On Balance.

(Disclaimer: This is going to be a controversial topic, and may upset readers)

Something that has been bugging me lately is the level of hypocrisy that the general public exhibits quite selectively. People get so wound up by a specific topic that any discussion around it become taboo, and handled so completely irrationally compared to other significant issues. What got me thinking about this is the vilification of Rolf Harris over an alleged set of incidents in the 1980's and his more recent accusation of creating "indecent images of minors".  Now the charges from the 80's, if legitimate, are certainly serious and need to be resolved. However, I have a hard time believing this has been anything but a witch hunt. If these events happened some 30 years ago, why have the "victims" just come forward now? It's not like any obvious form of intimidation or relation that might explain the silence. In any case, light needs to be shone on Rolf's actions and the sincerity of the victims; Hopefully the courts resolve the issue fairly, but even if Rolf is acquitted, society has already judged and branded him. Looking at the more recent case brought against him over indecent images of minors, this is the topic I am writing about. Rolf is a painter. He is not the first artist to paint children in situations that can be interpreted as "indecent". However, this is a topic that has completely blinded modern society of late.

Pedophilia is a serious issue. It is wrong. It is illegal. In the strictest spirit of the law it is the exploitation of people that are considered vulnerable, are incapable of understanding the situations they are placed in, and powerless to defend themselves.

Murder is a serious issue. It is wrong. It is illegal. Rape is wrong. It is also illegal. There are lots of serious crimes that people commit that we certainly don't want to promote: And here lies the problem.

A studio can produce a film or TV series depicting mass murder, rape, drug use, domestic abuse or any other form of illegal/unlawful activity in virtually any level of realism. Game companies can build a game that immerses players in environments where they can quite graphically commit these crimes virtually. Grand Theft Auto is a commonly cited example, but one that sickened me was a game called Payday 2 which puts the players in a gang casing locations then committing extremely violent robberies. These movies and games are made, and continually press at the social limits of good taste, yet no matter how far they press there are no consequences for the people that create them.

Rolf, or any artist can paint a picture of a child in a provocative situation and he risks going to jail. A tourist returning from Japan with somewhat provocative models depicting young women in school uniforms narrowly avoided being arrested on child pornography charges. Can you see the disconnect here?

When some kid goes and shoots up a school after playing GTA 5 there are of course people advocating that violent games and movies are fueling violence. However the voices to the contrary always outweigh these. Laws don't change and the manufacture and distribution of this content continues. Parents generally don't promote violence in their children, encouraging them to go to school armed and ready for a knife fight, yet these things still happen.

When some pervert goes and abducts and rapes children gets caught with stacks of child images on their computer then the social war-cry goes out against any form of "sexualized" imagery of minors. Where are the voices that would so surely defend that exposure to violence doesn't make people violent, tout that exposure to sexualized children doesn't lead to sexual assault on children? Parents are guilty of sexualizing their own kids every day with what they let their kids wear and do. Forget child pageants, some have even gone so far as to teaching their young daughters pole dancing. Get real!

Compare these two situations:
Playing a video game where you walk up to a car, drag the driver out of a car and hit them repeatedly with a baseball bat and take their money does or does not influence someone to walk up and assault/rob someone?

Perving out at a picture of an attractive 15y.o. girl in a short skirt does or does not influence someone to go and rape a 15 year old girl?

Think about it for a minute. I'd imagine that most responses to the first scenario would range from "Probably not" to "possibly". I'd suspect that most people would respond to the second scenario as "probably" to "absolutely" An automatic reaction to those scenarios will be to justify how the two can surely not be compared, but really, why can't they? The second scenario is perverted, abnormal... So it's that much more "normal" if it's an 18y.o. girl? Someone that gets a thrill out of committing a virtual crime, do they go and commit a crime? Versus someone that gets a thrill out of an underage kid, do they go out and realise that fantasy? I cannot answer that question, but what I can see is the disconnect between the perception of the two scenarios. How can you rationalise that one is any more or less a risk than the other, and by how much?

Look at the legal/social reaction for the actual actions within the two scenarios. For the violent video game someone can play as much as they desire and there is absolutely no legal consequence. For the second scenario, that someone is possibly going to jail, and surely will be socially branded. In neither case did the individual actually DO anything.

Do I advocate that society is overreacting to underage depictions? Certainly not. I merely wish to try and expose the imbalance between very serious issues and how hypocritical we allow ourselves to be when looking at issues like this. Personally I'd like to live in a world where as a proud father I am allowed to photograph my child's public triumphs in life, and could do so without worrying other parents that have allowed themselves to be blinded and bound by irrational fears and preconceptions. Maybe things will finally change when this generation of parents realize the cost of paranoia was capturing memories and it just wasn't worth it.