More policies. I understand that people behind DeviantART – those who are not simply content providers but run the site – have to be cautious about the possibility of law suits in an increasingly neo-conservative global political climate with various groups and individuals getting hysterical (I suppose I mean to use this word) about issues such as child pornography and nudity. I’m talking about the above policy to ban photography that depicts nude persons of certain age.

That the fear of retribution is understandable does not make it desirable, and does not reduce the tragedy. I cannot help but think about Sally Mann’s deeply resonating photography being seen by some insisting individuals as child pornography and as something to be condemned under these kinds of policies. It may be somewhat queer, but I find myself hoping that at least the DeviantART people who chose to support the new policy update are feeling victimised instead of pro-active about all this. What sort thinking does it take to prioritise a child-pornographic gaze over those of parents and the immensely varied aesthetic catalogues in world art and literature?

Very recently the police removed a work of art by a Finnish artist, Ulla Karttunen, from the gallery it was being exhibited in. The work contained child pornographic material. The artist herself emphasised that the work that was removed was a critical opening on the subject matter and against child pornography. Nevertheless, the actions of the police and many members of the audience (those that saw the work, and many who never did) ignored or made secondary this explicit intention of the artist. It was more important to remove the fetish (child pornographic material), which apparently carried in itself such essential meaning that no re-telling of the material, and no re-contextualisation of it, could remove. It was, clearly, similarly more important that the fetishised object should not be seen in any context than that critical conversation about the subject could benefit from (if not depend on) having the concrete matter at hand. How is one suppose to condemn anything without first critically assessing the situation? It clearly makes no difference that Ulla Karttunen is no consumer of child pornography as in relation to the function of the images as they were initially produced. Neither does she produce the images herself, nor promote or support their production. The fetish and the hysteria surrounding it have created too powerful a story for anyone to tell anything else about appearances that are also covered by them. This is exactly what I am afraid of; very much afraid of that a certain fetish is insisted upon so strongly that art itself, and the stories it weaves, are silenced to death. Ulla Karttunen has been sued over her use of the material.

In DeviantART, Sbaraci, as far as I have understood, is one of those, who have suffered from being true to her art. In her case it seems that the issue is about certain imagery being inappropriate for underaged eyes. Now, how many of you really lived in a non-nude, non-sexual and an entirely un-challenging Disney-world when you were children? How many of you who did not were traumatised? I certainly was not. Knowledge does not hurt, taboos and guilt do. And who is going to make accountable those, who support and keep renewing societies and sociality of guilt and sin? Censorship of nudity for pedagogical reasons sounds approximately as far-sighted as refusing same-sex adoption on the basis that their children will be bullied at the school. Please. Is such not a case of reacting to and preventing the bullying instead of showing that yeah, it’s quirky alright, keep on good work, trash them? I'm going to get a brain-hemorrhage thinking about this.

I feel that by increasing policies to control certain appearances does more to embed and enhance the kind of imagination that it explicitly tries to combat. When opposing something such as child pornography or supporting something like gender equality, it would not be such a bad idea to keep one’s eyes on the kind of activity that explicitly violates individual freedoms of women and children. Catalogues and imageries don’t hurt. Living people do, and living people should not be treated as incapable of making their own decisions and accepting their consequences. Only the acts of violence by living individuals are and should be seen as un-excusable, while storytelling, however queer or honest, should not.

A story told about an item becomes a potential part of it. A story that may not be told takes away from all its potential relations; from all art, that is. In art, moral stories require a space in which references between various mindsets and ways of thinking can be drawn freely. A removed and censored element removes something from every other surface for artistic gaze. Policies for removal of certain visual elements may be necessary for the community’s security. That does not, however, reduce the fact that every act of censorship, without exception, cripples. I’m not saying that people, including myself, should not create crippled art. We damn well do.