American sex-paranoid Conservatism going way too far now

TriumphantAngel

please raise your hand if there is not one picture of you in the family album, showing you partially naked at some stage in your toddler life.

i don't have kids, but if i ever do, and that happens to me, i won't be happy.

cincybearcat

TriumphantAngel wrote:

please raise your hand if there is not one picture of you in the family album, showing you partially naked at some stage in your toddler life.

i don't have kids, but if i ever do, and that happens to me, i won't be happy.

No kidding. And if your babysitter was taking pictures of your kids naked and having them developed at Walmart you'd probably not be too happy either.

I think the authorities jumping the gun and actually taking kids away (though I haven't seen the pictures) is the real issue here. They tend to er on the side of kids' safety though...in their minds anyhow.

Without seeing the pictures, there is no way to know what was the appropriate level of response.

TriumphantAngel

cincybearcat wrote:

TriumphantAngel wrote:

please raise your hand if there is not one picture of you in the family album, showing you partially naked at some stage in your toddler life.

i don't have kids, but if i ever do, and that happens to me, i won't be happy.

No kidding. And if your babysitter was taking pictures of your kids naked and having them developed at Walmart you'd probably not be too happy either.

I think the authorities jumping the gun and actually taking kids away (though I haven't seen the pictures) is the real issue here. They tend to er on the side of kids' safety though...in their minds anyhow.

Without seeing the pictures, there is no way to know what was the appropriate level of response.

thank you captain obvious.

my comments are based on the fact that we already know it's the parents who took the pictures.
so anyway, are you raising your hand or what?

Random_Wookie

TriumphantAngel wrote:

cincybearcat wrote:

TriumphantAngel wrote:

please raise your hand if there is not one picture of you in the family album, showing you partially naked at some stage in your toddler life.

i don't have kids, but if i ever do, and that happens to me, i won't be happy.

No kidding. And if your babysitter was taking pictures of your kids naked and having them developed at Walmart you'd probably not be too happy either.

I think the authorities jumping the gun and actually taking kids away (though I haven't seen the pictures) is the real issue here. They tend to er on the side of kids' safety though...in their minds anyhow.

Without seeing the pictures, there is no way to know what was the appropriate level of response.

thank you captain obvious.

my comments are based on the fact that we already know it's the parents who took the pictures.
so anyway, are you raising your hand or what?

but would the employee at walmart have know that at the time? hindsight is a wonderful thing, i think depending on the pictures (not having seen them) i would have passed them on. the problem here is with the response by the authorites taking the kids away, I assume they did this without investigating first?

TriumphantAngel

Random_Wookie wrote:

TriumphantAngel wrote:

cincybearcat wrote:

No kidding. And if your babysitter was taking pictures of your kids naked and having them developed at Walmart you'd probably not be too happy either.

I think the authorities jumping the gun and actually taking kids away (though I haven't seen the pictures) is the real issue here. They tend to er on the side of kids' safety though...in their minds anyhow.

Without seeing the pictures, there is no way to know what was the appropriate level of response.

thank you captain obvious.

my comments are based on the fact that we already know it's the parents who took the pictures.
so anyway, are you raising your hand or what?

but would the employee at walmart have know that at the time? hindsight is a wonderful thing, i think depending on the pictures (not having seen them) i would have passed them on. the problem here is with the response by the authorites taking the kids away, I assume they did this without investigating first?

if i had seen pictures of someone behaving inappropriately with children, i absolutely would have taken it further. partially naked pictures of a child at bath time does not = innapropriate behaviour is automatically happening.

Without seeing the pictures in question it's impossible to say what should have been done.

catefrances

TriumphantAngel wrote:

Random_Wookie wrote:

TriumphantAngel wrote:

thank you captain obvious.

my comments are based on the fact that we already know it's the parents who took the pictures.
so anyway, are you raising your hand or what?

but would the employee at walmart have know that at the time? hindsight is a wonderful thing, i think depending on the pictures (not having seen them) i would have passed them on. the problem here is with the response by the authorites taking the kids away, I assume they did this without investigating first?

if i had seen pictures of someone behaving inappropriately with children, i absolutely would have taken it further. partially naked pictures of a child at bath time does not = innapropriate behaviour is automatically happening.

Without seeing the pictures in question it's impossible to say what should have been done.

holy fuck ive got totally naked pics of my kids...

