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January 11, 2010
I was down at one of Adelaide's city beach on Sunday night seeking relief from the current heatwave with my cameras. The beach is difficult to photograph and not just because of the formal problems of the horizon cutting the photograph in two. People are suspicious of cameras and they do not want to be photographed.
The suspicion has to do with voyeurism and pedophilia. Childhood has become a much more fraught subject, children's sexuality almost taboo and the gaze of the pedophile becomes the standard by which childhood bodies are increasingly viewed.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, West Beach, Adelaide, 2010
So you cannot just wander around the beach taking photos of bodies at play as if the beach was equivalent to the urban streets. A different strategy is called for, say one of looking at the beach from a distance.
Public unease has been played out in art galleries and the web. Photography of naked children, whether a casual snapshot or a conceptual provocation, is now loaded with possible, often conflicting, meanings that are rooted in society's ever-shifting attitudes.
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Re the comment: "the gaze of the pedophile becomes the standard by which childhood bodies are increasingly viewed."
Cultural conservatives and pro censorship people argue that although some pictures of naked childhood bodies were not taken or exhibited with pornographic intent (eg. Sally Mann's family portraits) their possible use by paedophiles is sufficient reason to ban them. Paedophiles might show such pictures to children to "groom" them, ready to take off their clothes.