The art versus p-rnography debate stirred up by the Bill Henson controversy has gotten Australians of all stripes talking about child exploitation, and the role of censorship in art. In fact Clive Hamilton’s article on the controversy and his followup commentary have resulted in more comments than probably any other story we’ve published online. Here’s a selection of reader comments.

Jackie French writes: In defence of little girls who love pink spangles…they don’t dress like pr-stitutes. Pr-stitutes dress like little girls, to please their clients. And yes, 12-year-old girls DO have s-xual feelings ( I remember it well, from an era much less s-xualised than this one.) That uncomfortable truth one of the themes of Hanson’s work- and one of the reasons his work is confronting. Art? Yes. Great art? Possibly. Tactfully and responsibly exhibited? Probably not.

Amy Corderoy writes: What a shame you have chosen to run this second piece by Clive Hamilton. The s-xualisation of these children has not happened on the walls of the Oxley gallery but on the pages of newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph , and yes, even now in Crikey. The self-appointed moral guardians (generally male, 50+) in this country should be ashamed of themselves for turning Henson’s art and these children’s images into a media frenzy (and achieving maximum column space in the process). Furthermore, the NSW police should be the one’s facing the real criticism here — for announcing that they were going to lay charges and then not doing so, thereby ensuring that the pictures could and would be plastered all over the media and seen in an utterly different context than they would otherwise have been.

Pamela writes: … Since most 13-year-olds lock the bathroom door to even their parents out of shyness at their changing bodies, what pressure was applied to these children to willingly expose themselves to the camera lens and on a pragmatic note, how informed was the consent they gave to do so?

Venise Alstergren writes: … If the advertising and fashion industries can profit by the s-xualization of children; why should the artist who reflects about this same subject be penalized by denying them of their income? Or is it so much easier to sacrifice the lone artist, rather than whole industries who benefit from soft-core child p-rnography?

Clive Hamilton writes: …I would hope that within the arts community there will be, as a result of this furore, a better understanding of the implications of presenting children in the way Bill Henson did. But I hope even more that this controversy has sent a chill down the spines of those who run the advertising agencies, girls magazines and television stations that are responsible for s-xualising children.

Martyn Jolly writes:  The people who are defending Henson’s right to pursue and develop his art aren’t claiming “He’s just an artist” or “His art is sacrosanct and should be above the fray”. By all means have a robust discussion about the meaning of his images. But banning the images and threatening him and his gallery with serious charges does not make one young person safer from the predations of p-edophiles. However what it does do is further diminish the visual culture in which our children are growing up, leaving it to the likes of the tabloids and the TV shows to set the agenda with their banal sexual dichotomies and overheated social scenarios. If the corporate s-xualization of children is a pernicious as Hamilton suggests what we need is a more open, nuanced and complex picturing of adolescents, not a climate of fear, paranoia and panic about anything to do with childhood, or anything to do with personal expression, or anything to do with concepts like beauty or enigma. Children aren’t being defended, our culture is being attacked. Art isn’t above the fray, it’s right in the fray.

Gary Stowe writes:  From all those who would defend this material I’ve not heard any consideration of what possible good purpose being photographed this way has served in the development and adjustment of the child involved. Whether the intention was artistic or pornographic, whether or not the photos were ever seen, hung, published or banned, how did the actions of the parents and photographer help this child forward? Lots of arguments about the rights and responsibilities and the blah-blah yadda yadda of the community and artists etc – no consideration of the child though. And as to the likelihood that it may actually have done the child measurable harm which is yet to be manifested, well, has that thought ever actually occurred to any of these people? Not bloody likely.

B Pace writes: I absolutely agree with Clive Hamilton. In the eyes of some people nude photo’s of pre-pubescent children may be art, whilst in the eyes of pedophiles and perverts it simply feeds their s-xual appetite. However, one also needs to ask why we allow people to profit from childhood. Whether that profit is financial or enhancing an artist’s reputation makes no difference , profiting from childhood is a despicable undesirable occupation. It should be illegal. Also R Vincent, just calling something art, does not make it so. And there is nothing prudish about protecting the rights of children to be allowed to have a childhood, free from the profiteering of marketers and purveyors of popular culture and free from so called art and artists! Art is a form of beauty that should be conducive to the health and wellbeing of a community, not to its debasement. What you call prudish , I call responsibility , the responsibility of an adult to protect a little child innocence.

gsleeman writes:  It amazes me that all the nonsense about “art” and “artistic” is expected to cover for a person who for the last 20 years has been fixated on one theme. A true artist would have surely have advanced in their “art'” so that they have now moved on in life. But no, we have the same old, same old, reproduced with ever more clever photographic trickery, so somehow, this is “different,’ “new”, and more meaningful? I am totally beyond the reach of the scrabbling apologists for this man, who has been unable to move on in life. A middle aged man who is patently stuck in a timewarp, and is not beyond stooping to any level to find gratification of his needs, whatever the damage it does to the young people in his orbit. Give me strength!