Crossing the Line - University of North Carolina Wilmington and Child Pornography

The University of North Carolina Wilmington's Women's Studies & Resource Center thinks nude photos of underage girls and women doesn't objectify and degrade them.

Here's one for your "What the?" basket. The Women's Studies & Resource Center at the University of North Carolina Wilmington sponsored a show entitled "The Century Project: Disarmingly Powerful Nude Portraits of Women." While nudes have been a subject of art for thousands of years and a subject since the beginning of photography, here's a project with a twist. The photographer presents his photographs of nude women from birth to old age. What this means is that minor girls are also included in the project, posed as nudes and on display in such places as the ballroom at UNCW. What is the point?

More than a hundred girls and women of many ages, shapes, sizes, and backgrounds bare all in Frank Cordelle’s The Century Project. The project combines unconventionally stunning nude portraits with highly personal written statements describing instances of rape, debilitating illness, disfiguring surgeries, distorted social expectations, as well as reflections of humor and joy. (The Century Project)

I have a few questions about such a project: "How does this photography project support women, support the cause of feminism, and support women's self esteem and values?" "Doesn't having underage girls pose nude exploit them well beyond 'distorted social expectations?'" "What possible value to women's studies does this project contribute?" And most of all, "Who in their right mind thinks this is a good idea?"

I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from the university system that has college girls dress up as giant vaginas to promote the Vagina Monologues. Even my own school was no exception to sponsoring this utterly tasteless and degrading presentation, sometimes presented on "V Day" - what Americans used to call Valentine's Day.

Certain UNCW officials, actually had some sense, however, with regard to The Century Project. They erred on the side of decency (probably realizing that the exhibit may have crossed the line into child pornography). And a very few at the university level have actually come out to make a stand against the exhibit:

“I don’t think that showing full frontal nudity of underage girls and over-18-year-old women is a socially responsible way of helping people,” said John Foubert, an associate professor in the School of Educational Studies at Oklahoma State University, who said he contacted every school scheduled to host “The Century Project,” including UNCW, and encouraged them not to display it. “I think it just serves to objectify the people in the pictures.” (Source)

Yet, the university system seems to produce its share of whacks, who have lost any sense of decency, morality, and common sense.

When The Century Project was shown at UNCW’s Randall Library in 2002, “there were no problems,” said Janet Ellerby, of the university’s Women’s Resource Center, which is sponsoring the exhibit. “It was a bit of disappointment that we hit this bump in the road.”

[Photographer] Cordelle said cutting the photos will detract from the power of the exhibit. (Source)

Yep, it's a member of the Women's Resource Center, someone who should be protecting women, yet considers that the decision not to show photos of underage nude girls is nothing more than a "bump in the road." In the meantime, the photographer was only concerned with detracting from the power of the exhibit, instead of the exhibitionism he's promoting.

Aren't there enough problems created by degrading and objectifying women without a university Women's Resource Center contributing to it?