The acceptable age of voyeurism?

Inspired by a babysitter he surprised in front of the bathroom mirror shooting pictures of herself with his Polaroid, the photographer Uwe Ommer decided to put together a book of erotic self-portraits by inexperienced photographers. The cast of self-portraitists includes a wide range of personalities, from students to artists, actors, stylists, dancers, models, musicians, teachers, and more…but is this art or an example of exhibitionism? Do they all secretly want to be porn stars or webgirls? The digital age of voyeurism has become a comfortably familiar staple of mass culture. The media feeds us the intimate details of tenuously famous personalities, elevating them to celebrities. Scantily-clad college students set up Web cams in their dorms and voyeurs across the world pay to watch them clean their bathroom and lounge around in bed. Do they want to expose their bodies to turn people on? Or is this exploitationism (of who)? Or is this a shout out to girls to Do It Yourself?

Art history lists dozens of examples of ‘fine art’ that crosses the dubious line between art and pornography. Some of the most famous paintings in the world were originally little more than naughty pictures for very rich men. The act of looking or ‘peeping’ was undertaken for the purpose of achieving some sort of sexual excitement. The observer generally did not seek to have sexual contact with th real person being observed. Artists purposely cross the line but intellectualize it away. Peudo-artistic photography magazines produce porn and use the art tag as a disguise. Nothing changes.