Who are the perverts?

Australian PM Kevin Rudd is in a squawk because of Art Monthly magazine publishing a picture of a girl of 6, nude, on its front cover. It isn't child pornography, in fact it isn't even erotic - well unless you count the fact that MANY things are erotic to a tiny minority who have specific fetishes. The range of human fetishes is almost infinite, but by no measure was a crime committed in having her pose in this non provocative, non revealing pose.

However it is telling when both the Australian PM and the conservative Liberal opposition both join the same chorus of outcry at the image, including wanting to ban taking photos of naked children. Expecting fully a witch hunt of the girl and her family. The girl in the photo is now 11 and yet doesn't feel exploited. You see her mother, Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou took the photo.

The girl clearly has more courage than Rudd or the vile little weasel who leads the opposition, Brendan Nelson, by saying SHE is offended because Rudd said "he can't stand" the image of her. Too right. The image is rather beautiful in its own right/

A picture of her today with her family, and the photograph in the background is here, courageously on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

The image is not sexualising her - the naked human body is not, by its very nudity, an invitation to be sexual. The understandable fear parents have of their children being abused has been exaggerated to a phobia about children being seen. It is a phobia that means teachers are thought suspiciously if they give an upset child a hug, especially male teachers. It is a pernicious blend of an ultra conservative belief that the naked body is by nature sinful, and feminists who see exploitation and rapist men at every corner.

The image wont incite a child to be abused. How many children who have been abducted were naked at the time? The people sexualising Olympia Nelson are Mr Rudd, Mr Nelson and the henpecked Hetty Johnston, whose minds are filthy enough (or politically corrupt enough) to have decided that this little girl is a corrupting influence that needs covering up. Next there will be calls to make it illegal for fathers to see their daughters naked, or adults to be alone with any naked children (I mean parents here, after all there is plenty of evidence that much child abuse happens at home!).

Olympia hasn't been exploited, by her or any reasonable objective measure - it's about time that politicians and do gooders shut up and left her family alone. There is plenty of real child abuse going on in Australia, it's just not as easy to find, not as easy to "ban" and not as easy to get outraged about.