This picture of me from a long time ago is in a combination frame/clock that sits in a bookshelf where I see it all the time. Sometimes I wonder, “what was she thinking?” and “what would she think of me?”
No. That’s not right. What I wonder is “what is she thinking?” and “what does she think of me?” When I look at the me in that photograph, time goes away. She thinks of me and I think of her as if she is there, now.
What brought this to mind was a post on the Talking Philosophy blog, Naked Photographs, posted by Jeremy Stangroom (Dec 27, 2008):
Okay, so here’s a thing.
Suppose an 18 year old fella takes some photographs of his 17 year old girlfriend in various states of undress. Not pornographic, but not artistic (so we’re talking mild readers’ wives type stuff). She is not coerced in any way, has no objections to him possessing the photographs, and he will never show them to anybody else.
They split up a few years later. She’s happy for him to keep the photographs. Fast forward 25 years. He still possesses the photographs. He’s now in his mid-40s, and he hasn’t been in touch with his old girlfriend for some 20 years, so he has no idea whether she’d mind that he still has the photos (of course, he recognises that she might mind).
So various questions arise:
1. Is it morally wrong for a man in his mid-40s to be looking at naked photos of his 17 year old ex-girlfriend taken 25 years previously? (I’m not interested in whether it is ’sad’, ‘pathetic’, etc).
2. If it is morally wrong, was it wrong when he was 18?
3. If not, is it the age difference that makes it morally wrong? If it is the age difference, how old was he when he started to behave immorally?
4. If not (2 or 3), is it the fact that he can no longer assume her consent? If so, suppose he contacts her, and finds out that she doesn’t mind. Is it okay then?
5. If it still wrong, and it isn’t the age difference, is it because she is not now able to consent for her 17 year old self? (So the thought here is that her 17 year old self would not have consented to the 45 year old version of her boyfriend looking at the photos.)
Generally, what should he do with the photographs? Destroy them? (I’m not interested in the legal status of said photographs. Just the moral question.)
As he hints at in option #5, there are four people in this scene, not two. The 17 year old girl is the one in dialogue with the mid-40s man (not the mid-40s woman), — and this relationship is taking place outside of time. There is only one time (or there is no time) and all four are in it.
As a side note, I can’t for the life of me imagine this scenario with genders reversed. First, would a 17 year old woman want to take pictures of her naked boyfriend ? Maybe. Would he agree to it? I doubt it, but maybe. Would she save them and want to look at them twenty years later? Well … Would there be the same questions as posed above about the morality of her wanting to look at him?
-Julie
