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Post by pjaye on Jan 21, 2018 1:54:29 GMT
I've just started reading a book- Alice I have Been by Melanie Benjamin. This is a book of fiction (but based on fact) about Alice Lidell the real little girl who mathematics professor (real name) Charles Dodgson (Carroll) wrote the Alice story for. As I read I was getting some seriously creepy vibes from the book & felt the author was insinuating there was more to their relationship, so I went and did some further reading. When Carroll met Alice along with her two sisters she was 4yo and he was a 24yo bachelor and he wrote in his diary that "he became fast friends with the 3 little girls" He worked for their father and would visit their home and take the little girls (or just Alice alone) out on picnics, boating etc. Who knows what their mother was thinking. Then he bought a camera and started to photograph them and other little girls...often nude. The nude photos are online but if you don't want to google you can see them on this (safe) blog post It seems like most of the academics who have studied him agree that his fondness for little girl friends wasn't exactly normal and would raise questions today. Some think he was a paedophile but didn't act on his impulses because he was too repressed. he seemed to "pick up little girls wherever he went, on trains etc and carried toys and puzzles in his pockets" Some of the nude photos are quite alarming naked prepubescent girls reclining back on beds etc. When Alice was 11yo there was a sudden rift between the families and he stopped seeing Alice, pages of his diary have been ripped out. Some speculate that the mother thought he was too affectionate with either Alice or her sister or that he proposed to Alice (she was 11 he was 31). There's an interesting documentary done in 2015, now on YouTube the photos etc are covered in the second half.
People who defend him say that "it was different in Victorian times" and that there is no evidence he was sexually active with any of the girls.
It all got me thinking. Does "no evidence" mean it never happened?...maybe he didn't molest those wealthy little girls, but there could have been lots of other poor little girls he was able to take advantage of. Plus would they have been able to tell anyone? or who would have believed them back in those days? Look at all the Hollywood stuff, those are grown women, and they didn't feel powerful enough to tell, imagine a 5-10yo girls 100 years ago.
My second question is - does it make a difference if he was a paedophile but didn't act on it? If he just hugged them, kissed them on the head or took nude photos but didn't actually touch them inappropriately (probably masturbated in private)...is that a defence? Some of those who have studied him seem to think so...
"oh yes he loved them, but he didn't act on it". I'm not so sure that's OK.
I never really read his books as a child or an adult so all of this controversy was unknown to me until just now. It has definitely altered what I think. Thoughts? Did you know this about him? |
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Post by femalebusiness on Jan 21, 2018 2:14:05 GMT
I had no idea. I am no fan of Lewis Carroll, I don't care for his stories. If he never touched little girls he was sure as hell obsessed with them. I don't think men who have those urges ever control them so yeah I'd bet he was a paedophile and he did molest young girls.
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Post by Skellinton on Jan 21, 2018 3:02:56 GMT
“If he just hugged them, kissed them on the head or took nude photos but didn't actually touch them inappropriately (probably masturbated in private)...is that a defence? Some of those who have studied him seem to think so...”
Well, I don’t consider him taking nude photos ok, whether he touched them or not. I think the act of taking pictures of naked children is wrong in of itself.
I had heard that it was speculated he had an inappropriate relationship with the “real” Alice, but I thought it was like the story of Walt Disney having his head frozen, just an urban myth people passed around. I never knew about the photos or anything else you wrote about. Gross.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 3:12:50 GMT
Samuel Clemens had a group of little girls that were with him a lot. I think he called them his mermaids.
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Post by pjaye on Jan 21, 2018 3:31:53 GMT
Well, I don’t consider him taking nude photos ok, whether he touched them or not. Yes, I was surprised that some academics seemed to think this was OK. Or saying because it was in Victorian times "things were different". No, I think there were still sexual predators back then, and especially young girls would have been powerless against them. We just recognise the signs better these days. |
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Post by AussieMeg on Jan 21, 2018 4:03:02 GMT
Yuck.... I feel quite grotty after reading that and seeing the photographs. I had no idea.
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Post by hop2 on Jan 21, 2018 4:23:06 GMT
Well, technically, it was different then. Society was different as a whole. The age of consent wasn’t raised to 13 in UK until 1875. Prior to that the age of consent was 12. And young women did marry ‘older’ Men in that era. There would have been a bigger controversy at the time over a class difference than an age difference.