TriumphantAngel

catefrances wrote:

TriumphantAngel wrote:

Random_Wookie wrote:

but would the employee at walmart have know that at the time? hindsight is a wonderful thing, i think depending on the pictures (not having seen them) i would have passed them on. the problem here is with the response by the authorites taking the kids away, I assume they did this without investigating first?

if i had seen pictures of someone behaving inappropriately with children, i absolutely would have taken it further. partially naked pictures of a child at bath time does not = innapropriate behaviour is automatically happening.

Without seeing the pictures in question it's impossible to say what should have been done.

holy fuck ive got totally naked pics of my kids...

So have my parents of me. Tell me one kid that grew up in Aus, that doesn't have at least one picture of them bare arsed under the sprinkler, or sitting on the potty. such proud parents they were.

What the hell were they thinking. Off with their heads!

cincybearcat

TriumphantAngel wrote:

cincybearcat wrote:

TriumphantAngel wrote:

please raise your hand if there is not one picture of you in the family album, showing you partially naked at some stage in your toddler life.

i don't have kids, but if i ever do, and that happens to me, i won't be happy.

No kidding. And if your babysitter was taking pictures of your kids naked and having them developed at Walmart you'd probably not be too happy either.

I think the authorities jumping the gun and actually taking kids away (though I haven't seen the pictures) is the real issue here. They tend to er on the side of kids' safety though...in their minds anyhow.

Without seeing the pictures, there is no way to know what was the appropriate level of response.

thank you captain obvious.

my comments are based on the fact that we already know it's the parents who took the pictures.
so anyway, are you raising your hand or what?

Wait ... do I raise my hand if the family album does have pictures of me as a toddler in the bath tub or if it does not?

Cause I was a second child and the only picture I can ever remember seeing of myself that young I am at Hershey's Chocolate World fully dressed.

TriumphantAngel

cincybearcat wrote:

Wait ... do I raise my hand if the family album does have pictures of me as a toddler in the bath tub or if it does not?

Cause I was a second child and the only picture I can ever remember seeing of myself that young I am at Hershey's Chocolate World fully dressed.

did you have chocolate all over your face in the pic? hell, i know mine would've been covered if i was there. i bet that was a fun day.

TriumphantAngel

You're a good friend, Nirvana. And for the record, i never found this offensive, or considered reporting you to the authorities.

catefrances

scb wrote:

polaris_x wrote:

cincybearcat wrote:

Lighten up champ.

I was having fun with the stupid thread title.

This is not about sex-paranoid conservatism...it's child endangerment and how far out of wack that has gotten. I don't see what the walmart employees did as anything wrong, the authorities on the other hand should be more deliberate. How ever, it's a difficult situation, because if child abuse was occuring and authorities are too slow to act, they get thrown in the mud lightning fast.

what evidence was there of abuse? ... there was none ... i think this is about sex-paranoid conservatism ... ultimately it comes down to this - if we took this across the country ... how many places would raise a red flag and how many wouldn't ...

The Wal-Mart employee didn't need evidence, only suspicion. S/he was obligated to report anything that seemed suspicious. It's up to the authorities to identify evidence, and I don't think anyone is defending them.

in what weird warped world are bathtime photos suspicious?? no fucking world i live in or even care to live in i can tell you that.

i have pics of my children naked on the beach, naked in the bath with their hair extended straight up in 'shampoo horns'. hell ive even got a photo of my 2 youngest children naked in the backyard trying to climb into the same bucket during summer water play. why?? cause the situations were funny.


it would never enter my mind that such innocent situations would/could be viewed as suspicious. and do not think for even a nanosecond that im some naive person whose life has never been touched by child abuse. it sickens me that there are predators out there... but it equally sickens me that such innocent situations can take on the connotation of something more sinister.


the authorities were out of line separating this family for any amount of time.

_

catefrances wrote:

scb wrote:

The Wal-Mart employee didn't need evidence, only suspicion. S/he was obligated to report anything that seemed suspicious. It's up to the authorities to identify evidence, and I don't think anyone is defending them.

in what weird warped world are bathtime photos suspicious?? no fucking world i live in or even care to live in i can tell you that.

i have pics of my children naked on the beach, naked in the bath with their hair extended straight up in 'shampoo horns'. hell ive even got a photo of my 2 youngest children naked in the backyard trying to climb into the same bucket during summer water play. why?? cause the situations were funny.


it would never enter my mind that such innocent situations would/could be viewed as suspicious. and do not think for even a nanosecond that im some naive person whose life has never been touched by child abuse. it sickens me that there are predators out there... but it equally sickens me that such innocent situations can take on the connotation of something more sinister.


the authorities were out of line separating this family for any amount of time.

