Was there ever a pressing need for that cover to exist in the first place? I don't think our society would be culturally impoverished if they had simply taken a picture of something else.
If you Photoshop the penis out, there would be nothing remarkable about the cover. It was child exploitation as a marketing gimmick.
I think the Scorpions did something similar with putting an underage girl on the Virgin Killer album, but that may have been non-photographic (not looking it up).
Decades later, Nirvana is still a topic of discussion because of it (and still earning royalties), while the kid in question whose image is used in perpetuity gets told to pound sand because he missed an arbitrary deadline.
We don't need to exploit children as a form of creative expression. We just don't. Depravity is not cultural enrichment.
If you let the penis visible, there is still not that much remarkable. The picture was mainly about a baby swimming toward a bill used as a bait.
There is at least one picture of me (not on social media, admittedly), as a toddler, buck naked in a pool with another toddler. It was (and still is) and innocent picture even with the visible genitalia. So no, it's not automatically "depravity" to show nude people, even kids.
Don't be mistaken, I'm not for child exploration, stuff like kids beauty pageant, or over-exposed young people are downright creepy, but I'm reacting at the idea of making any representation of kids taboo.
> If you Photoshop the penis out, there would be nothing remarkable about the cover.
Says you.
> Decades later, Nirvana is still a topic of discussion because of it (and still earning royalties), ...
I think the album's popularity and the royalties aren't solely attributable to the cover :)
> We don't need to exploit children as a form of creative expression...
There is no pornography, no sexual abuse, in fact there's nothing sexual about it at all, and the parents were paid for the photo. Please help me understand how it constitutes exploitation.
There's no "pressing need" for any art at all, or many other wonderful things that make our lives better. It's a very shitty criteria to determine whether something should be banned or not.
That's much broader than the argument that I think is being made - or should be made. Which is that the need for an album cover art doesn't justify making public images of a nude child who clearly cannot consent to such.
I find it hard to believe anybody could describe that cover as a "wonderful thing" that "made their life better."
If it's really art for the sake of art, art justifying itself, then let it be done for free. I want the monetization of such things banned, because I don't think this is art for the sake of art. I think child modelling is done for the sake of commercial exploitation.
I sympathize with your position, but if it leads to us saying "I don't think this art does enough good for society, so it should not exist" then I'm out, and if it leads to us saying "you can say what you want, but you can't make a living off it unless it gets approval by a moral authority" then I'm also out.
The "slippery slope" here is that I apply my above argument to all monetization of children. But that is where the slope stops. The slope is in fact simply the existing social standard against child labor, with the entertainment industry carve-outs removed.
> I find it hard to believe anybody could describe that cover as a "wonderful thing" that "made their life better."
I didn't say that this art cover is such a thing. I attacked your criteria of a "pressing need" with this description, this argument is independent of discussion about this particular cover.
> I want the monetization of such things banned, because I don't think this is art for the sake of art.
I don't think anyone should be able to ban other people from committing voluntary transactions. The band wants to sell the album. I want to buy it. Somebody else's opinions on what is and what isn't art are not relevant to either of us.
