Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.

(Sigh). I was hoping to see Dr. Strange in there. He is the Master of the Mystic Arts, after all.

And you can tell that these are female children HOW??? Because they have long hair? I can see nothing about those pictures that indicates what sex the children are.
My daughter married a nice young man whose parents lived on a commune back in the day. Her father-in-law is now a doctor (MD). My son-in-law is mightily peeved that he didn't get a "cool" name like the ids who were born on the commune.

Kevin,
I understand that reading the rest of the article informs one that these are female children, but just looking at the "offending" pictures by themselves gives no indication of the sex of the children in them. If one had seen those pictures first - before reading the rest of the article - what would have informed one that the children were female? What if the children were wearing pants in the other pictures?

Shoot - If I had limited sewing skills, EVERYONE would be wearing dresses/skirts just because they are a lot easier to make and fit than pants are. And then where would be be with identifying sex until puberty??

I worked in a photo lab for many years, where we hand-adjusted each photo for color, resulting in me seeing each and every photograph that I developed. I saw MANY family photos with naked kids playing on the beach or in the bathtub or running around their houses naked... and not once, did my mind think "omigod child porn...", because being naked as a kid and having that kind of freedom and shamelessness is a wonderful thing!

Only once during my years of working there, did I see an image that immediately made me uncomfortable enough to look away. It was very inappropriate to me (which is saying a lot), and my other co-workers agreed, so we did what was expected of us, and called the police to get them to investigate it.

But at least in these cases, we would get the opinions of multiple people, and not just one prude vetoing each and every piece of nudity... so who makes those decisions today? One freak to ruin it for the rest of us?

Dear Blah,
I'm sorry that my comments were interpreted in any other way tatn to say that it was a sad, sad commentary on how society views children. I do apologize if I've compounded any persecution that you may have received for being (nothing more or less than) a caring, loving father. It is, indeed, a sad world that views all beings as nothing more than objects of sexual desire. I meant no accusations of any sort. Blessings on you for being an integral part of your daughters' lives.

Rodger...dude...uh...I'm from New Orleans.

I know how you feel Blah, I am a single father also and I would get all kinds of dirty looks whenever I went into the play area to get my daughter. All the moms would stare at me right up to the moment when my daughter came running up to me yelling "DADDY!" I was even stopped from leaving a walmart by their security and had to wait for the police to arrive because my less than 1 year old daughter didnt know my first name.
I agree with you about the girl in Michigan The story of the girl in Michigan is ridiculous, they are trying to convict ppl who unwittingly received these pictures. Some one correct me if I am wrong, but the distribution charges are primarily for creating or contributing to the victimization of children, but since she did it herself, she made herself the victim. Can someone really be charged with victimizing themselves? If so, I think a great many of us are looking at some major sexual assault charges
(on a side note: It kind of saddens me, Blah, that you had to take an article about changing social norms and try to turn it into a political rant. Can we please discuss the issues at hand without dragging politics into it?)

Laura--write to me privately at:

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

so I can put you in touch with my friend.