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.

@leatherflamingle
Actually there was a pilot project that started last year in which the offender is removed rather than the woman and children and I don't think the justice system is as lacking as you make it out to be.
I wish DV didn't exist so am in no way defending any of it but it really doesn't seem to be much worse from other countries. There are plenty of posts on MN about DV. We need to take into consideration social class, nationality, area in which people live - urban or not, family history, general history etc (again for sociological implications not justification).

@tiintoon yes there have been lots of changes lately thankfully. Thankfully because the situation was so bad. I don’t believe the violence is worse, but I know for certain that the way it’s dealt with by authorities is inadequate and backward.
You don’t need to take my word for it because the statistics speak for themselves.
The uk is also a disgrace when it comes to violence against women, shamefully so.

we do cut out nudity in films under the classifications. I doubt youd find any film under the 15 rating with full frontal nudity. Plus why did she need to expose herself? If nudity is accepted (albeit limited to family and saunas) then kids will know what a naked female body looks like, there is no need for her to expose herself. If a balding middle aged man did this to teenage girls, no one would be defending him as a protestor/artist/showing girls what a normal male body looks like. It reeks of hypocrisy.

Also @tiintoon that pilot project strikes me as unbelievably late in arrival and ill thought out, and notable that they piloted it in a place in Estonia with the lowest (13 recorded complaints) of dv? Instead of in one of the major cities.
Probably because it’s a dangerous system and would take a huge amount of resources to manage. Anyway it’s a bit of a deviation from the thread I know !

I do not find it offensive

I completely understand her protest to be honest.

Have any of you seen the dismembered tits and bum hole bodies that were the feature of the exhibition?

She is reminding visitors what a female body looks like.
We're not just tits and arse.

I feel her anger, actually, and if I were brave I'd do the same.

Yes I feel her anger too.
Desperate times call for desperate measures

haggistramp
You don't mention the actual exhibition. Do you think that is appropriate for kids to attend?

Seeing someone breastfeeding or seeing a family member naked is not the same thing as seeing a random stranger naked.

Kids seeing that exhibition is wrong, but that doesn’t make it acceptable to show kids your vulva.

One of my earlier posts I said that the art exhibition was also inappropriate for children. But that sounds like classic whataboutery, one messed up exhibition doesnt justify anyone exposing themselves to children. I cant even believe I've read that someone defending it by claiming the children most likely wouldn't have been harmed by it. That's a sweeping judgement to make, and had sexes been reversed, and a female forced to see an exposed strange man, there would be holy hell if anyone suggested she most likely wont be harmed from it on the basis she has probably seen her dad naked.

Why are "real bodies" or "normal bodies" in these things always massively overweight? Are women who take care of themselves and eat a healthy diet not real? No wonder the boy In the NASA shirt looks so cynical.

Kids seeing that exhibition is wrong, but that doesn’t make it acceptable to show kids your vulva

Yes 2 wrongs don't make a right.

I'm a bit puzzled by the posters who don't understand the importance of context and consent.

The table seems to have disembodied pairings of breasts/ cunt and arsehole on it.

I can well see why she was protesting.

Even in uk, flashing needs to have sexual component or aim to offend public decency (or something like that). Nudity in and of itself is not legal.

Men who flash at women (schoolgirls) have a clear sexual motivation, often they are masturbating.

This is not the same.

Art galleries in general are chock full of images of naked women btw!

You can't see her vulva.

Her purpose was not to offend, so rather like the naked bike riders here.

It was not targeted at an isolated, vulnerable person, but in front of a group in a well lit, well populated place where they have every reason not to feel threatened.

I don’t care whether she intended to offend, the fact is, if we have a rule around nudity it should apply to all. I don’t like being confronted with anybody’s naked body without my consent or without an obvious expectation- like changing rooms! Although one woman at my old gym used to talk to me while I got changed with just a bra and no knickers on and it really made me uncomfortable. I don’t think we should use nudity or sex in this way and I do think it’s crossing a line. But I can see other people’s point on this specific incident. I just am careful around consent and children, and the messages we send them about boundaries etc.

This is an article about uk nudity law, so only relevant vis a vis our attitudes.

www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33092812/this-is-where-you-can-be-naked-in-public-in-the-uk

Interestingly, we can go naked anywhere unless someone proves we are doing it to shock or offend. So it's not automatically an offence here, either.

I'm glad we don't, though!

It seems to me it's a bit like calling someone a flasher in a nudist colony if nudism is so common in Estonia.
And yes you could get a flasher in a nudist colony because intent, conveyed by body language etc, could mark out someone at a nudist colony who was deliberately sexualising their nudity and trying to offend or otherwise distress another. I certainly think her intent is not that of a sexual predator.
In the UK, I would totally call it inappropriate, though well-intentioned but I can't speak for Estonia so I'll leave it to those that can.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I admire the protest in and of itself. Should she have waited till the school group had passed? Probably. The kids look pretty young and the contents of the exhibition look totally inappropriate for them; if they had been 'of age' for the exhibition, they would also be 'of age' for the protest. But it's a fake equivalency to compare this to a male protester exposing himself to teenage girls - given a culture of male sexual violence against women, exposing a male body confers a different meaning to exposing a female body.

If the young people are already there looking at bodies with tits and visible arsehole/vag but no head or limbs, a woman with limbs who is not showing her arsehole/vag is hardly anything to complain about.

Having read down the thread, it wasn't an art exhibit. The woman was protesting the exhibition because she felt the male artist was anti-feminist in his depiction of women. The silky gown was her dress and she later took it off completely

It's the art world equivalent of a streaker at a sports match but the security at the gallery seem much slower

The whole thing is a set-up. All those people with journalist quality cameras just happened to be there, and no intervention from any of the gallery staff?

vimeo.com/345313337