Art exhibit or child abuse

[haggistramp]

Personally I'm opting for the latter, its inappropriate for children. Apparently this was in Estonia and it was a school trip. If the tables were turned and a middle aged man exposed his body to teenage girls I'm sure there would be an outcry. If it were my son I dont think I'd be very happy.
On a lighter note, the young boys face says it all. female nudity warning.

who the fuck thought that exhibition was suitable for a school outing? urgh, that stuff on the table. like a scene out of american psycho

Mmm it’s a bit of a different argument though.
It’s more like if there was an exhibition of men, but where all the men had had their dicks chopped off and sewn into flower shapes... then a man turned up to wave his cock around to prove that this exhibition was in fact promoting practices that are violent and dangerous to men.
But I see what you mean, kind of😂

Is her nakedness worse than the silicon nakedness on the table?

I think we'd need to know what the parents were expecting the children to see. If 'female nudity' or 'naked body parts' were expected, then what is one more (realistic) set?

I'd not buy into the tweeter's agenda, to be honest.

If this was not done for her gratification, then it's completely different from a flasher.

It is a body, a real human body like the ones their mothers have. How can this do 'harm'? What a prudish reaction.

How can this do 'harm'?

I know plenty of women who were flashed as children and felt it harmed them

An Estonian here. As people have said before, nakedness is normal. It is not just sauna culture, people are naked at home all the time. In my experience it is not given a second thought if a friend undresses in front of you to change clothes etc. Those boys most likely would have seen all their family and probably grandparents naked. To put it to context, my nephew was around, he is 14 and I was topless a couple of times, feeding my baby and he didn't blink an eye. My DH still finds it difficult to get used to (what if someone sees you etc).
She (Mare Tralla) was a protester, showing a real female body as opposed to the male (the artists's) gaze of the female body.
In response to the domestic violence and women's rights thing - firstly, Baltics are not homogenous, Estonian culture is very different from Latvia and Lithuania. Secondly, the issue is incredibly complex because families are actually very woman-centred, I wouldn't go as far as calling them matriarchal but they're not far off (the wage gap doesn't show it). So it is almost like a clash between these strong females and the issues that all countries face regarding women's rights.
Domestic violence is a problem everywhere, statistics obviously don't often reflect the real numbers, it is vile regardless.
I would say in Estonia it is most likely to be alcoholism-related but that's a whole other topic.

Whoever said it is equivalent to a male flasher... really? How is this a sexual fetish?

tiintoon that's interesting. I think MN (like a lot of English-speaking sites) can often fail to appreciate different international perspectives and norms.

Whoever said it is equivalent to a male flasher... really? How is this a sexual fetish? it's full frontal nudity in front of people who haven't consented. The fact that its children makes it worse. Defending it by saying it's not a sexual fetish is (a) just insane and (b) irrelevant. I guess your quite happy for all those genuine male bodied transgenders (I.e. not agp) to be sharing communal changing areas with women and children because you know, it's not a sexual fetish? It's just their body and there's nothing wrong with being naked.

@tiintoon
Although Estonia Latvia and Lithuania are all very different culturally, all three rank very highly on charts that gather international statistics of violence against women and that was what I meant really.
And although violence against women is a problem everywhere, the way it is recognized, the way it’s dealt with and the way the legal system of a country enables report and prosecution is of vital importance. And again all three Baltic countries are woefully inadequate in that regard, sadly. Or whether the legislation exists it isn’t enforced properly by local authorities, for cultural reasons.

Context and consent is relevant. No one in that gallery expected to see, nor consented to see , her naked.

^ this is relevant, regardless of the country.

yes, that is interesting

the exhibition is horrible, and really not something to take school children to. so very poor judgement there on the part of whoever organised the trip

from my English-speaking perspective I'd be bloody furious if my DS went to an art gallery and a woman exposed herself to him

I think seeing your mum or your grandma or sister naked is quite different to seeing a stranger

But if for instance you take your children to one of the big water world/saunas in say, Poland, everybody is naked. Not bikinis. Naked. Men and women. Because it’s a sauna .

Obviously not on the curly wurly slide. But in the spas and sauna complexes

Re sauna culture. Germany also has that, I didn’t realise before we visited! But it is only in the sauna area and I never saw anyone naked outside a sauna so I’m not sure why this would be normal simply because of ‘sauna culture’

This is an art gallery? Not a sauna. Where people expect nudity.

@leatherflamingle
You are suggesting that domestic violence is somehow culturally tolerated. That is most definitely not true. It is probably tolerated and justified (with some victim-blaming thrown in) by ultra right wing men as it is everywhere else but generally it is most definitely not something that is culturally or socially acceptable.

And alright then, I'll turn myself in for exposing myself to my nephew.

Re sauna culture. Germany also has that, I didn’t realise before we visited! But it is only in the sauna area and I never saw anyone naked outside a sauna

Lol, you've obviously never hung out near the Berlin lakes! There are lots of grassy areas near footpaths, nude sunbathing totally unexceptional there. German is much less squeamish about nudity than the UK.

I wouldn’t be furious- I’d be glad that she was protesting. I worry about what teenagers think a female body should look like when I hear preteens saying that they’ve accessed porn online.

Lol, you've obviously never hung out near the Berlin lakes!

No! I’m not British btw, I’m kiwi. There are topless beaches etc around but that’s different from full nudity at an art gallery.

The bottom line is she flashed her body to an unconsenting audience, children no less. There can be no reasons excusing this or defending it otherwise you open the floodgates to every tom dick and harry wanting to jiggle their wobbly bits in front of an unconsenting audience. 'I wasnt flashing, I woz protesting, honest'.

I'm afraid my english speaking perspective is the only one i've got

in this country i'd be expecting that woman to be charged with indecent exposure, and i'd be glad she was. i appreciate it may be different else where

i'm naked around my DS's at some point most days (although my 8 year old has started being embarrassed about it, not sure why). But I think a naked stranger is very different to a naked family member.

@tiintoon not that its culturally tolerated as such, just that the boundaries of what constitutes domestic violence are unclear, and the police are ill equipped to deal with violence against women.

"bottom line" hah hah. But seriously, I am really worried by the implications this has anything to do with sexual fetishism, exposure, tangling it up with all sorts of GR concerns. Nasty anti feminist right wing concerns are sneaking in here, under the guise of "what about the children". Always a bad sign.

Random Tom Dicks and Harries are not renowned artists are they?!? I don't necessarily agree with exposing oneself in an art gallery but don't blow things out of proportion. Those boys were most likely not eternally scarred by seeing her because nakedness is a normal thing, they weren't lured into a dark alley and masturbated in front of. We might as well start cutting naked scenes out of movies as well then.