You’ll be pleased to know the media is shying away from sensible debate over the Henson case. Helen Brien writes in SMH Heckler this morning:

Here we go again. Bill Bloody Henson and his “art”. I am damn sick of it and I am damn sick of the people who will always defend his photos and consider any negative reaction as being from uneducated, ignorant, non-art loving philistines.

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Heads up, art world. Look around you. Our entire society is becoming more and more sexualised when it comes to children and Henson is part of that. Not “above” or “separate” from society but part of society.

T-shirts for children that read “Mummy’s Little Slut” and “Daddy Only Wanted A Blow Job”. Yes, they do exist and children are wearing them right now in our shopping and day-care centres.

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Heads up, manufacturers, distributors and retailers of said clothes. Just stop. I know that some idiotic parents must be buying your filth, but do you think that makes it OK? Why don’t you donate a portion of your profit to the rape crisis centres or domestic violence campaigns and go see what happens in the real world when sex, power, abuse and children collide with devastating results.

In less than 400 words Brien managed to link t-shirts, the sexualisation of children AND rape crisis centres all to Bill Henson. Quite an effort. Not only that, she managed to tie it off with this ripper:

I am seriously thinking of becoming a bush Baptist. We are going to get a large block of land, hours from any “civilisation” and keep chickens, cows and guns. And if anyone comes within coo-ee of us, peddling this filth, watch out.

As if the threat of violence to other humans is some how a more nurturing environment for children to be raised in.

Meanwhile, Fairfax favourite Miranda Devine must have mistaken her article A Creepy Visit to the Playground for a horror novel:

Clearly, there are parents at St Kilda quite happy to have Henson run his eyes over their children’s ripening bodies with a view to photographing them naked, but you’d think they would have been asked first.

More disturbing than some of Bill’s work, no?

And in yesterday’s The Australian, Carly Crawford alerts readers to the fact Bill Henson’s photography is being studied in Victoria’s school art classes by children as young as 12.

Fancy that. While Crawford might be showing us that Henson is already present in our schools, her need to emphasise the age of children studying his work stinks of someone trying to kindle community outrage.