Would you buy your tween son a "Playboy"?

@boomerang,

Yep.

I don't think I purposely set out to do this, but we've been doing this sort of education since she was very, very little, just bits at a time and age-appropriate. There was never a "talk" per se, just the layers built up, and the conversation was continued.

Last year her grade had "the movie" at school and there was some little pamphlet that went home with kids to spur "the talk" with parents. We'd already covered everything in the pamphlet like ages ago. But a bunch of her friends were mortified and absolutely didn't want to talk about this stuff with their parents -- it was out of the blue for them. They wanted to know, mind you, they just didn't want to talk to their parents about it. So they filtered their questions to me via sozlet.

1 Reply

@jcboy,

jcboy wrote:

Antonio is only six years old so it will be a while before this subject comes up.

It's probably a good idea to be ready .... NOW

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I could not say that the children in show me in their future would not have been upset they were photographed that way, when they could not understand the ramifications later.

As best I can tell from a Google search, none of them ever seems to have complained. Mind you, Google did turn up plenty of efforts to ban the book. But all of them were driven by third-party activists. None had any input, let alone support, from the putative victims themselves.

chai2 wrote:

I also looked up pictures by Will McBride, the photographer of show me, and there's a lot of his work that gives off that pedo vibe to me.

Fair enough. The question is whether this tells us something about McBride, or whether it tells us something about you, or maybe about the general conservatism of today's sexual mores in America. I mean, let's face it: How many "pedos" have you actually talked with about their pedophilia? What do you actually know about specific vibes they transmit and resonate with? Just because you feel uncomfortable about a book someone published, just because you imagine that this must be what's getting pedophiles off, that doesn't mean it does. All it means is that you should buy some other book.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

For a kid, with no knowledge of sex, it was probably very educational; to adults it seemed obscene.

For what it's worth, I was not disturbed when I saw "Show me!" as a child. But when I grew up, I did learn that plenty of grownups are extremely uncomfortable around the fact that children have a sexuality and are interested in exploring it. That's what makes me fairly confident that much squeamishness around children and sex is a projection of this discomfort onto the noble cause of child protection. I just don't think it actually protects them against anything, though.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

I don't think I purposely set out to do this, but we've been doing this sort of education since she was very, very little, just bits at a time and age-appropriate.

I think you did. I remember the topic coming up in Diva's old community, circa 2002. You said you figured you'd do it pretty much like that.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

The question is whether this tells us something about McBride, or whether it tells us something about you, or maybe about the general conservatism of today's sexual mores in America.

I just did a google image search on Will McBride + zeig mal

I suspect that the answer to the question is a combination of 2 and 3.

this seems ok to me

http://sarahlie.lima-city.de/hp22z/ZeigMal01.jpg

http://pdfuri.com/thumb/816/guck-weg.jpg

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@Thomas,

boomerang wrote:

For a kid, with no knowledge of sex, it was probably very educational; to adults it seemed obscene.

Thomas wrote:

For what it's worth, I was not disturbed when I saw "Show me!" as a child. But when I grew up, I did learn that plenty of grownups are extremely uncomfortable around the fact that children have a sexuality and are interested in exploring it. That's what makes me fairly confident that much squeamishness around children and sex is a projection of this discomfort onto the noble cause of child protection. I just don't think it actually protects them against anything, though.

AGREED. I wonder what the psychodynamics of that are ??

Thay act as if kids thinking about sex
will cause them severe harm; thay appear to ASSUME this
and to resent analytical inquiry into it. In regard to girls,
I can understand a fear of pregnancy, but this is applied against boys' freedom too.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Yeah, and then you have grown-ups like my Mom, who when a Jim Reeve's song came on the car radio said something like, 'He is such a handsome, sexy man,' and my sisters and I all sort of giggled looked at each other like, 'why is she saying stuff like that,' and she saw us rolling our eyes and she said, 'What, why are you laughing at me? Don' t tell me that any daughter of mine doesn't appreciate a handsome, sexy man!'

I didn't even know who Jim Reeves was - but very early on, my mom gave us the message that it was natural and alright to feel and express a sexual attraction.
She also liked Tom Jones.

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@Thomas,

You miss the point entirely of what you are pleased to call squeamishness. Children are protected from exploitation by adults. In most states (i did look this up once), when a minor child has sexual relations with someone who has reached the age of majority, but is within a few years of the minor's age, the penalties are much less severe, and often such cases are not prosecuted. The object of child protection laws is to protect them from adult exploitation, not from themselves.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

One post before the one you replied to, I said that none of the children in "Show me!" ever seems to have complained about having been exploited, even though there were plenty of initiatives to ban the book they could have supported. You may not like the way I addressed the point that you said I missed, but I didn't miss it.

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@Thomas,

Yes thomas, googling whether or not someone ever complained about something is a sure fire way to determine that no one ever did.

You're simply doing your "what if" and reaching for nits thing.

I don't feel parents have the right to display their children in such a way, since the children can't themselves understand the long reaching consequences.

3 Replies

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Yes thomas, googling whether or not someone ever complained about something
is a sure fire way to determine that no one ever did.

You're simply doing your "what if" and reaching for nits thing.

I don't feel parents have the right to display their children in such a way, since
the children can't themselves understand the long reaching consequences.

What r the long reaching consequences ??????

