Crank it up a notch

A ruckus has been dithering all week over photographer Bill Henson's nuddy pics. One "Hetty Johnston" complained that juvenile nudes had no place in the public eye, and wouldn't society be better off if we were born fully clothed and this kind of filth didn't exist in the first place?

"He has a tendency to depict children naked and that is porn," raved the Bravehearts spoutswoman.

Hetty, herself (now) a victim of naked depictions - but aren't we all victims of this obscenity? - wants art to be classified, villified, and finally ossified. "Enough's enough."

While the rancour has limited itself, thus far, to Henson's photographs, it's almost certain to spill over onto other depictions of nippers au naturel, such as Raphaelite cherubs and a recent, shocking series of Huggies commercials.

Indeed, it's hard to see why the smut-rakers should stop there, with realism to be followed by swiftly by Miró (ladyparts everywhere), Mondrian (triangles, for the love of god), and that guy who hangs himself from his own piercings in a piece entitled "Rape of a minor with a digital eye" [meathooks & flesh, 2007].

Presumably, Ms Johnston would like society to kindly return to a time when kids were kids, paintings were about blurry gardens, and kids named "Hetty" weren't teased by the very youngins they yearned to protect.