Caravaggio's Amor Vincit Omnia shows a naked
cupid. He's very realistic (apart from the wings, of course), with uneven teeth
and a small penis. If I were to find a prepubescent boy, fit him with a pair of
wings, and photograph him in such a pose, I suspect there would be an outcry,
and I'd possibly end up in court. There are various laws in Britain that cover
the making and possessing of obscene images of children. In general, they are
very sensible laws. It's the definition of obscene that falls short. Is
Caravaggio's cupid obscene? How about my imaginary boy?
In the past, the puritans had less of a
stranglehold. Take the cover of the Blind Faith album, by the supergroup of the
same name. It features a naked girl holding a toy aeroplane. The photographer apparently saw a girl on the Tube, and thought she'd make a good model. The
girl didn't want to do it, so her eleven-year-old sister modelled instead. If a
photographer today approached a girl on the Tube and suggested she should take
her clothes off for an album cover, all hell would break loose.
It isn't just Blind Faith. Roger Dean's
picture for the back cover of Yesterdays shows two naked blue children, one of
whom is peeing. Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy shows naked children climbing
on the Giant's Causeway. The cover of Nirvana's Nevermind shows a naked baby
swimming. Like the Blind Faith cover, they're great images, but I seriously
doubt they'd be allowed today.
All of which is a shame. Just because some
evil people get off on images of children, the world is impoverished. Don't misunderstand
me. I'm not advocating the legalisation of child pornography, just a sensible
approach. Predatory paedophiles are evil, but I don't expect Rolf Harris was
particularly influenced by the Blind Faith cover, and the new puritanism didn't
stop 1400 children in Rotherham being sexually exploited. Whatever happened to
common sense?
Once we've thrown the baby out with the
bathwater, where next? Perhaps we should continue further down the same road,
and ban pictures of money, in case people are tempted to go out and steal it,
or cars, in a bid to stamp out joyriding. There's definitely a case for getting
rid of all those old master paintings of the Madonna with a naked baby. And the
Caravaggio.
