Family goes through hell after camping trip... I could use your input

[Mythsaje]

Child porn or innocent camping photos?

The guy who sent me this story blames it on the left... I sent him a note objecting to that.

As usual during the trip, we took several photos. Because I forgot my digital camera, I bought a disposable camera at a gas station on the way to the campground. I took pictures of the kids using sticks to beat on old bottles and cans and logs as musical instruments. I took a few of my youngest daughter, Eliza, then age 3, skinny dipping in the lake, and my son, Noah, then age 8, swimming in the lake in his underwear, and another of Noah naked, hamming it up while using a long stick to hold his underwear over the fire to dry. Finally, I took a photo of everyone, as was our camping tradition, peeing on the ashes of the fire to put it out for the last time. We also let the kids take photos of their own.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/07/18/photos/index_np.html

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Oooh... we had an interesting discussion on this the other day

:popcorn:

Many people taking the side that our bodies are not filthy, taboo things to be ashamed of; some taking the side that any nudity is wrong, especially to be photographed; some in the middle --

people who made a hero out of the store clerk, and people who felt he was a villain (or if not him, villified the system).

I'm on the side that says these pictures are fine, there's nothing wrong with nudity, nothing wrong with nudity in the families, and the side that says "If this happened in Europe or Asia or just about anywhere except the US, nobody would have cared and thought it normal and okay".

This should be interesting.

:popcorn:

[Mythsaje]

2. I think people need to use good sense in these times...

I don't think this family did, personally.

We've ALL heard these kinds of stories. It's not like this is the first time.

[napi21]

6. Ahhhh, the puritans from long ago still live!

Funny how the puritans landed in Mass. but they sure seem to have moved south!

[annabanana]

9. I'm on your side

There is so much neurosis about nudity. I don't think the kids in this story were being abused or exploited. In light of todays paranoia, however, I would not have had the pictures developed in a drugstore that was not familiar to me.

[Toots]

34. Why weren't they all wearing "burkas"?

That is how America is leaning IMO and what amazes me is people don't find that chilling..

[msongs]

3. I think the legal standard on this is..

that pics must be sexually provocative (prurient) or with the intent to stimulate a sexual response.

then again for some people anything is stimulating in that manner.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[jobycom]

4. On the LEFT? Some people are so far into denial it's a wonder they don't

get eaten by a hippopatamus!

The LEFT isn't the one on some crusade against any form of nudity. The left isn't the one trying to put everyone in jail for not toeing a fine moral line. Where they HELL would he get the idea this is the fault of the LEFT?

Where did this happen, anyway? Every time I hear one of these wacked-out over-reactions to naked kid photos it's deep in the Bible belt.

Edited because I have lost the skill to type.

[Bill McBlueState]

11. i suppose he's blaming the left

for laws against child porn. You know, "small governments let parents do whatever the hell they want" is the thinking.

[Mythsaje]

14. Here are his comments in response to mine...

The -fact- is that when these programs have come under attack in the legislature, it is almost -solely- the Dems who have defended them.

And to accept this kind of circumstance, as experienced by this family, as o.k., simply becuase 'people oughta' know by now that they're out there,' is to take an apologist stance on the whole affair's clear abuse of authority. Period.

The family delivering the photos on a camera requiring public services, in and of itself, points toward it having been done in innocence.

And I personally worked with pedophiles professionally, as a clinician. In absence of child porn, they often used the childrens' under-garment ads run by Fred Meyer's in the Sunday paper; perhaps we should criminalize those too?

It's an abuse of power and authority, run by anally retentive persons who quite often haven't over-come their own childhood traumas, and who incessantly project them onto others, causing havoc based on inuendo and supposition; that ain't 'innocent until proven guilty' any way that you slice it.

And I've worked in both cps -and- mental health. Both could use a serious sedative. Preferrably delivered by suppository.

