Different perspectives

Assume for a moment a parent decides to post a picture of his or her child aged, say, 6 or 8 on the Internet.

Standing totally naked.

Doing nothing else, having nothing done to them - just standing there with no clothes on.

Does that count as pornography?

The parents are naturists, they have no problem with anyone being naked, even a child.

It strikes me as an absurd argument, which shows no concern about the embarrassment that it could have for the child (I would have absolutely objected as a small child to having photos taken of me like that - but then my parents would never have wanted to anyway). The intentions though are as pure as they can get. It is a natural photo, sex is not the intention, therefore it is OK.

Excuse me while I vomit. But try arguing against it.

OK another perspective. It would not be the first time that I have seen on a billboard a picture of a clear sandy beach in the blazing sun and a small child with a bucket and spade .... Again totally naked.

You are not supposed to think "pornographic", you are supposed to think "cute". That travel companies and their advertisers (or probably that in the reverse order) come up with this nonsense ....

Excuse me while I vomit again.

Meanwhile, we have the parents who have their small daughters walking round in cutesy little skirts that - well that are meant to look "cute". The sought of thing that is somehow OK on a 5 or 6-year-old, but when the girl is ten years older (at that difficult age!), the parents would be yelling at them to "cover themselves up"! Frankly I wish, in the child's interest they would cover up their smaller children more, but maybe it is me being old-fashioned.

There is of course the slighly reverse argument where people are frightened to put school photos of their kids fully dressed on the Internet, as predators might take an interest. I think, frankly, that is taking things too far in the opposite direction. We should laud kids who have been successful. We should not be frightened to let the world know of their successes!

I understand the concern about predators though, even living in a country where (unlike the UK) the media do not seem obsessed with them. A bit of wisdom in looking after children and the way they are dressed when small would not go amiss in this direction IMHO.