But the picture taking is weird to me.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 5:00:59 GMT
I've just started reading a book- Alice I have Been by Melanie Benjamin. This is a book of fiction (but based on fact) about Alice Lidell the real little girl who mathematics professor (real name) Charles Dodgson (Carroll) wrote the Alice story for. As I read I was getting some seriously creepy vibes from the book & felt the author was insinuating there was more to their relationship, so I went and did some further reading. When Carroll met Alice along with her two sisters she was 4yo and he was a 24yo bachelor and he wrote in his diary that "he became fast friends with the 3 little girls" He worked for their father and would visit their home and take the little girls (or just Alice alone) out on picnics, boating etc. Who knows what their mother was thinking. Then he bought a camera and started to photograph them and other little girls...often nude. The nude photos are online but if you don't want to google you can see them on this (safe) blog post It seems like most of the academics who have studied him agree that his fondness for little girl friends wasn't exactly normal and would raise questions today. Some think he was a paedophile but didn't act on his impulses because he was too repressed. he seemed to "pick up little girls wherever he went, on trains etc and carried toys and puzzles in his pockets" Some of the nude photos are quite alarming naked prepubescent girls reclining back on beds etc. When Alice was 11yo there was a sudden rift between the families and he stopped seeing Alice, pages of his diary have been ripped out. Some speculate that the mother thought he was too affectionate with either Alice or her sister or that he proposed to Alice (she was 11 he was 31). There's an interesting documentary done in 2015, now on YouTube the photos etc are covered in the second half.
People who defend him say that "it was different in Victorian times" and that there is no evidence he was sexually active with any of the girls.
It all got me thinking. Does "no evidence" mean it never happened?...maybe he didn't molest those wealthy little girls, but there could have been lots of other poor little girls he was able to take advantage of. Plus would they have been able to tell anyone? or who would have believed them back in those days? Look at all the Hollywood stuff, those are grown women, and they didn't feel powerful enough to tell, imagine a 5-10yo girls 100 years ago.
My second question is - does it make a difference if he was a paedophile but didn't act on it? If he just hugged them, kissed them on the head or took nude photos but didn't actually touch them inappropriately (probably masturbated in private)...is that a defence? Some of those who have studied him seem to think so...
"oh yes he loved them, but he didn't act on it". I'm not so sure that's OK.
I never really read his books as a child or an adult so all of this controversy was unknown to me until just now. It has definitely altered what I think. Thoughts? Did you know this about him? I don't think "no evidence" means it never happened, but with no evidence we can't make a concrete factual assertion a thought/emotion, mental process or physical action ever happened. To me, I think (can change my mind later) to say he loved them but never acted on it is defensible and doesn't make him a predator pedophile. I think the end result on the child involved makes a huge difference. Did his interaction with them in some fashion rob them of innocence? I guess even if it is feelings of desire that lead to age and socially appropriate play, having toys and puzzles, is not problematic. Play that satisfied HIS sexuality and/or robbed the child of innocence would be the problem. Nude play which would not have been a normal childhood play at that time would be a problem. I do have a problem with nude child photos, even when children are nude in normally acceptable surrounds/times such as bathtime with a parent/nanny who normally bathes them but then those photos get passed around to a more public arena I think the child is robbed of some of their dignity and rights to control who sees/saw them in a very vulnerable light. (read about Sally Mann's photos if you want to enlarge the topic some) I think the most recent generation of children are sorely lacking in appropriate adult interaction with adults outside of their parents because no one wants to be assumed to be a pedophile at heart even if they never act that way. We tend to view any adult who is willing to spend time with a child to be suspect. I think the past generations found value in children having a range of adults to guide them and there wasn't the suspicion that everyone interested in mentoring a child was going to harm that child. Perhaps they were too naive and we are too distrustful. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 5:13:24 GMT
Wanted to add, did you read the comments about the photos in the comments section? SOme knowledgeable blog readers had some things to add to the blog post about some of the more lurid photos (they weren't taken by Dodgeson)
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Jan 21, 2018 5:17:02 GMT
just from looking at the photos. to me most of them 'read' as poses like in fine art of the period or before - paintings... cherubs, or Venus rising from the sea... the first one of Alice dressed like a street urchin brings to mind a painting I've seen somewhere before.
