Of topic: The artful complexity of pedophilia
Anna
where having that scandal a while back about a naked girl on a Art
magazine I made the comment that the Art Community will accept the
worst kinds things as long as it's done by someone they consider an
"artist". I feel that way about Jock Sturges who's photos of nude
children often crosses the line.
Well here is an example of a real low life who has the "Legitimacy" of
the so call Art Community for some reason. Others would rightly go to
jail for what he is doing.
t is impossible to look at close up footage of Dennis Ferguson without
feeling a toxic mixture of emotions. All of them painful: anger,
shock, hate. And yet, at the same time, it's hard to take our eyes off
him. The face of evil — in its human manifestation — is both grotesque
and fascinating.
To see Australia's most notorious pedophile squirm under questioning
from Liz Jackson during Monday's Four Corners program was riveting.
Ferguson's crimes of sexual abuse, molestation and sodomy of children
as young as six have been well documented in the media, and I have no
stomach to repeat the details. But his perverse lust and infamy have
made him a well-hounded figure around the country since he was
released from jail. As we've witnessed in ugly scenes on the evening
news, every neighbourhood in which Ferguson has tried to settle has
smoked him out with vigilante style gatherings outside his house.
Before the NSW Government passed a law to evict him, the Sydney
neighbourhood that Ferguson had snuck into rallied hundreds of people
to protest against a pedophile living in their midst. A makeshift
coffin was delivered to his front door, along with written death
threats and a noose, while awkward police officers shuffled about and
asked the crowds to disperse.
But this was relatively polite and orderly in comparison to earlier
scenes in Queensland. There public meetings ended in tears, with
howling children scared out of their wits by all the talk of a
molesting monster living down the road. The lynch mob that kept vigil
outside Ferguson's bunker was deadly serious. Had the police not
stepped in, it's possible Ferguson would have been chopped to pieces.
Australia hates pedophiles. No other crime seems to enrage and revolt
the Australian public as much as pedophilia. In fact, you could say
our collective disgust of pedophilia is one of the few things all
Australians agree on. You could say that – but you'd be wrong.
A pedophile like Ferguson, who presents as a grubby, uneducated
simpleton, is hated. But a pedophile such as revered artist Donald
Friend, whose highly acclaimed work hangs in galleries around
Australia, is not.
It's a national conundrum. Or is that "penumbra"?
The head curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of NSW, Barry
Pearce, says Friend's pedophilia puts him "on the light side of
penumbra". Interestingly, he goes on to say: "But if you get into the
dark side of (pedophilia), it is revolting, a disgusting part of the
human condition, almost inexplicable to us and we are all afraid of
it."
So it would seem that pedophilia — for Pearce at least — has a light
and dark side and a whole lot of grey matter in between.
This complex "penumbra" and the issue about whether or not pedophile
activity is acceptable, or forgivable, within artistic circles has
been raised once again with last week's screening of a documentary
film, Loving Friend, at the Canberra International Film Festival.
Melbourne film maker Kerry Negara tackles head on Donald Friend's
flagrant pedophilia during his time living in Bali, back in the '60s
and '70s. Friend died 20 years ago, having never been charged or
convicted of having sex with minors, even though he wrote quite freely
about it in his diaries. He openly describes his delight in the
"innocent animal horseplay of an erotic nature", with children as
young as 10, which "became something of an orgy". He muses that his
little houseboys had "no inhibitions at all about a little session of
sodomy".
In publishing the diaries, the National Library made the brave and
correct choice to not edit out or censor Friend's own descriptions of
his sexual trysts with Balinese boys.
But when the final volume was released in 2006, containing explicit
sexual material in which Friend seemed to enjoy outing himself as an
incurable pedophile, there was hardly a ripple of a murmur. Certainly
there was no suggestion of indecency. No anti-pedophile crusaders
stormed galleries demanding Friend's paintings of the nude little boys
he sodomised be taken down.
Negara, whose own children are part Balinese, was outraged that the
art world seemed to be ignoring — or at least excusing — the actions
of a self-declared pedophile, simply because he was a great artist and
a well-loved bohemian.
