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The Narrative Of Jock Sturges and Dilemmas he Faced with Child Pornography Charges:

Jock Sturges is a world renowned photographer. His reputation straddles the invisible line separating fine art from lewd porn. Sturges is well referred to as a photographer of nudists (naturists). He concentrated his efforts on creating images of mostly women and girls. The subjects ranged in age from adults to young kids.

It was the photographs of nude young kids that first began the legal firestorm. Many people in society now are still divided about the depiction of minors in nude photography.

Is Sturges a accurate visual artist and pioneer? Or has he really transgressed into the world of child pornography?

In http://nudismfree.com and early 1990s Jock Sturges was making headlines and not for the right reasons. For the younger people who might be reading this, back in the day individuals needed to take rolls of film to be developed which was precisely what Jock did. Unfortunately for Jock, some technician saw the photos and alerted the FBI to the possibility of child pornography / endangerment.

In July of 1990 numerous photos and photography gear belonging to Sturges were seized by the authorities and held as evidence. At the time, the pictures were determined to be sexually explicit in nature. Hence a wide-scale child pornography case was looming on the horizon.

Many legal experts in San Francisco supported Jock Sturges. Politicians, analysts and some members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared that these pictures were types of artwork. In addition they insisted that since these were not pornographic pictures of underage kids, Sturges was protected by the First Amendment. They claimed he had the Constitutional right to freely express himself through his pick of artistic endeavors.

Following a drawn-out investigation that cost him $100,000 in legal fees, Sturges necessarily won the conflict in September of 1991. After seventeen months of legal wrangling and obscenity charges, a federal grand jury declined to indite Jock Sturges as he wasn't guilty of any crime. Prosecutors were shocked when they discovered the verdict.

The &naturist& photos of girls and children taken by Sturges could be found in books being sold through major retailers across the country (one of these retailers was Barnes & Noble). During the previously mentioned investigation some individuals had gone to local bookstores and took it upon themselves to ruin any of these books they could discover.

After this landmark legal decision, the play continued for quite some time. There was a sustained drive by particular people to have these photography books branded or at minimum, labeled as obscene material.

In 1998 the controversy got its second wind. Another effort was made to have two of his publications classified as child pornography - &The Last Day of Summer& as well as &Radiant Identities.& This attempt to ban his books in Alabama and Tennessee was unsuccessful.

Jock could at least see the wry silver lining in all this - he became more renowned as a consequence of this investigation and even more successful as a photographer. Unfortunately, the FBI had a way of forever censoring artists like Jock. He says in an interview, &There are pictures I don't take now that I formerly would have shot without any thought at all. Before, I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. I had photograph anything. Now I realize that there are certain positions and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I prevent that. But it is challenging.& And who can blame him for limiting himself as an artist when one innocent photograph can turn someone into a child pornographer?




<img src="https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/13/ba/58/newquay.jpg" />

Even some parents were taken in for investigation in the 90s after picture lab technicians reported a photograph of a nude child in their roll of film (the parents' own children of course). Maybe this still happens to parents today, but the digital age has made it much easier to keep http://nudism.name . However, things have gotten more ridiculous since now kids themselves are facing child pornography charges from &sexting&!

Whatever the case, we've included a few images of Sturges' work below. In our perspective, these images and his other works are not pornographic or sexual by any stretch of the imagination. The scandal seems to have been the result of a prevalent anxiety and paranoia surrounding ***** and child pornography. Sturges also imputes it to the way American society is so hung-up about sex and the way it refuses to recognize children as sexual beings. He states in the same interview: &Western civilization insists on these real demarcations. Before 18, you don't exist sexually; after 18, you exist like crazy. It is ridiculous. The truth is that from birth on, Homo sapiens is, to one extent or another, a pretty sexy species.&

Read more in An Interview with Jock Sturges from 1998.

Photo by Jock Sturges Young Girl Nude

Christina by Jock Sturges

Bare Mom and Child By Jock Sturges

Christina, Misty, & Alisa 1989, by Jock Sturges

Radiant Identities: Photos by Jock Sturges