Why? Perhaps Virginia's prosecutors know how hard it is to censor anybody today. My sons won their case, 7-0, in the state's highest court. The prosecutions relating to the works of Sturges and Hamilton both failed, and the Supreme Court now permits pornography on the Internet.

But that doesn't explain why her exhibits haven't been closed or why she hasn't been denied government grants. To first-time viewers, her children certainly look like the neglected off-spring of dirt-poor hippies, or trailer trash in-need-of-supervision.

Of course, the good people of Lexington, Virginia, know better. The Manns drive a Chevrolet Suburban and own 400 acres of the best real estate in town. Sally's mother may have been a Yankee, but her daddy was a Reb, a good doctor who delivered nearly everyone in town. Sally went to Bennington, that hippie college in Vermont, but she also had the good sense to return home and reclaim the family farm. Her neighbors may even think it funny that she can get rich by selling pictures of her kids in New York and by giving slide shows about them to women in New England.

For the rest of us, the big issue with Mann's family photos is not free expression but privacy. More precisely, it is the wisdom of taking such revealing pictures and publishing them before the children are old enough to consent.

In occasional lectures, Mann assures us that her children not only consented to the pictures, but played an active role in their creation. They still endorse her work, now that they are adults. Perhaps, but her mode of child-rearing still looks like one of those psychologically-risky ventures that we would not recommend anyone try at home. But who are we to argue? They are her kids. She knows them best, and if anyone should intervene, it is not us, but the state department of children's services. So, rather than demand censorship, we accept her explanations and go on to admire the diaphanous beauty of her platinum prints.

Even so, we still grumble. Since Victorian times, our moral majority has felt duty-bound to shield young children from most intimations of sex, death, or doom. In my town, that has meant censoring T-shirts. But Sally Mann disagrees. By photographing children with tense crotches, standing next to menstrual-stained bedcovers, or hanging lifeless from a rope, she profoundly disturbs our conventional proprieties.

Most viewers are especially angry that she should take a picture of a daughter with a terribly battered eye instead of comforting her. Were they to attend one of Mann's slide shows, however, viewers would learn that she did hug and kiss her daughter, as any mother would have done. They will also learn that the girl's eye was swollen from bug bites, not violence, and that she was delighted to have her mother record the injury.

Still, Mann looks like a neglectful parent, allowing her pre-teens to run naked and wild. Only from lectures do we learn that she raised them on a secluded estate and watched them like a hawk. She was always there -- with a camera, of course, but she was there. Truth be told, her children are not the feral creatures they appear to be and she is not a Mommy Dearest. She's more like the guy who dressed up his dogs and made calendar pictures of them. And, like those dogs, her kids enjoyed being the center of attention. So, maybe she is not such a bad mother after all.

But, suppose Sally's husband had taken these pictures. Would we be so forgiving? If the local morals squad paid him a visit, would we be as likely to spring to his defense as we would to his wife's? If these pictures had been taken by a man, would museums be as eager to exhibit them, or invite him to explain why he was so interested in filming naked children? There is probably a reason why few museums display the sadomasochistic work of Robert Maplethorpe, despite his undeniable artistry.

In other words, it is not just the artfulness of Mann's images that shields her from condemnation; it is the artful way she excuses her transgressions. We look at the picture of the all-too-aware girl with the cigarette and fear she is headed for trouble. Then we read the caption and discover that the cigarette is made of candy. Similarly, those scabrous legs are not diseased; flour and water just made them look that way. The red liquid on the boy's abdomen is not really blood; it is raspberry juice. The naked girl in the harlot's pose is really innocent; look closely and you will see that she has a wad of chewing gum on her finger. The children look wild, shameless, and out of control, but the captions tell us otherwise. Eventually, we are assured, Sally's little swamp foxes will put on clothes and joined the middle class, just like ours.

In this respect Mann's work is very different from that of the men who have been censored. Andre Serrano gave us a beautiful picture of a crucifix submerged in amber liquid, and then ruined it by telling us that the liquid was urine. At that point, few people were interested in learning any more, and Mr. Serrano is not likely to receive any government grants. Similarly Robert Maplethorpe is not likely to be forgiven for introducing us to a homosexual who has a whip handle stuck firmly up his behind. These men pushed the envelope in ways Sally Mann has not.

Many people took Mann at her word when she claimed to have made a documentary of her children's lives. That's something most of us, as parents, would love to do, if we only had her skill with a camera. We are outraged by what her pictures seem to say, relieved to learn that her children were not abused, and then persuaded that the whole family has been having us on. The pictures are true in one sense and fictitious in another, leaving some viewers with a vague sense of betrayal. Children are supposed to be innocent, guileless, and spontaneous; hers seem to have learned too much, too early, and are complicit in her fraud. Besides, if you can't trust a Matthew Brady camera to tell you the truth, who can you trust?

Ironically, the very inauthenticity of Mann's portraits shields her from censorship. Once we know that the images have been contrived, our anger evaporates and, with it, the impulse to censor or denounce. We are no longer sure what her pictures mean, which both heightens our curiosity and protects her from censorship.

Despite Mann's choice of equipment, she is no Matthew Brady, the Civil War photographer whose unblinking camera forever destroyed our romantic view of war.

She is more like Cindy Sherman with a touch of John Irving: like Sherman because she is something of a performance artist, and like Irving, because her pictures (including those ominous slashes of light and shadow) seem to warn us of Irving's "undertoad." But, even as we sense danger, we do not reach out to rescue these children. Something tells us that these defiant urchins are nobody's victims.

So I think we can safely dismiss Mann's claims of innocence; her bewilderment at the suggestion that pre-teens can be sexual, or her surprise that anyone would consider her work controversial. This artist and her performing children know exactly what they are doing. They are jerking our chain. We may think she is allowing us see her family album, but she isn't. For all their undeniable artistry, her photos are something of a hoax. The joke is on us and that is what preserves her privacy and saves her from censorship. Despite its documentary aura, Mann's family album does not tell the truth in the tradition of Matthew Brady, Walker Evans, or Dorothea Lange. And we are relieved that it doesn't.

Lawyers can explain why Mann's images, including mother and daughters peeing (not in the show), fail to qualify for censorship in books, at galleries, or on the Internet. My sons can explain why her pictures can now be printed on T-shirts and worn to any high school in Massachusetts. But Mann needs no legal help. By revealing how her pictures were contrived, she has protected herself from all but the most stupid of censors.