Is the Tulip Pornographic?

Remarks on the Theme of "Nude Photography"

Wolf Vogel, Social Worker, Ludwigshafen

The American essayist Susan Sontag has a very radical take on the desire to take pictures:
"To photograph people means to inflict violence upon them; as one looks at them, as they have
never seen themselves, as one obtains knowledge about them which they themselves could never
have, one changes them into objects, which one is able to symbolically possess." (Susan Sontag,
On Photography, Hansen Verlag, Munich, l978, pg. 20)
I am willing to bet that most feminists would underline every single clause of this
statement, if they were to get their hands on a copy of the English photographer David
Hamilton's coffee table book of little naked or half naked nymphs. Nevertheless, were they to
photograph their own children on a Sunday stroll, or during a vacation, they would reject Susan
Sontag‘s polemic as outrageous. Is it actually the person per se who drives the debate over
photography, or is it nudity?
As I was writing this, an AP news item came into my hands. "In Court for Child Porn,"
reads the headline, with the following text below it: "Yesterday, in the Major Crimes Division of
the Dortmund District Court, the 65-year-old proprietor of a photography studio had to answer
charges relating to the production and commercial distribution of child pornography. The State
Attorney's Office accused the trained civil engineer of, between May 1987 and August 1991,
having produced and sold nationally, through a catalogue, nude photographs and pornographic
films of eighteen girls ranging in age from six to l7. On the first day of trial, the accused
personally denied all of the charges. According to the State's Attorney, the accused had
photographed and filmed the children "almost naked in clearly provocative poses" in his
downtown Dortmund studio. Moreover he had offered his studios by the hour to customers, who
themselves would have photographed the children whom he personally furnished." (Mannheimer
Morgen, l/22/94)
How would the "average citizen's moral sentiments" – as so often conjured up by the
Federal Supreme Court – react to such a report? Probably initially with indignation, and then,
perhaps with a certain relief that the miscreant was, of course, not able to elude his just
punishment. Almost a hundred years earlier, Karl Kraus had looked deeply into the citizen's
heart: "Once again, a 'den of iniquity' has been rooted out! The innocent reader of court reports
believes, in such cases, that prostitution and procuring have, henceforth, been brought to an end.
The sophisticate mourns the fact that one learns of an address too late." (Karl Kraus, Morality
and Criminality, Kosel Verlag, Munich, l970, pg. 206 f.)
Let us return, for a moment, to the AP report. Namely, that it is not a proper news story at
all. They were photographed "almost naked." But, "almost naked" is not nude photography, let
alone pornography. And what is a "clearly provocative" pose? Whom does it provoke, and why?
On the other hand, the tulip provocatively presents its petals to the observer. Is the tulip
pornographic? Would the last sentence of the report also have been printed if they had been
shooting a commercial for toothpaste, shampoo, or margarine? Anyone who reads this news item
carefully, and does not give free reign to his or her imagination, would be unable to ascertain –
from this AP space filler – precisely why a trained civil engineer, who owns a studio in
downtown Dortmund, stands accused in the Dortmund District Court of producing and
distributing child pornography. With a similar lack of actual substance, the AP report might just
as well have read: "In Dortmund, a man stands before the Court who is accused of having
committed a criminal act." But whose interest would have been drawn to this sort of statement?
No one's. Therefore, the news editor throws in a couple of headwords whose attention grabbing
effect he can be sure of, thereby stoking the reader's imagination as well. Moreover he also
arouses envy on the part of the morally upright citizen, why he, of all people, had no knowledge
of the photo studio in downtown Dortmund, why even he knew nothing of the catalog of
beautiful girls. It is unlikely that more than a hundred people knew of this ominous catalog; but
now, after it's been withdrawn from circulation, there might well be thousands who would love
to get their hands on it.
What do the models themselves think about being photographed? In my vocation as a
photojournalist, I've covered many European as well as non-European countries. Whether I was
doing my work in a vacation spot or a slum, in the open countryside or a center of culture,
children would come up to me and ask to be photographed. When I was photographing the
cathedral in Sicilian Syracuse, five boys of about ten years of age jumped in front of my camera
and pointedly pulled down their swimming trunks. In north African countries, I was frequently
asked by children and teenagers whether I might not also be interested in turning my camera on
the attribute of their manhood. When I politely said "no, thank you," they sometimes even
seemed a little disappointed.
Examples of this kind are not unusual. Children are very happy to let themselves be
photographed. Children are just as vain as adults. Moreover, there is scarcely any difference
between girls and boys. It is not unusual for me to be asked by children on FKK [Freie Korper
Korps, i.e., nudist] beaches to photograph them, once they hear that I am a "real" photographer.
On occasion, this wish will even be conveyed to me by the parents. What children do not like, is
when the father tediously stands there fiddling with the camera for several minutes, before he
finally clicks the shutter. A child notices when a photographer knows his trade, which can even
make it possible for him or her to sit still for a long period of time.
He or she is proud that the photographer is paying so much attention to him or her. He or
she is proud of the photo that came out well, just as we adults are proud when we are successful
