My name in lights. Well, nearly.

I'm pleased to have had a letter published in the Guardian's review section today. It's here, and the article to which it refers is here. Here's the full text of the letter, before the Graun edited it:

"Do we like [Gill's Petra drawings] any less knowing...that...Gill was habitually abusing his two elder daughters?" asks Fiona MacCarthy. Well, I certainly hope so. Let me reframe that question: "Does the knowledge that these are a rapist's portraits of his victim, who also happens to be his daughter, change the way we feel about it?" Are these pictures really still "delicious"?
Sex offenders, by the way, are not motivated by an "overbalance of tendresse". Like other emotionally manipulative people, though, they are often expert at fooling the naive, which makes their behaviour easier to commit and to get away with.

Don't misunderstand me - many forms of transgression are terrific and productive and thrilling in Art and in life. Work of incontestible value has been created by some vile people, too; you could start with Wagner and make a list a mile long. But "impossible to view without a frisson, those delicate, delicious portraits of the teenage Petra"? A "frisson", for goodness sake, like it's just a bit of added spice. For all I know, Petra's still alive, although she must be very ancient if so. She wasn't raped by her father in order to give your viewing experience added flavour, she was raped by her father because he was scum.

Homosexuality is often quoted as the archetypal transgressive behaviour, and the changes in its legal status are testament to the inappropriateness of mistaking "illegal" for "bad". This is not the same thing, though. Even many of those stupid enough to believe that homosexuality is in some sense unnatural, let alone immoral, must, I hope, understand the whole "consenting adults" thing, and why if I call this a crime, it is in a different sense from that in which homosexuality used to be one.

So should we destroy Gill's works? Of course not; see reference to Wagner, above, and no, you don't have to be as good as W. for the argument to apply. And NO, an "it's art" defense does not apply to child pornography. I can recognise, having said that, that the Petra pictures could be seen as occupying something of a grey area in that regard; more thought required, perhaps.

What I do know is that, knowing what they are, I don't want the Petra pictures on my wall.

Anyway - my name's in the paper today!