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@chai2,

What consequences? and what is "in such a way"? they're beautiful photographs - sweet and honest and somewhat sentimental

There's not such an issue in countries like Germany with nudity. I can think of several in my circle of friends and family who would have large versions of the photos on their walls if they'd been lucky enough to be one of McBride's subjects.

1 Reply

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Yes thomas, googling whether or not someone ever complained about something is a sure fire way to determine that no one ever did.

I'm not the one who needs to carry the burden of proof here. America is a free country, as is Germany. In a free country, the default rule is that people can do whatever they want. They don't owe us a reason why they're doing it. On the contrary, we owe them a reason when we're prohibiting it. In this case, you want to prohibit the pictures in "Show me!". Your reason is that shooting pictures like these causes long-reaching, adverse consequences for the kids. Therefore it's your job to demonstrate that there have been such bad consequences. I only did my bit of research as a courtesy. If it's not good enough for you, feel free to do your own. I'm not the one who needs to prove something here. You are, and you didn't.

chai2 wrote:

I don't feel parents have the right to display their children in such a way, since the children can't themselves understand the long reaching consequences.

The parents didn't display their children. They allowed them to participate in the photo shoot. Unlike the children, the parents could understand the consequences of what they were doing, and they made their judgment call accordingly. Sure, you disagree with their judgment, but that in itself doesn't mean the parents were in the wrong.

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I get where chai is coming from.

I think if a man (usually a man anyway) were to be found with images like this on his computer he'd likely be arrested. In the 21st century every man is suspected to be a pedophile (related news: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/08/should-men-sit-next-to-kids-on-airline-flights/).

It's really unfortunate.

And there probably were people who found these images sexually inspiring. Look at the outcry they caused as proof of that.

If these were taken today and being distributed online, outside the context of this book, there would be problems with people looking at them and we would be concerned with the status of the kid's emotional response to them being out there.

Again, context makes all the difference.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

chai2 wrote:
Yes thomas, googling whether or not someone ever complained about something is a sure fire way to determine that no one ever did.

I'm not the one who needs to carry the burden of proof here. America is a free country, as is Germany. In a free country, the default rule is that people can do whatever they want. They don't owe us a reason why they're doing it. On the contrary, we owe them a reason when we're prohibiting it. In this case, you want to prohibit the pictures in "Show me!". Your reason is that shooting pictures like these causes long-reaching, adverse consequences for the kids. Therefore it's your job to demonstrate that there have been such bad consequences. I only did my bit of research as a courtesy. If it's not good enough for you, feel free to do your own. I'm not the one who needs to prove something here. You are, and you didn't.

chai2 wrote:
I don't feel parents have the right to display their children in such a way, since the children can't themselves understand the long reaching consequences.

The parents didn't display their children. They allowed them to participate in the photo shoot. Unlike the children, the parents could understand the consequences of what they were doing, and they made their judgment call accordingly. Sure, you disagree with their judgment, but that in itself doesn't mean the parents were in the wrong.

Tom, I have every confidence that u r a very fine physicist,
but if u had chosen to become a lawyer,
your skills of meticulous analysis (and your powers of articulation)
woud have been a fine credit to the profession.

I agree with your substantive conclusions.

David

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

What consequences? and what is "in such a way"?
they're beautiful photographs - sweet and honest and somewhat sentimental

There's not such an issue in countries like Germany with nudity.
I can think of several in my circle of friends and family who would
have large versions of the photos on their walls if they'd been lucky enough to be one of McBride's subjects.

For reasons that r not at all clear, in my understanding,
people have demonstrated:

1. fear of nudity

and

2. disgust of nudity.

That has been magnified, when children
have been in any way involved. I am ignorant of the psychodynamics thereof.

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@boomerang,

exactly boom.

an ehbeth, I find the pictures erie, of poor quality, and an invasion of the privacy of the minor who could not give consent. We're just of different opinions. The parents don't own the child, and didn't have the right to put them in a position where they were being posed in a way for sex education.

I'm sure there was a least 1 person in Germany who felt (feels) the same way, who is not a prude, or squeamish, or any of that other stuff.

If I saw pictures that that on display in a friends house, I'd feel, well, I can't describe the emotion right now, since no one whose home I've been in displays naked pictures of family members.
I guess I'd think they were, in no particular order....trashy, inappropriate, embarrassing, thoughtless, if they'e been there a while, unmindful.....etc.

I think it's a shame that this has to become the "unenlightened american vs. the sophisticated rest of the world" thing.

I'm not saying any of the above as a representative of america, but as my own opinion. I don't feel unenlightened. I do feel a strong sense of privacy about the body I own, and who gets to see it, and that it's not my place to display someone elses, as that is their body.

2 Replies

@jcboy,

jcboy wrote:

Antonio is only six years old so it will be a while before this subject comes up. I’m sure I’ll know how to handle it when the time comes but I hope when that time does come he knows he can come to us with any type of question and not feel embarrassed about it.

That’s how we plan on raising him, with an open line of communication.

I suggest simply being matter-of-fact
and straight from the shoulder, the same as u 'd explain how to change a flat tire.

David

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

an ehbeth, I find the pictures erie, of poor quality, and an invasion of the privacy of the minor who could not give consent.

What do you mean, "could not give consent"? There is no age of consent for nude photography. Those children could, and did, consent to the whole thing by volunteering to undress for the camera. Their parents permitted it. What did the parents do to suggest they were treating their children as property?

2 Replies

Would you buy your tween son a "Playboy"?

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