In her film, there's no shortage of art historians and friends of the
artist who blithely forgive, or even deny Donald Friend's well-
documented behavior. One art historian, James Murdoch, even suggests
Friend was not at fault because the young boys he had sex with had in
fact "seduced him".
Negara's film has not had a commercial or television release, and
probably won't get one. The issue it tackles is just too hot. Which
leaves one wondering how we make sense of a society that will bay for
blood outside Dennis Ferguson's door, and yet sip champagne and toast
the memory of a pedophile artist who was brilliant with a brush.
What is that "penumbra"? And why is it so artfully complex?
Virginia Haussegger is president of the Canberra International Film
Festival.
Zee
> This is off topic so I do apologize but I remember back when they
> where having that scandal a while back about a naked girl on a Art
> magazine I made the comment that the Art Community will accept the
> worst kinds things as long as it's done by someone they consider an
> "artist". I feel that way about Jock Sturges who's photos of nude
> children often crosses the line.
>
> Well here is an example of a real low life who has the "Legitimacy" of
> the so call Art Community for some reason. Others would rightly go to
> jail for what he is doing.
>
nothing complex about the matter....folks in a neighborhood that is
upset over a pedo living nearby is a small group.....so is the small
group of sicko art freaks that cater to that heneous culture....the
two dont mix....or cross paths.....if the art cult lived near the
pedo....they would invite him over for tea maybe.....jz
Jenny6833A
> This is off topic so I do apologize but I remember back when they
> where having that scandal a while back about a naked girl on a Art
> magazine I made the comment that the Art Community will accept the
> worst kinds things as long as it's done by someone they consider an
> "artist". I feel that way about Jock Sturges who's photos of nude
> children often crosses the line.
"who's" means "who is." You're semi-literate.
"crosses the line" is meaningless drivel. Sturges photos are legal,
and that's sufficient for me.
<snip rest of crap unread>
:-(
Jenny
Lane
4184c3...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
Actually, I don't give a lot of credence to what is legal, since there
is a lot that is illegal that would be were it not for the "Anna"s of
the world who think, incorrectly, that everyone is secretly a pedophile
or pervert waiting for a loophole to open that would allow them to
partake in their perversion at will.
The fact is, there is a lot of very artistic, non-pornographic displays
of people in all sorts of situations that, according to the moralists
like Anna, ought to be banned. (Mapplethorpe comes to mind.)
--
Lane
Brad Filippone
> Jenny6833A <Jenny68...@aol.com> wrote in news:8e8ad2b4-ae76-4f54-98c8-
> 4184c371d...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
Yes, everything is Anna's fault *shakes head exasperatedly*
Okay, seiously, what do you think of Lewis Carroll's photos? How do
you class them?
Brad
Brad Filippone
> Jenny6833A <Jenny68...@aol.com> wrote in news:8e8ad2b4-ae76-4f54-98c8-
> 4184c371d...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
Okay, so what do you think of Lewis Carroll's photos. How would you
classify them?
Brad Filippone
sorry about that being sent twice. Has a little malfunction of sorts
on this end that made me think my first attempt didn't work.
Brad
Lane
news:9d37ba64-a346-4f89...@r5g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:
Where did I say anything was Anna's fault. I said that it the zealous
prudishness of folks like Anna that underlies a lot of the US's false
modesty.
>
> Okay, so what do you think of Lewis Carroll's photos. How would you
> classify them?
I am unfamiliar with them but I did look him up and the controversy.
That brief research did not lead me to think the works ought to be
suppressed as "child pornography."
I fail to see, though, how my opinion on this point relates to the
larger point I made that there is a lot of art that a vocal minority
wrongly deem pornographic.
--
Lane
Zee
>
> - Show quoted text -
Anna....as we see here in rec nude....the nudist are equally stupid as
they are evil....they are cowards also trying to conceal their love
for all porn including child porn....and the usa discovered community
standards that settles the question....it now is determined by what
the local jury says it is......so a thread that addresses the
persecution of a pedos living quarters has evolved quickly to their
favorite passion....child porn....i luv my job.....jz