (his) 18th birthday is a 'child' and can be 'molested'.

 

But one mile to the East in Nevada, that same girl (boy) is an adult for such purposes, and has been since that person turned 16.

 

It once was common in the Ozarks for men to marry girls who were 12 or thereabouts (sometimees younger) (I am not defending that, or the famous Jerry Lee Lewis marriage, and I think such marriagees are/were very imappropriate and wrong, and just state it as an example.)

 

Society has made cut-off points, but to speak of a 17-year old person as a 'child' is 'stretching it a little in most cases, and those who talk of the 'underage' 17-1/2 year-old as a 'child' may be legally correct, but is engaged in a sort of rhetorical sophistry.

 

Perhaps such persons never saw Britney Spears perform when she was under 18 or watched the marketing of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (Olson), which depended on part on marketing their great beauty (and sexual attraction).

 

To ignore these things is to engage in sophistry; perhaps those same people believe that teens also never get pregnant.

 

This not a defense of Jock Sturges or his photography -- I only saw one of his photos on the request for critque, and it did not appeal to MY prurient interests. I do NOT own any of his volumes, though people write that they are available at every bookstore. That's fine; someday I may look at them, just to be edified. I have lots to do that does not involve looking at his images.

 

But I'm worried when anybody writes that an image of a 'naked child' is somehow sick or perverted, when the art of the world has a long history portraying images children unclothed in which those images are neither sick nor perverted.

 

It's only the sick and perverted indivudals who would be attracted to images of sexually immature girls/boys, and any depiction of them shown to a normal person, say in a movie showing a bunch of (naked/partially clothed) boys at a swimming hole (as I have done in my youth) should evoke no interest at all, other than 'that's a bunch of boys having fun' . . . or whatever.)

 

Somehow, it occurs to me, those who take it on themselves to protect the world from innocent images have become a sort of 'morale police'

 

'They' woud 'protect' us from such innocent images that I grew up with, and long took for granted (a child's bottom showing suntan lines illustrating the merits of a certain suntan lotion for instance), and various other depictions that are entirely innocent, have now somehow 'suspect' because somehow they might appeal to the sick and perverted -- even though 99.9 per cent of the population would (in past times) have viewed them as 'cute'.

 

If it were true that sick and perverted individuals were creating these images, then surely those individuals should be prevented from doing so, and if it were certain that only such individuals produced such images (and only those) then perhaps there would be a societal interest in preventing those images from being produced, but those are not the facts.

 

And I do not know why Jock Sturges produces his images, but I am sure that issue has been thoroughly tried and somehow he has been found innocent for his images displayed and for which he was prosecuted and were adjudicated 'nonpornographic' and the judgment in that cases (under the theory of collateral estoppel) somehow may apply to other prosecutions against him for those images under exact same laws -- though that is a chancy prediction.)

 

But isn't it a little twisted (for lack of a better word) to 'outlaw' the depiction of a group of girls and boys in an inflatable pool, naked, in their own backyard under the supervision of their own parents, or perhaps topless where one or more of the children is a 'girl' who is completely undeveloped and is years from being developed (pubescent)?

 

It is against this background that Photo.net has banned certain parts of a young child's anatony from being exposed on its digital cyberpages; I do understand and agree with its decision, and I have endorsed its decision, and the way it has arrived at that decision elsewhere above in this thread.

 

But it bothers me greatly that it has had to create such a rule; that the exigencies of claims of 'morality' in America have caused something to be 'banned' in America that long was part of the normal part of life and of growing up.

 

It reminds me of something that has happened relatively recently in the Muslim world.

 

Until the 1980s, the head scarf was worn by Muslim women as a form of showing modesty, and nothing more.

 

At some time in the late '70s or early '80s a theory was propagated that the view of 'female head hair' by the male of the species was 'magic' and drove males into a 'sexual frenzy', and female Muslim woman could show NO HAIR AT ALL for fear of driving men into such sexual frenzy.

 

This is the conundrum of the so-called 'Magic Hair', and I know young Muslim women who argue that this is true (as though God told them its veracity).

 

It now appears that with our attitude toward 'images of young children' we have fallen prey to a corollary situation to the Islammic 'Magic Hair' situation.

 

A few disturbed people are attracted to children and as a part of their pathology they often take photos and share them, but normal people also take photos of their own children (and their playfriends) in the backyard pool that are normal, not corrupt, completely nonsexual and certainly not pathological.

 

But like the Shariah Islam sect's (and other forms of Islam's) recent pronouncement against showing 'Magic Hair', our society has now somehow banned innocent photos of children because there are a few vile and pathological individuals who might see them and somehow gain pleasure from them, even though there is no pathologcy in creating and enjoying such images.

 

Somehow, we are all the losers, I think.

 

My late wife took loads of photos of my daughters with no tops (I seem to recall dimly -- I do not have them) and my neighbors' daughters too, and nobody thought anything of it.

Sexuality was not on anybody's mind.

 

She also breastfed openly (modestly) in almost every class restaurant in Silicon Valley, modesty covering herself, breast and child with a nursing towel, and with such grace that NOBODY ever said a thing, before there ever was a state law affording her protection; the issue was so clear to her she just did it, just as was her right to take photos of her children having fun in the backyard inflatable pool or under the sprinklers.

 

Somehow, a certain 'right-wing' element of America has become akin to the reactionary 'Islamists', and they have hijacked the issue of innocent childhood 'nakedness' as though it were perverted, and somehow those innocent photos of one's children have become like 'Magic Hair' -- they have developed into a new-found form of forbidden sexuality. Now, somehow it has become 'suspect' to take photos of one's own children; worse if it's the neighbor's children playing.

 

What was ordinary in society until about 15 or 20 years ago, somehow now has been 'recognized' as 'suspect' -- a surefire sign of 'perversion'.

 

Hogwash.

 

My former (and late) wife who nursed modestly and openly without asking for permission and never retreated to a backroom or restroom, and who took photos of our children and the neighbors' as they played, in that regard was blessed with great and common sense.

 

I think that it is time for return to what she regarded as 'common sense', for in that regard she had no peer.

 

However, one caveat: As I used to tell law clients who pleaded for 'common sense': There really is no such thing. It's really better phrased 'uncommon good sense.'

 

Photo.net did the right thing (and with uncommon good grace) in rfelation to Mr. Sturges's posting his images, but the U.S. moral climate that caused it to have to do so, was evidence of a certain lack of common sense in our society; we had best reconsider the whole issue of how to protect children.

 

John (Crosley)