as photographers, in "making ourselves look a couple of years younger" in the picture. Moreover,
children make no distinction between "respectable" and "indecent" or "dirty" photographs. This
is a way of looking at things that is typical of adults. Envy may often play a role here: One is – to
be sure, subconsciously – jealous of youthful beauty, which one is no longer able to attain
through exercise and taking proper care of oneself.
Some years ago, the following event took place within my own circle of acquaintances: A
married couple took their two children, an eleven-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, on a
vacation to an FKK camp. The father took photographs of his wife as well as the two children.
The girl was particularly fascinated by the photos, which showed the beginning of her physical
development, and she proudly brought a selection of the best photos – which showed her both
with and without clothing – with her to school, showing them to select female schoolmates and
their female teacher. As the girl would rather amusedly tell it the following day, the teacher's jaw
dropped. The teacher tried – referring to the photos – to impress upon the girl that, when it comes
to pictures which are taken of people without any clothes on, which shouldn't even be taken,
need to be kept secret from other people. Not letting this faze her, the girl told the teacher, in
front of her classmates: "I think I'm beautiful, and I stand by my beauty, and therefore, I will
decide who I'll show the photos to." The parent-teacher conference about this, which was asked
for by the latter, only caused the daughter to dig in her heels even more; but that did not stop the
teacher from subsequently trying to instill in the girl the feeling that she had done something
wrong.
In our society, the theme of "nude photography" is subject to a strong moral judgment.
Adults typically fail to understand that children have a completely different set of criteria for
assessing a photos or being photographed. Virtually all adults would certainly agree with the
view that a nude photograph would be compromising, or even make one vulnerable to blackmail.
This is adult thinking; children would not be able to understand this point of view. It is only at
the inception of puberty, when the ability to engage in abstract thinking begins, that youth
become susceptible to the adult fear that a photograph showing one's nakedness could have
negative consequences for the person depicted. The reason why children do not have this fear is
because they themselves would never be tempted to use nude photos to expose or even blackmail
others, provided that adults have not pointed out this dubious "power" to them.
Children also do not place the same demands on a picture that adults do. For the former,
it is almost always enough that the photographer is seriously interested in them, and that they are,
to some extent, presentable in the photograph. Children often put such photos on their bedroom
wall; moreover, it is, to children, immaterial whether they are clothed or unclothed, provided that
their surroundings do not respond to it negatively. Children and youth – who have not been
negatively influenced – usually have no objection to photographs of them being published in
journals, brochures, or calendars. Anyone who takes a close look at advertising will be able to
see the joy and pride on young models' faces.
Several years ago, I had to take some publicity shots of a twelve-year-old boy violin
player. The parents warmly welcomed me, and consented to the photo shoot. I believe it was the
father who alluded to the fact that his son refuses to cooperate with any photographer, and that I
should not get my hopes up. But for this home photo shoot, the boy was a completely different
person. He played the part of the "photo model" with joy, patience, and concentration;
accordingly, the pictures were wonderful. When the most beautiful photo of this series got
printed, the boy showed it to his father, beaming with pride. The father took a quick look at his
proud, violin-playing son and grumbled, with no trace of irony, and with a sullen expression on
his face: "Sure, the photos look good and everything, but of course, you can't play at all. Have
you even practiced yet today?" The boy was stunned, and on the verge of tears. Expecting to
receive praise and encouragement, he got instead his father's envy, at the fact that his own son
would obviously rather get photographed by a stranger. The father is, by the way, a pediatrician.
No one would be against taking photographs of a violin playing boy. Had I photographed
the boy in the nude, I might have gotten a knock at my door from the police. The nude
photograph, above all of a child, is regarded as immoral and unpleasant. The unclothed body of a
lovely young person must be covered, in order for him to be – in most people's opinion –
"handsome" and "natural." The nude body is held to be "unnatural." In order to grasp the
absurdity of this view, imagine someone covering a rose blossom before photographing it, and
putting a coat on a deer fawn at the petting zoo, in order to make it appear "natural." Again, the
question: Is the tulip, is the rose, is a fawn, pornographic?
Admittedly: Young people become furious – and rightly so – when photographs of them
get passed around or published without their explicit consent, or even against their expressed
wishes. They of course direct their rage at the breach of trust, not against the pictures themselves.
With photos of this kind, which we adults characterize as "nude photos" or even "pornographic
photos" (and themselves fundamentally not knowing when these definitions are legitimate and
when they aren't), children do not make distinctions based on our criteria. To this – to adults –
controversial subject, all of the fat legal volumes would strike children as absolutely ridiculous,
if they were actually asked for their opinion. Nevertheless, when they see a photograph of
themselves, children absolutely do judge it as "good" or "not so good." The criteria by which this
takes place is just as subjective as it is with us adults. We too are not happy with every
photograph.