A great number of sociologists believe the crime of paedophilia has become more degrading in our societies than murder, be it assassination. The attention the media give the subject seems to go in their direction, from the Polanski case to that of Lahey (the Canadian bishop who was arrested at the airport in Ottawa last week in possession of child pornography on his portable computer). In the artistic world another event has just confirmed the feeling : a photograph of actress Brooke Shields nude at age 10 has just been removed from an exhibition. This has serious consequences, since the opening of the Pop Life retrospective at the Tate Modern has been delayed and the catalogue take off the shelves. It seems we have become very pervert societies in which the sight of a naked child only awakens lustful thoughts. But it was not the case a few years ago since, in 1983, the Court of Appeals of New York, not really known for its laxness, non suited Brooke Shields in her action to get these images back. The court declared the latter were neither «sexually suggestive, nor provocative nor pornographic». Evil seems to lie only in the eye of the beholder …

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