[jobycom]

18. That Hippopatamus is gonna git him

I repeat what I said. The moralism that makes people equate nudity with sin, sex, or anything they consider negative comes from the right. They are the ones who cover up public statues and complain about nudity in any form. They are the censors of television and print. They are the ones who love an aggressive moral police force. They are the ones who impeached Clinton over a personal matter because it involved something sexual and they just can't allow anything sexual to happen to other people.

The Democrats, I hope, do support laws against child molesters and do make efforts to protect children. But we aren't the ones who equate nudity with pornography or--gasp--sex. That's the conservatives.

This happened in Georgia. There have been similar things in Texas, I've seen. These are not liberal states. These are not liberal reactions. The hippos of denial are circling your friend.

[Mythsaje]

21. This was part of my response to him...

I think we need to understand and take into
consideration the repercussions of certain things in this current
atmosphere. I'd no more take pics of my kids naked than allow pics of
myself smoking a bowl to be taken.

I've heard some mothers chuckling about using such photos as blackmail when
their kids got older, something I DO not find amusing in the least.

The Right is all on the all nudity is bad bandwagon, while the Left is more
concerned about protecting the children...even if they go too far in doing
so sometimes. But I don't think it would be an issue if we weren't so set
upon by the morality police...in Europe and other places the RW fanatics
aren't nearly as powerful, and therefore aren't able to create taboos that
shouldn't exist.

None of this is so cut and dried it isn't open to debate...particularly in
terms of who's to blame.

Me? I blame the RW almost exclusively. They have WAY too much influence
for the kind of wingnuts they are, and too many of them are the kinds of
people the Left feels it MUST protect our children from...

Just saying...

[reichstag911]

16. Savannah, GA...

...and it was an Eckerd's drugstore where the pics were taken for developing.

[Cha]

23. Pays to have a

freakin' digital!

[JuniperLea]

5. Here we go

I was hoping to get bare baby butt pictures of my yet unborn grandkids some day to go with the bare baby butt pictures of my kids and of me when I was a baby. I have camping pictures of my son when he was three, "whooshing in a bush" as he used to call it, and he was playing with "the stream" as young boys will do, when the sunlight hit the stream of pee perfectly and I grabbed my camera. We treasure that picture with it's beautiful golden arch! And all the skinny dipping pictures. I don't recall taking any after age five or so, but I could be wrong.

I guess I'm a very bad person.

Hell no! I'm a great person and I was a great mom to those kids!

I'm shocked.

[bluerum]

7. This is harassment. Get a lawyer. If your towns police dept. and law

enforcement can't tell the difference between child exploitation and a family outing then they do not deserve their jobs.

[uppityperson]

8. why would he blame this on the librul left?

This has happened to people, seems an over reaction to trying to keep kids safe. Now, about the left blaming, why?

[Mythsaje]

He's a radical anti-authoritarian... Very radical...

He sees this as evidence of "nanny-state" thinking.

Believe me, he hates the Repukes just as much as we do...but he doesn't trust the Dems at all either. Thinks they're going to pansy-ass us into submission.

[Yupster]

19. There's blame for this crap on both sides

The right for taking morals too far.

The left for taking "protecting the kids" too far.

Anyway, we've sure come a long way since when I was born and boys swam naked in school and at the YMCA's.

[Quantess]

26. I think it might be one of those things

that neither the right nor the left is responsible for. The right blames the left, and the left blames the right. Similar to the recent abuse of the eminent domain clause of Amendment IV. Conservatives blamed liberals, and vice versa.

To me, both of those issues seem to fit better with right-wingers, but maybe it's actually neither left nor right.

[napi21]

10. Did your friend take it to be developed at WM?

I heard a similar story about a WM developing service a few months ago.

[Mythsaje]

12. My friend just passed it along...

I don't know anything other than what was printed in the Salon article.

[cynatnite]

13. Are the developers required by law to report...

what they think might be questionable?

To me this sounds like much ado about nothing.

