Carrol, this is from work, so briefly, the issue isn't about the infant, but the crucifixtion. I've seen the infant or child and Michealangelo's Mary and Jesus are plenty sensual. The problem of genitals occurs with the crucifix.
On the other issue, re-constructing somekind of cultural analysis that incorporates mass, popular, without the more usual asethetic hierarchy of taste. For this, we need a different set of conceptual constructs, something along the lines of the dialectic between the concrete and the imaginary, rather than high-low, good-bad, etc.
Chuck Griems