1. We haven't seen the pictures and have only heard one side of the story.

2. It doesn't matter whether they would be considered suspicious to anyone else; it only matters that they were suspicious to the employee.

3. Regardless of why a person may find something suspicious that others may not, anyone who has a bad feeling that someone MAY POSSIBLY be abusing a child has an obligation to report it.

4. They report it, not because they themselves are judging that something is wrong, but because they think someone else should decided whether or not something is wrong.

5. It's up to the authorities to determine whether or not there's something wrong or it's all innocent.

Again, no one had defended the authories' actions here. But step #5 is the only one of which we should be critical.

Which is worse: for a report to be made when there's nothing wrong (note that we're only talking about the REPORT to the authorities, not the response of the authorities) or for something to be wrong and no one to report it?

polaris_x

scb wrote:

3. Regardless of why a person may find something suspicious that others may not, anyone who has a bad feeling that someone MAY POSSIBLY be abusing a child has an obligation to report it.

Which is worse: for a report to be made when there's nothing wrong (note that we're only talking about the REPORT to the authorities, not the response of the authorities) or for something to be wrong and no one to report it?

so ... by this logic - anyone can report anyone to the authorities ... just based on a "bad feeling" ...

it seems we agree on the response by the authorities - where your precautionary principle falters is that if everyone who had a bad feeling reported it - authorities would be inundated with cases that they might not actually get to the ones that are more critical ... it's sort of like calling 911 for a cold ...

there has to be some criteria - bathtime pictures amongst a bunch of vacation photos should not trigger that response unless you are like the OP said some sex-paranoid conservative who thinks nudity is a bad thing ... nothing in the article points to these pictures being anything than the innocent kind we all have seen or have ...

soulsinging

catefrances wrote:

in what weird warped world are bathtime photos suspicious?? no fucking world i live in or even care to live in i can tell you that.

i have pics of my children naked on the beach, naked in the bath with their hair extended straight up in 'shampoo horns'. hell ive even got a photo of my 2 youngest children naked in the backyard trying to climb into the same bucket during summer water play. why?? cause the situations were funny.


it would never enter my mind that such innocent situations would/could be viewed as suspicious. and do not think for even a nanosecond that im some naive person whose life has never been touched by child abuse. it sickens me that there are predators out there... but it equally sickens me that such innocent situations can take on the connotation of something more sinister.

the authorities were out of line separating this family for any amount of time.

Maybe that's true, but I think the fact that it was reported by the employee had nothing to do with prudish moral judgments and invasion of privacy and everything to do with increased awarenss of how frighteningly prevalent child abuse is... and that awareness is a good thing. The authorities should have investigated, but splitting up the family for a month while they did so was a bad decision. This argument should not be about moral norms or value judgments, it's about the inadequacy of the justice system's response to the situation before it. I don't think this was some employee seeing the photos and going "naked people are wrong, I'm going to report this." It was an employee paid minimum wage feeling obligated to say something to someone in order to cover their ass. Becuase if there had been abuse and they hadn't reported it... they'd be skewered 100 times worse than this.

soulsinging

polaris_x wrote:

bathtime pictures amongst a bunch of vacation photos should not trigger that response unless you are like the OP said some sex-paranoid conservative who thinks nudity is a bad thing ... nothing in the article points to these pictures being anything than the innocent kind we all have seen or have ...

That's an absurd leap of logic there. You're not an American, you don't understand the 'cover your ass' approach to all potential legal problems. This had nothing to do with prudish conservatism and everything to do with 'To Catch a Predator' having us all seeing bogeymen in our closet and knowing we'll get sued for millions if we see something and let it go by.

And for the record, I know that there are no naked pictures of me as a kid out there. Certainly not when I was 5 years old. At that age, I was NOT running around town naked and posing for cameras in the buff. And speaking as guy that worked with kids that age, that's not age appropriate and I'd have reported it if some kid had told me about naked playtime with dad at that age. And I'm far from prudish.

polaris_x

soulsinging wrote:

That's an absurd leap of logic there. You're not an American, you don't understand the 'cover your ass' approach to all potential legal problems. This had nothing to do with prudish conservatism and everything to do with 'To Catch a Predator' having us all seeing bogeymen in our closet and knowing we'll get sued for millions if we see something and let it go by.