Perhaps playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but why would it be okay to paint a child/young person like that but it's not okay to photograph them? The medium used to produce them is different, but if there were real models used to sketch from for Michelangelo, DaVinci, etc. do we see them as pedophiles?
Is it just unseemly because he wasn't related to them? A photograph is one moment in time- without the context surrounding it since the artist's thought process wasn't known, it's not clear what the intent was. The photograph of the girl giving him a kiss could very well be perfectly innocent.
eta: I've read a lot of fiction written during Victorian - early 20th century, and the way the authors (such as Louisa May Alcott and Gene Stratton Porter, for example) describe affection between young people and older relatives, friends, etc. would probably seem a bit 'unseemly' compared to what we feel is socially acceptable today. Just because we don't give / receive physical affection to that extent today doesn't mean that kind of contact was meant to be sexual during that time period.
I agree with this from Volt: " I think the most recent generation of children are sorely lacking in appropriate adult interaction with adults outside of their parents because no one wants to be assumed to be a pedophile at heart even if they never act that way. We tend to view any adult who is willing to spend time with a child to be suspect. I think the past generations found value in children having a range of adults to guide them and there wasn't the suspicion that everyone interested in mentoring a child was going to harm that child. Perhaps they were too naive and we are too distrustful."
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zella
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by zella on Jan 21, 2018 5:21:21 GMT
I've known about this for many years, though I hadn't seen some of those photos before.
Just because laws were different, that doesn't mean morals should have been. Girls as young as 12 can still get married in most states in the US. Does that make it right? Would anyone here argue that this is okay? I doubt that.
The tendency to permit perverse, immoral and criminal behavior and excuse it as "art," or because the perpetrator is an "artist," continues to this day. One need look no further than Hollywood's behavior towards Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.
In my community a popular high school teacher, actor and writer had a long history of sexual assault on teens, and I know of one sexual relationship with one of his students (the relationship continued after she graduated). That student was one of his biggest fans and friends. I think his behavior was known to many and at no time was it stopped. He was lauded for his "talents." It's utterly disgusting.
Yes, he was a pervert. I hope he didn't actually molest those girls, but taking the photos and the salacious nature of them, is already a form of abuse.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 5:21:39 GMT
just from looking at the photos. to me most of them 'read' as poses like in fine art of the period or before - paintings... cherubs, or Venus rising from the sea... the first one of Alice dressed like a street urchin brings to mind a painting I've seen somewhere before. Perhaps playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but why would it be okay to paint a child/young person like that but it's not okay to photograph them? The medium used to produce them is different, but if there were real models used to sketch from for Michelangelo, DaVinci, etc. do we see them as pedophiles? Is it just unseemly because he wasn't related to them? A photograph is one moment in time- without the context surrounding it since the artist's thought process wasn't known, it's not clear what the intent was. The photograph of the girl giving him a kiss could very well be perfectly innocent. Apparently that one is actually a photoshop composite that started circulation around 2010. It is a photo of him reading a book and a different photo of her eating cherries being held up by a sister. She had her face up and mouth opened waiting for the next cherry. I haven't gone digging for the original photos. But that one was addressed by a commenter down in the comments section. |
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Jan 21, 2018 5:31:01 GMT
The first photo is NOT an actual photo but a photoshopped image. The last photo (the full frontal nude) is not who the blog writer says it is, not was it taken by Dodgson. And yes, the aesthetic towards photography during Victorian times- as more 'art' than 'a snapshot in time' like we see it now- can't be ignored.
ETA: the blog author was given the correct information about the first photo and the full frontal nude-- he actually acknowledges the people posting comments in a comment of his own- and yet he chose NOT to correct his blog post. That's pretty inexcusable, in my opinion.
This information sheds a very different light on it for me, anyway.
the very first comment, from a member of the Lewis Carroll society of Argentina:
"first, that the alleged “photograph” of Lewis Carroll “kissing” Alice Liddell is in fact a cheap, rather silly composite, a (rather poorly, let’s agree) photoshopped image which I am surprised keeps luring the informed & genuine interest of cultured people towards this question of Carroll’s/Dodgson’s supposed pedophile inclinations time, & time again. How an intelligent person such as yourself could be so easily & irresponsibly deceived by this obvious & crude trick is really beyond me, I must say.
The “photograph” in question is a composite of two well known photographs, & a simple & quick search on the Web would have surely shed some light on this matter. You should have done your homework, if I may say so…
Secondly, the image of the naked girl –it has already been established by serious scholars– is not a photograph of Lorina Liddell, as it was purported to be the case, & it was certainly not Dodgson/Carroll who took this picture, despite the allegations hastily advanced in what I cannot but call a “mockumentary” –this shame of a “journalistic” piece that “The Secret World of Lewis Caroll” turned out to be.
May I finally add that your argument comparing the photography of Dodgson of the “Beggar Alice” & the fantastic photography of extremely talented Sally Mann is a rather flawed one? To say, as you now do, that Alice Liddell as a Beggar Child here “appears to have been dressed up by the photographer to fulfil some idea ( fantasy?) of the photographer rather than to reflect the child at play or in some natural setting” is both to bring into the image in question a personal reading that is, I’m afraid, tainted with personal opinion & experience, & to also ignore the circumstances of how photography in general & photographic practice in particular was thought of & practiced in Victorian times, in the very early years of the art of photography.
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Post by pjaye on Jan 21, 2018 7:38:53 GMT
*ETA: I didn't link the blog post for any reason other to show the photos, I assumed some people wouldn't want to google nude photos of children, so I simply found a site that had the most common photos on there. I wasn't holding up the blog post as proof of anything. I read a variety of different sources, before I posted, but this wasn't one of them. Just because we don't give / receive physical affection to that extent today doesn't mean that kind of contact was meant to be sexual during that time period ...and it also does not mean it wasn't sexual. Just because that affection was more acceptable, we can't therefore assume it was innocent. Now we know how prevalent sexual abuse is I don't think it's safe to assume that back then it was any less. I'd argue that it was just easier for those men to find their victims under those circumstances. Why are certain people so willing to absolve those men in the past, when we now know how prevalent this is? Isn't it just like Priests? "oh no, a Priest has taken a vow of celibacy...they never do that" and we allowed those men access to children all the time under an assumed trust. Look how that turned out. I don't see why the documentary would fake the results of the photo of Lorina, what would he have to gain? It simply is not normal for two grown men to go on outings with 3 prepubescent girls they are not related to. It's not normal to consider that a "friendship" I'm sure there are many Carroll fans who would say anything to defend him...just like there are always men who blame victims of sexual abuse, or who don't believe women & children when they speak out. That's what allows other men to keep getting away with it. SOme knowledgeable blog readers had some things to add to the blog post about some of the more lurid photos (they weren't taken by Dodgeson) You don't know anyone's credentials from a blog post. We tend to view any adult who is willing to spend time with a child to be suspect I think that is for very good reason. Children get plenty of interaction with other adults, however it needs to be supervised closely, especially men. It would be nice to be able to say "men they are not related to" however a child is more likely to be molested by someone in the family than a stranger. I don't think most parents are too strict about this at all. |
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anniebygaslight
Drama Llama
I'd love a cup of tea. #1966
Posts: 7,412
Location: Third Rock from the sun.
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Post by anniebygaslight on Jan 21, 2018 8:21:01 GMT
It is alluded to quite often on the telly etc in UK. I'm guessing that there is something in it.
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Post by theroadlesstraveledp on Jan 22, 2018 8:42:33 GMT
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2018 10:11:42 GMT
just from looking at the photos. to me most of them 'read' as poses like in fine art of the period or before - paintings... cherubs, or Venus rising from the sea... the first one of Alice dressed like a street urchin brings to mind a painting I've seen somewhere before. Perhaps playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but why would it be okay to paint a child/young person like that but it's not okay to photograph them? The medium used to produce them is different, but if there were real models used to sketch from for Michelangelo, DaVinci, etc. do we see them as pedophiles? Is it just unseemly because he wasn't related to them? A photograph is one moment in time- without the context surrounding it since the artist's thought process wasn't known, it's not clear what the intent was. The photograph of the girl giving him a kiss could very well be perfectly innocent. I happen to agree with a lot of what you've said. If one goes to a good art gallery that spans the centuries of art you'll fine plenty of still life photographs and paintings especially in the pre Raphaelites era. Carroll's social circle consisted mainly of these kind of artists, poets and photographers. I find that blog post an opinion of what is seen now without much historical context to what it was then, artistically. |
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