What I find offensive is that some people think that babies have no right to privacy at all about their bodies. Let me try to explain:
<long, boring explanation of the fact that I have no problem with nudity omitted.>
A couple of years ago, a friend of my aunt’s was showing around pictures of her baby granddaughter. One was taken in the bath, and it really could only be called a “split beaver shot.” I mean, this kid’s legs were spread and you could see ALL her girly bits in full detail. I was horrified. But many older ladies kept saying how “cute” it was. They were oohing and aahing over this! I said to the lady sitting next to me that I didn’t think it was cute at all. She said “but she’s just a baby!” Now, nakey little kids are perfectly acceptable. Photographing nakey little kids is often acceptable. Photographing nakey little kids in porno poses is unacceptable. Showing the porno pose photos around? Yikes!
This baby wasn’t old enough to have developed a sense of privacy about herself yet. Still, the adult photographer should have realized that once this kid gets old enough to understand, she will probably be extremely embarrased by that photo.
And, as we see in the OP, once a kid has developed a sense of privacy, it should be up to him/her what level of exposure is acceptable. In the meantime, we can let the kid go naked if he/she wants, but we must remember that as adults, we shouldn’t take advantage of that sense of freedom.
I like to bite my daughter’s butt. Can’t help myself really.
She’ll be standing there, and I call her over and tell her I’m going to bite her butt. She’ll run off screaming through the house. I’ll chase her, grab, hang her upside down, and bit her butt.
Then I’m ok again.
“…Winston Churchill was ugly, too. But he taught a parrot how to swear. So that’s cool…”
My next-door neighbors have three parrots that all swear. They had two that only said normal things such as the people’s names, and then they took in a third from a relative that had three teenage sons that taught it to swear.
Then over about the first year, each bird/birds taught the other what they knew.
And the funniest part is, the birds can combine the swear words with the people’s names on their own, and will only use the name when the person is there to hear it:
“Kimmee fuck off!”
“eat shit Dana!”
“Kimmee shut the fuck up!”
I rolled on the floor the first time they left the windows open and I heard it. The birds will “get rolling” on a sound, and say it non-stop for 5 minutes or so. You haven’t laughed until you’ve heard three parrots in the same cage yelling as loud as they can at each other to “fuck off!”.
I meant to record some of it and post it on the web, but never got around to it.
There are few things cuter than my two-year old’s little butt. I love swatting it when he goes by. If you ask him where his butt his, he’ll pat it several times and say “butt butt.”
I can’t wait to go home and swat his butt this evening.
I’m not too concerned. There is not one single thing to indicate that there is anything remotely sexual about finding one’s kid’s butt to be cute. You wanna repress 'em, fine. You’re only speeding up the progress of society anyway. I do agree about the awful photos there. When I was little my parents took pictures of my brother and I right after a bath, in the buff. Unfortunately, they held us in such a way that our little, uh, packages were very clearly displayed. I’m glad I don’t know where those photos went. They were hideously embarrassing. Other than that, I don’t see any big deal. I myself don’t see me biting a kid’s butt (and I guess I’d rather not see you do it) but it doesn’t make me upset that others do it.
Scylla and others: If your kid likes the attention; that’s okay. But I hope, unlike my family, you’ll allow them to outgrow it.
Bumbazine: It’s that “laughing at” aspect that upsets me. Maybe I’m just overreacting because I was always on the spot in my family…
There was another family gathering where my mom called me upstairs and handed me a huge button that said, “Kiss me; I’m Italian” and wanted me to wear it. I said no. Yet another time, she whispered to me, “Tell Floyd (second cousin) he looks like Johnny Cash!” Not knowing who Johnny Cash was, or why Floyd looked like him (wearing all black), I refused to let myself be set up. Another nother time…Well, you get the idea. I said no to everything, and it finally got through her cement head that I wasn’t her marionette.
I know those incidents don’t sound like much of anything by themselves, but when you add them all up, and factor in my being the “only kid”, and therefore the only person subject to this manipulation, and add the many instances of bona fide abuse, it’s a wonder I got all the way to 18 without snapping.
Are you REALLY all that embarrassed about photos taken of you when you were naked as a baby/small child?
I’m not. Mum has plenty of photos of me skinny dipping or in the bath. I was a baby, not a teenager. As a baby, being naked meant nothing to me. So why should I feel embarrassed about that stage in my life?
I have photos of both my kids naked. At the time the pics were taken, both of them loved running around with nothing on. They thought it was a hoot. I took pics to remind us of that time.
Now, my son won’t allow himself to be seen naked by anyone but me and my husband. I have no intention of taking “naked” photos of him anymore. There would be no fun in it for anyone.
Do you guys actually bite your child’s bottom ? Isn’t that a bit… ummm… abusive ?
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Personally, I can see nothing wrong with nudity, or nude baby photos (though the porno spread is a bit off) but to answer the OP, I don’t myself find a baby’s bottom to be cute or funny. YMMV
Yes! You actually bite the baby’s butt! Not hard…just soft bites, but you have to make gobbling sounds so it sounds like you are actually REMOVING THE BUTT FROM THE BODY. My kid thought it was hilarious. When he was around 12 or so, he and his friends were sitting up in a tree on the river naked, and when a boat came by, they’d jump out of the tree BUTT NAKED! I don’t quite get that one…I guess it’s a guy thing.
Yes, parents think that kids’ butts are adorably cute, and its partly the fact that kids are young, sexless, and innocent. I was astonished to find (after I had my daughter) that kids really do sleep with their butts in the air, at least for a while. I have no idea why.
There’s also a bit of humiliation humor in it – that Coppertone ad is humorous because the girl is embarrassed by having her bathing suit pulled down, and you remember it for that reason (the point of all advertising, after all), while it gives an excuse to show the tan. But it’s all innocent, because it’s just a kid! You couldn’t do that with a 21 year-old woman having her bathing suit pulled down. Guys would like it a lot more, but a lot of people would be offended by the blatant sexuality. (There were posters of this and things like it, back in the 60s and 70s. And the latest issue of PLayboy features an ad for the Hair Club for Men (!!) with a woman pulling down a bewigged guy’s bathing suit. It’s clearly meant to recall the Coppertone ads – but it’s in Playboy, so they can get away with the sexuality. A lot of guys, even if they aren’t balding, wouldn’t mind having women pulling their bathing suits down.)
I’m with Tsubaki on this one - it’s the person looking at the picture that sexualises it - it’s only a body after all. And yes, that goes for the open-legged poses of a baby too. How can that be pornographic?? Unless it titillates you, it’s not pornography. That said, I can’t say I find it particularly cute either!
Kids are innocent - my friends have a four year old girl who still loves running around naked, or walks with her skirt round her head. The thing is, she sees nothing wrong in it, nor do her parents. After all, as she goes through school, she’ll soon be repressed by society enough - why spoil her innocence now?!