And for the record, I know that there are no naked pictures of me as a kid out there. Certainly not when I was 5 years old. At that age, I was NOT running around town naked and posing for cameras in the buff. And speaking as guy that worked with kids that age, that's not age appropriate and I'd have reported it if some kid had told me about naked playtime with dad at that age. And I'm far from prudish.

so ... you're saying this is all about making sure the walmart didn't get sued!?? ... i would say that's a bigger leap than the one i'm taking ...

maybe you are proving my point in your second point because here at the beaches and public playgrounds - kids run around naked all the time ...

let me get this straight - are you saying this family's kids should be taking baths by themselves at their age!?

soulsinging

polaris_x wrote:

so ... you're saying this is all about making sure the walmart didn't get sued!?? ... i would say that's a bigger leap than the one i'm taking ...

maybe you are proving my point in your second point because here at the beaches and public playgrounds - kids run around naked all the time ...

let me get this straight - are you saying this family's kids should be taking baths by themselves at their age!?

Clearly, you're not a US citizen. You wouldnt believe the shit we have to do in order not to get sued. They got sued anyway though it seems... can't win you see?

Where is here? That does raise an interesting set of questions I think. The US stats are something like 1 out of 4 girls will be sexually harassed or abused before adulthood. Kinda frightening. I wonder if we just have more problems to worry about than wherever you live... I mean, we do also lead the world in homocides, shootings, violent crime, and any other number of things. But I can assure you if I ever have children they will not be running around public parks buck naked at 5 years old. Too many creepy perverts out there.

I don't remember being 5 very well. i suppose now that i think of it, it may be too young to handle bathing alone. but i dont get why parents would want to take pictures of it. that's weird to me. but then, becoming a parent makes people act very weird. so maybe it's an issue of the employee being single and thinking anyone snapping photos of their kid in the bath is a weirdo, like i do.

polaris_x

soulsinging wrote:

Clearly, you're not a US citizen. You wouldnt believe the shit we have to do in order not to get sued. They got sued anyway though it seems... can't win you see?

Where is here? That does raise an interesting set of questions I think. The US stats are something like 1 out of 4 girls will be sexually harassed or abused before adulthood. Kinda frightening. I wonder if we just have more problems to worry about than wherever you live... I mean, we do also lead the world in homocides, shootings, violent crime, and any other number of things. But I can assure you if I ever have children they will not be running around public parks buck naked at 5 years old. Too many creepy perverts out there.

I don't remember being 5 very well. i suppose now that i think of it, it may be too young to handle bathing alone. but i dont get why parents would want to take pictures of it. that's weird to me. but then, becoming a parent makes people act very weird. so maybe it's an issue of the employee being single and thinking anyone snapping photos of their kid in the bath is a weirdo, like i do.

i'm in toronto ... i know all about crazy lawsuits down there ... i still find it difficult to believe that this wal-mart's employee's motivation was not to get sued ...

maybe it's this conservatism that breeds the perverts ... is it strange that so many child abuse cases are reported within the church and these so called priests?

often parents make bathtime "fun" otherwise kids won't want to take baths ... and in this day and age where digital cameras makes taking pictures so easy and more common ... i don't find it shocking at all that they want to capture a moment when the kids are having a fun time ...

soulsinging

polaris_x wrote:

i'm in toronto ... i know all about crazy lawsuits down there ... i still find it difficult to believe that this wal-mart's employee's motivation was not to get sued ...

maybe it's this conservatism that breeds the perverts ... is it strange that so many child abuse cases are reported within the church and these so called priests?

often parents make bathtime "fun" otherwise kids won't want to take baths ... and in this day and age where digital cameras makes taking pictures so easy and more common ... i don't find it shocking at all that they want to capture a moment when the kids are having a fun time ...

it's plenty strange, and there may be some merit to conservatism breeding perverts. but we lead the world in a lot of criminal activity and i find it hard to believe all of those are tied to conservative values, so i don't see any reason to single out sex crimes as being caused by conservatism. i think poverty and abuse and marginalization play a much larger role than the church you had to go to as a kid.

as to bathtime, i suppose there's some sense there. but i dunno... im having fun when i have sex with my gf, yet i doubt she'd be cool with me snapping a bunch of photos and taking them to walmart for the developing guy to peek at. which is why i say parents do weird things things they'd never consider appropriate to do elsewhere become ok when it comes to their kid.

I mean, if we're all so prudish about nudity, why don't you send me some naked pictures of you right now? Or are you not comfortable with that?

tybird

TriumphantAngel wrote:

You're a good friend, Nirvana. And for the record, i never found this offensive, or considered reporting you to the authorities.

EEEEEEEEEEK....it's a penis :shock: :shock: :roll: