Bare Breasts On Statue Offend Some at Arboretum

[CTyankee]

67. I have hesitated, in some of my Challenge threads, to post images of art that is

obviously of exploited young girls. I think this walks the line, being that she is 13. Not that is is at all "dirty." Not at all. I just wonder if it is exploitation of a child. I rejected posting the image of a Boucher painting in one of my Friday Afternoon Challenges of a young girl who became one of the mistresses of Louis the 14th because of that.

It is a close call and not easy, IMO. this painting does not attempt to do anything but present this girl. Unlike the Boucher, she is not posed in a sexualized pose. If anything, she is decidedly NOT being posed that way. She has a decisive pose.

there is nudity and there is nudity. When Victorine Meurent posed for Manet's "Olympia" she returns the "male gaze" with a decisive gaze of her own. I have learned that she was a lesbian and had her own ideas about her sexuality and I love that. Her pose takes on a new meaning.