Who's guilty of naked exploitation?

By Brett Bender

Randall Terry wants you to know that there are people taking advantage of the children photographed in the two books, The Age of Innocence by David Hamilton, and Radiant Identities by Jock Sturges. It's not hard to discern a motive for Terry's deep concern for these children. The founder and former leader of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue is now running for Congress in New York, and has designed a campaign against child pornography as a new source of publicity.

An indictment filed in Alabama accuses Barnes & Noble of selling obscene material involving minors, while in Tennessee the bookstore chain stands accused of displaying obscene material without the requisite plastic wrapping to shield it from the eyes of minors.

The reasonable conclusion, upon reviewing the facts, is that both indictments will amount to nothing. The constitutional test for obscenity requires that the material be patently offensive to local community standards, appeal to a prurient interest, and lack serious artistic or literary value. On the first criterion, patent offensiveness, the existence of these suits may suffice to demonstrate that the works offend someone. Fortunately, however, these are not sufficient grounds for banning books.

BRIAN CARP/YH

The books must also be shown to appeal to a prurient interest and to lack artistic merit, and these books meet neither requirement. The underlying fact is that the pictures in contention are of naked children doing things like playing on the beach. In addition to the testimony of my untrained eye and sympathetic heart, which holds that these photographers are certainly artists, consider that Sturges' photographs have earned the seal of approval from more qualified critics, as the photographs are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

If the prosecutors succeed in forcing Barnes & Noble to pull the titles in question from their shelves, many other books with artistic merit will face similar suits. A decision against these two books would have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech. The mere filing of these suits makes booksellers nervous. Small bookstore owners especially, fearing the cost of legal battles, will avoid selling any objectionable book. Terry would justify such an abrogation of first amendment rights under the guise of protecting children.

If we are concerned with potential harm to the subjects of the photographs, it would be reasonable to examine how these subjects are treated and how they react. Sturges obtains the permission of his subjects (and their parents, if they are children) when their pictures are taken, and obtains it again each time the pictures are exhibited or published. When Sturges was the subject of a 1990 grand jury investigation in San Francisco, subjects whom he had photographed as children, and were now adults, flew in from France to testify on his behalf. There is scant evidence supporting the idea that the children in these books are harmed by their participation.

I cannot help but wonder why Terry does not speak about more substantive issues. If he desires to aid and protect children, he might consider such pressing problems as child abuse, substandard education, or homelessness. Unfortunately, the concern with which many regard these problems is as nothing next to the furor that a hint of sex can provoke. I admit that I accept one thing Randall Terry says: the subjects of these photographs are exploited children. However, the person taking advantage of them is the politician, not the photographer.

Brett Bender is a junior in Pierson.

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