“He hasn’t met anyone who hasn’t seen his genitalia,” she said. “It’s a constant reminder that he has no privacy. His privacy is worthless to the world.”

In a New York Post interview in 2016, Elden added that “it’d be nice to have a quarter for every person that has seen my baby penis.”

But, Elden has also been somewhat celebratory about the cover, recreating the image as an adult (although with clothes on) for the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th, and 25th anniversaries.

He even said that the album cover had “opened doors” for him in a short documentary back in 2015.

Mabie says he is still a victim of child pornography despite his past claims and that the “law does not pick between children who immediately denounce their abusers and children who initially were dismissive about what happened to them.”

A lot of it comes down to the matter of consent:

“Recently I’ve been thinking, ‘What if I wasn’t OK with my freaking penis being shown to everybody?’ I didn’t really have a choice,” Mr. Elden said to GQ Australia.

Mabie confirmed that his parents never gave any consent for how the images would be used, nor of course, did baby Eden.

Eden is also upset that he never maid much from the album cover despite being the main feature, while Nirvana and co. made huge amounts of money over the years:

“Everyone involved in the album has tons and tons of money,” he said. “I’m living in my mum’s house and driving a Honda Civic.

“It’s hard not to get upset when you hear how much money was involved,” he said.

“[When] I go to a baseball game and think about it: ‘Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby penis.’ I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked.”

At the time the photograph was taken, Weddle paid Elden’s parents a mere $200 for the picture.

Album designer Robert Fisher also recalls how the band had discussed back then the problem of a baby’s genitals being on full display:

Fisher was aware that the baby’s exposed penis could be an issue and he made a note for the band and record executives that said: “If anyone has a problem with his dick we can remove it.”

Cobain also realised there could be an issue with the nudity and suggested they could cover the baby’s genitals if they had to.

“We prepared to alleviate that problem if anyone were to freak out about it by putting a sticker on it saying, ‘If you are offended by this, you must be a closet paedophile,’” Cobain told Hot Metal in 1991.

The case won’t be straightforward, as the court has to decide if the album cover “constitutes a lascivious exhibition of the genitals,” and thus child pornography.

Let’s see where this goes…

[sources:nytimes&newsau]