A few years ago I spent some time at Esalen as a “work scholar”. An Esalen work scholar is someone who participates in the mind/body/spirit classes that are offered, but also works 30 hours a week to help pay the tuition.
Most people remember Esalen from the hippy 60’s but by the time I went there in the early 80’s things had calmed down considerably. But the baths, rock tubs heated with natural hot springs, are still nude. One of my jobs was to clean the tubs each day. Some of the workers did it in the nude but I felt more comfortable wearing underpants–all that bending over, you know . But on my last day of work I wanted to do it nude and have a picture of me “getting UNdressed for work”. So I did, and I had a friend take a few pictures.
I sent the film roll in and when it came back the nude pictures and their negatives were missing. This has always pissed me off to no end that a 40something woman can not take a picture of herself nude and have it developed and returned in the mail.
I have tried to google an answer on postal regulations re nude photos without luck. Does anyone know exactly why the post office does not want me to see “dirty pictures” of myself?
Was the absence of those pictures specifically blamed on the Postal Service? If not, you’d probably do better asking the photo developer where your pictures are. Given that the Postal Service has no apparent problem delivering adult magazines nowadays, I suspect you ran across a particularly prudish film processor with a specific policy on nudity.
As you said this was several years ago, I suspect it’s too late to call them up and give them hell.
And next time, use a digital camera. Sending out nekkid pictures to a random commercial developer is a risky proposition – at the very least, you’re likely to end up in someone’s scrapbook.
They were developed at Walgreens. I had a German friend at Esalen and her nude photos were not developed either, also brought to Walgreens. Someone told us it was a postal regulation, which seemed to make sense at the time. I will try to google Walgreen’s policy on nude photos and see what I get.
Obscene material isn’t allowed in the mail - federal law (18 U.S.C. §1461). I don’t think there’s been an actual case since the 70’s. If the Post Office had been involved, you’d definitel know about it, as they would call the FBI.
I agree with Finagle that it was the developer.
We could use a bit of clarification on the OP. My answer was based on “a few years ago”. But closer reading of the OP indicates “a few years ago” means “early 80’s”. If so, it’s very possible that postal regulations were being more strictly observed back then. However, there’s no possibility whatsoever that the postal service opened your package of photos and removed all the pictures of you skyclad, as it were. If the pictures were removed, it was because the photo lab had a policy of not processing nude pictures, whether they could be judged obscene or not, possibly in compliance with postal regulations.
And now that I read this again -- are you still brooding over this 20 years later? Way to hold a grudge!
No, of course not. I was reading the Ashcroft/porn thread over in Great Debates and it remined me of my own “porn” experience. BTW, I see I typed 80’s. Actually it was the early 90’s.
I did not mail the film to Walgreens, I dropped it off and picked it up there. But I assume that they mail it out for developing.
It’s been a while since I did the research on this topic, but IIRC it was the [url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=354&invol=476Roth decision which first made it clear that “sex” and “obscenity” were not synonymous with regard to postal regulations. So as long as the pictures were clearly of an adult the post office shouldn’t have anything to do with it. And logically, if it were illegal to send nude pictures through the mail, no one would be able to subscribe to Playboy and that clearly isn’t the case. Sounds like someone at the processing lab either ruined them or pocketed them or destroyed them out of their own sense of right and wrong and someone else tried to pass it off on the post office.
I don’t have any proof of this, but I know I’ve read at several different film developing places that they have a policy of zero tolerance of developing any film that is of a “graphic” nature, including nude photos. I suppose they don’t want to have to decide if the subject is legally of age. Now, usually someone in their 40’s would be pretty obvious that they’re of legal age, but I’m sure this makes it easier when they don’t have to have the “Rhodes Scholars” that I’ll assume are working there, make this kind of decision…
I have heard (but have no first hand experience–I processed all the nude photos I took in my own darkroom) that Kodak used to refuse to print nude photos, returning the negs with a curt note saying they didn’t do that kind of work. Presumably they didn’t want their corporate logo on the backs of those sorts of pictures. But they always returned the negs, or so I was told.
If it had been store or company policy, they should have returned the negs. They were your property.
Since your negs were kept, this sounds to me more like the work of a rogue employee, either a bluenose acting out of self-righteous fervor or (more likely) a collector who liked what he saw. Either one might have felt he (or she, I suppose) was protected from complaints by the unlikeliness of you coming back and saying to the manager, “Where are those nude pictures of me?”
Slightly off topic: Parents these days have to be careful about taking bath or other naked pictures of their own children. There have apparently been a few cases in which people were prosecuted for child pornography or even child abuse (and the kids taken away from them temporarily!) when a photo lab worker turned over pictures to an overzealous prosecutor. Chalk up one more advantage of digital photography!
Well, thank you for your kind replys…I was initally feeling I was…sorry I asked. And then, my post was not very well written…
Actually I work to stop child porn; I really do feel it is evil. And I do even have reservations about porn in general. When my girls were little (and we lived in Minnesota-nice), their friend down the road went to California and got involved in porn flicks and then shot herself. PBS did a program on it.
But nudity is not pornograpy. I did do a google on Walgreens/nude photos, and came up with mixed results. Oh well, I should have realized that this is one of those questions with no firm answer.
I know how we can tell if the PO checked it. If you could mail me a couple of shots of yourself washing out a hot tube in your birthday suit, I’ll tell you if they arrive intact.
I guarantee it’s the developer. The post office has no problem, so far as I know, with run-of-the-mill nude photos.
I’ve known several developers and it’s pretty typical of certain people to run off a few extra prints of the more “interesting” photos for their own private amusement. I’ve never heard of anyone keeping the negs, but I suspect it’s either a rogue employee with a sense of imposing his/her standard of decency over you, a blanket company policy, or perhaps just someone who found the pix interesting enough to steal the negs for their own pleasure.
Professional photo labs should not have any problem developing nude photos. Heck, I’ve had blatantly pornographic stuff developed by normal photo labs. If you want to be absolutely sure of getting photos of an adult nature (and, personally, I don’t even think a simple nude shot qualifies as adult in nature), you can send your photos out to any of a number of labs who specialize in this kind of work. Just google it, and you’ll find plenty.
I believe the easiest way to determine whether or not your nude photos would break any laws would be to post them on the web and give some of us a link to them.
A Walgreens in Austin just got sued for its employees keeping collections of “interesting” photos. It seems that one customer didn’t like the fact that the kid behind the counter was keeping nudie pictures of her. I believe that a manager was involved as well.
I’m relying on memory here, but I do believe those are the facts of the case.
On a sort of related topic, when my son arrived stillborn a year ago, the hospital took pictures of him for us. We took them to a reputable processor (not a drugstore type place) for developing. We got all the pictures processed and printed, but the envelopes were all labeled “GRAPHIC MATERIAL: DEAD BABY”. I suppose they didn’t want one of their people to accidentally stumble on the pictures and be disturbed by what he/she saw. The baby was obviously in a hospital setting, so there was no suspicion of foul play.
. But on my last day of work I wanted to do it nude and have a picture of me “getting UNdressed for work”. So I did, and I had a friend take a few pictures.