[havocmom]

15. I know a leftie who confiscated some photos a customer had developed

Enterprising young man made a very large replica of the state's drivers license, had various under-aged pals pose in front of it where the applicant's picture would go. Had the film processed and expected to make a bundle selling the cropped, laminated photos to his buds as fake IDs

Fun part: about three years later, she became pals with the kid's father, who told the story of coming home early and busting up this weird photo shoot at his house: Oh my, that was me who took the pictures and negatives away!
:rofl:

[Guy Fawkes]

17. legally speaking, this isn't child pornography.

For a photograph to be deemed child pornography, it needs to be A) sexually explicit (sex acts, simulated or otherwise) or B) presented as child porn. Otherwise, it is perfectly legal.

A drugstore photo department will, nevertheless, call the police on anything- including those photos of your one-month old naked on a bearskin rug. The police, however, should know better.

One other thing: minors drinking alcohol IS illegal, and you can be prosecuted using pictures taken of underage drinking.

[Mythsaje]

20. I was drinking with my father's permission from 14 on...

but none of us were stupid enough to TAKE pictures of it. Likewise, anyone who pointed a camera at me while engaged in any illicit activity was asking for serious trouble. I knew that early on...

[Yupster]

22. But legally speaking isn't much of a help

to a family called into court and splashed on the front pages of teh local newspapers.

They'll eventually get it worked out, but it still isn't right to do this to people, and it happens a lot.

I live in a smaller sized city and aything unusual like this creates headlines in the paper for day after day. Then the police drop the investigation, or no charges are filed, but in the meantime, the person, and his family has been badly hurt.

[Just Me]

24. Nudity? No imposition of sex or sexual poses? I don't get the problem.

I think the sex obsession would tone down a great deal if we stopped wearing clothes. Just MHO.

Funny thing though,...I am incredibly,...um,...what's the word, UGH! Oh, yes,...uh,...shy about exposing my body. It's personal,...to me and I choose not to share it in spite of those who think I am blessed with,...well, whatever.

[pitohui]

27. it's pretty much illegal to publish piss scenes even w. adults

i think if nekkid adults need protection from being photographed while peeing, then an 8 yr old might deserve the same protection

[pitohui]

25. didn't you post this before?

my answer remains the same, there is no good reason to be photographing nekkid 8 year olds and it was proper that the pervert get investigated, maybe it will slow him down next time he gets a bright idea to create child porn starring his own kids

don't take pictures of nekkid kiddies in the single digit ages and you won't get reported by the film developer, that's fairly straightforward if you ask me

nice twist how the pervo explains away his pee fetish tho as a family tradition

ewwwwwwww!

[Warren DeMontague]

29. So every parent who ever took a naked picture of their kids is a "pervo"?

That's pretty much every parent who has ever had a camera.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

[JuniperLea]

33. That's what I'm saying!

I love my nakie baby butt pictures! And my kids love them. There is nothing quite so perfect as a baby and a mother's love for her baby. What about all those photography shops where you can take your baby and have them put angel wings on the nekkie little precious and take his/her picture?

[uppityperson]

30. every one of us who has ever taken a picture of our child nude is a pervo?

wow. I have pictures of me nude as a child, pictures of my child nude too. Underneath my clothing I am still nude. Am I a pervo? I guess I was brought up not being disgusted by the human body and having it be ok to be nude. "Pee fetish"? My goodnes you are funny. How about we take it a step further and say women should wear chadors and they won't tempt men.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. I saw this really sick smut on cable once-

not only was there a totally naked newborn infant, but the infant was shown in direct physical contact with an adult's genitalia!

It had some sicko filth pervo name like "The Miracle Of Birth".

[KoKo]

28. I don't know...i have photo's of my 2 year old daughter ripping off her

cute little bathing suit bottoms to run naked in a creek at her Grandparents home in Mid-Hudson Valley New York. Everyone thought she was a "Ham" and laughed it up. That was years ago...now if I developed them probably Negroponte's Intelligence Watch would haul us in as "peodophiles."

Who knows today? If she was killed in Iraq the photo's would be confiscated, too.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Toots]

35. So when they promote those pictures of a fetus for their anti-abortion cau

are they showing naked children or not? :shrug: