In Detroit a topless tot playing at a local water park sparked a standoff between the tot’s mom and the guards. The mother had apparently forgotten the little girl’s suit top at home and decided that it didn’t matter and let the little one play in the pool with only her swimming suit bottom. This prompted complaints which lead to the guard bothering them on the grounds that pedophiles might be turned on by the sight of the three year old’s naked bosom.
Is the guard nuts? Do we really need to sexualize a three year old in that manner? Is there really a duty to make sure three year olds don’t do anything that might turn on lurking child molesters? Was the mother just way out of line?
Yes, the guard is nuts. As are the people who complained. Give me a break. I see topless toddlers at the beach all the time. I’ve never seen anyone care. Hell, I’ve seen toddlers manage to escape their bottoms and run around at the beach - no biggie. I have a little more problem with that, but only because toddlers tend to not have much control over where they are excreting certain liquids and solids.
Paedophiles might be turned on by all kinds of things, unfortunately(or perhaps fortunately after all) what happens inside an individual’s head is no business of the law.
Well, fortunately, Mangetout, the law agrees. The police were called in that incident and they came in and basically said the woman’s doing nothing wrong so get off her case.
How does the topless chest of a three year old girl look any different from the topless chest of a three year old boy? What about the pedophiles that want little boys? Maybe we should send kids to the water park snow suits.
This ranks right up there with photo developing employees reporting pics of nude babies/tots in bathtubs and breastfeeding infants as “porn”. Ridiculous! Of course, as far as the pics are concerned, we can overrule with digital cameras. As for the stupidity of anyone bothered by a topless 3-year-old of any gender, I just don’t know. . .:rolleyes:
I think the guard has a valid point. On his head. I’d personally be worried that the guard at a children’s water park reads sexuality into a topless 3 year old. Maybe he’s the one who needs to be removed from the park.
I am glad to see the police responding in a level-headed manner.
You’re implying that the guard is a pedophile. That doesn’t make much sense though. If he was, why would he be so adamant about the child putting on clothes? It bothers me when people are so quick to speculate and accuse others of such behavior. Just recently, in Phase42’s thread about why teenage girls that he observed on the beach were so uncomfortable walking around in the skimpy bikinis that they bought, quite a few posters accused him of being a pedophile. Out of the 20 or so posters that replied, 15 accused him of being pedophile (even though the word could not be applied in that situation–a pedophile is someone who harbors sexual thoughts for small children who have not yet started to develop sexually, not 17-year-old teens who could be mistaken for adults).
The guard could’ve had a very conservative upbringing. But more likely he feared the worst about what might happen to the child. After all, if it did happen, he would be the one held responsible and quite possibly fired.