I am old enough to have seen some under circumstances where it was legal to.

I must point out that when I discovered them on the Net (roughly 2002-03) I was unaware of their iffy legal status, but as far as I know the photos are still technically legal in the US . . . as long as you aren't a pedophile. Ho hum.

And I must argue that the photos themselves don't document the state of mind of the model.

I don't think that's entirely true. As someone who majored in communications, I know that body language is all-important, accounting for roughly 80% of interpersonal communication between humans. There is a clear difference between photos of the serene and content girls in Sturges's photos and what I recall as stiff, shy poses in the Ionesco photos that contradicted the content. There was a clear transmittal of discomfort there, at least in the earlier photos. As Eva aged and grew used to the photographs, she just seemed increasingly bored with the whole thing.

Mann and Sturges are essentially documenting moments in the regular lives of kids. ( although anyone who's seen Sturges' process knows the great pains he goes to to reconstruct a candid glimpse. )

But not all models for art photography are being asked to be themselves. The models in Bill Henson's photos have a blank and faraway look. It would seem self-evident within an abuse narrative that their sullen withdrawn expressions stem from abuse; until you ask them what they think.

Of course, and I'm not condemning all posed photographs, no more than I would criticize films that weren't documentaries. All art, to some extant, is a fiction, even documentaries, as much for what they don't say as for what they do.

Keeping in mind that Irina seemed more interested in the "fetish" genre, her models ( adult and child ) have expressions very much like those of Helmut Newton's photography. ( Sullen="serious" art. )

But again, for a perceptive viewer there is a lot of what's going on in the subject's head transmitted through body language. I do not presume to suggest that we are always perfectly attuned to body language; I think in many cases we are just as apt to suppress or deny what we read in it as we are any data that doesn't jibe with our schemas, perhaps more so. Often enough we see what we want to see. But many here, myself included, are highly sensitive to children's distress. We wouldn't be child lovers if we weren't. What we choose to do with those perceptions, however, is another thing entirely. Some MAPs are indeed indeed quite adept at manipulating children because they are so in tune with them, just as many playas are good at exploiting women. Others of us use our powers for good, so to speak.

Eva's testimony is that she experienced exploitation. It seems a shame then that she feels a need to withdraw from the truth of it in her retelling. ( "I have sweetened things, the truth is too trashy." ) The restrictions we place on the truth tell us a lot about the limitations ( presumed or real ) of the audience a story is aimed at. But the unvarnished truth ages better as audience tolerances shift.

I don't know why she chose to pull her punches. Perhaps she fears falling into the same patterns as her mother and pushing the story in an exploitative direction. People with good intentions who make art featuring kids can be every bit as exploitative as anyone creating child porn. We've all seen examples of that. Maybe she was afraid of pushing her young actress into what were for Eva uncomfortable places, doing to the girl what her mother had done to her in some sense. I'm not saying that her perceptions are accurate there, but one can certainly understand her hesitancy to create an extension of her mother's work.

It also seems strange that Eva's touch-points in her movie are all directors ( "Brian De Palma, Robert Aldrich, the B-movie .. Fassbinder heroines and Kubrick's Lolita," ) known for their roles exploiting invented "monsters." One doesn't watch Lolita, Raising Cain, or What Ever Happened To Baby Jane to learn anything about real exploitation. And we learn that those who cite Lolita as nonfiction aren't interested in the truth.

I think you're being unfairly judgmental for a film that none of us have even seen yet. It could be that Eva knows her audience and understands how the film has to be "sold" in order to be acceptable. I can't rightly say, since I haven't seen it. All I'm saying is that if the film really is about her mother's exploitation of her, I think she probably has a legitimate gripe there. And considering the time period we live in, she may present the story as honestly as she is able. Besides, it's not like the movie is an exact autobiography; from what I gathered it is, in essence, her story filtered through a fantasia.

But at the bottom of it all we have a legal struggle between a child and mother for the control of images the child finds harmful. With a fourth trial over these it sounds as though the law supports the circumstances surrounding the model's consent. ( It would be interesting to know just what the requirements were at the time. )

By applying a higher standard to himself than the mere initial clearance, Jock Sturges sets himself apart. But could we apply the same standard to all? Could Brooke suppress all films her stage mother consented to? Can Jennifer Connelly suppress her "embarasing" juvenilia like Labyrinth? ( Or the nude scene in Once Upon A Time In America? ) And why can't adults change their minds as they find themselves further down the road? Would a right to retract consent be based purely on perceptions of sexual exploitation or on other grounds?

It seems to me that the laws concerning fraudulent circumstances negating consent ought to be applied across the board. But it is also clear that in a circumstance where children are effectively property, that all such consent is effectively coerced.

Yet another reason why I am only half-joking when I advocate the argument to replace all minors in professional entertainment with adult "little people."

I should make it clear here that I do not believe the images should be suppressed or censored. My position is that, to whatever extent there was damage to Eva, it is pretty much done. If anything, she should use the images as teaching tools, examples of what not to do, and that I think comes clear to anyone sensitive to children and the problems that can arise from such images. I don't believe the images were intended to be pornography, but I cannot automatically qualify anything that isn't porn (or which is, for that matter) as nonexploitative. The circumstances are important in each case. Here we have images that have been on the market for decades, and because of their uniqueness and impact they are important cultural and historical documents.

I get what you're saying about little people being used in place of children, since their position in society renders them essentially unable to consent. A part of me is inclined to agree, just as with the recent article on BC about the bill in New Jersey making the photographing of all children a crime unless obtained by parental consent. The effect would criminalize far more innocent people than it would us, which would push the idiocy closer to the edge and all but guarantee a knee-jerk reaction that would benefit us. But then again it could very well contribute to the new Dark Age for children that has already been in place for far too long. How are you going to enforce it? And what separates use of images of children being determined exploitation when essentially everything children consent to under this state of affairs could be ruled exploitative by that logic? Where would it stop? I'm afraid to find out. The end result could liberate children or merely enslave them further, and which way it goes is hard to say given the culture. On the other hand, I confess there is a certain appeal to me in seeing non-MAPs criminalized because of their own moral panic. But ultimately, even if I knew for certain children would come out of that better in the end, I can't support something like this out of convenience or emotional appeal. It must be weighed on it's own merits and weaknesses.