When I was a very little girl my Mom thought nothing of hauling me into the shower with her if I got stuff all over me and her while playing or eating. These days even a same sex relative who did that would likely face accusations of child molestation. In fact Dear Abby just chided a grandma for taking a bath with her granddaughter. Nothing weird was going on. They both just got very dirty, and rather than leave a 2 year old unsupervised while she took a bath she just took one with her and washed out her hair and stuff. But Abby went off on her for doing that. There comes an age where a child should put clothes on in company. Taking a bath with a kid that's old enough to know what a sex is? That is one thing. But to a 2 year old a naked body is no big thing. Heck when I was that age you couldn't hardly keep clothes on me. I used to drop mine and streak around naked at the first opportunity when it was just me and my Mom.
My Dad used to make me put my clothes back on. He's the type who blushes easily, still does, even now just seeing me in a sports bra or any top sans bra wigs him out. He's always yelling at me to go put more clothes on even when it's freakin 100 degrees outside. Goodness forbid I should to go the store around the corner sans a bra even in a top where you can't see much. To be fair I'm not exactly little up top. I don't usually go out in public sans a bra. To do that is to invite harassment around here, but I do walk around my own house in one of the thin cover up tie-dye dresses I have all the time. I do answer the door, get the mail et all, without running to put a bra on. That totally drives my Dad nuts when he's around, but that's his problem, and I don't tell him that my roommate is practically a nudist when he's not here besides.
She has a robe by the door, so do I, but when we're on our own I don't really care if the only thing she has on is panties. I do insist upon those for sanitary reasons but otherwise I really don't care. A naked body of any age doesn't really bother me and I don't think anything of a kid under the age of say 6 stripping down and running around. Older than that they probably should put something on outside their own room, but if a kid wants to strip and sit in the buff in their own bedroom I'm not saying anything. I don't want any kid to get that hung up over any naked body let alone their own.
I think being naked can be healthy for body image. Me, I never had an issue at all with mine at all until I started school and ballet and the other girls made snarky comments about me actually having hips and boobs before they did. Changing for gym and ballet? That became just hellish. I got very self conscious about being naked, my weight which was perfectly normal back then for my size, and in particular about my breast size and that's a real shame because that shouldn't happen, ever. Took me a long time to get over that.
I used to see Mom and Dad sans clothes once in a while when I was a kid. They used to sleep nude sometimes. It didn't warp me much I don't think. Dad was always quick to cover but Mom hated anything on her when she was hot except underwear and she'd walk around like that all the time when it was just us unless Dad caught her and yelled at her. She finally got some of those little vest t-shirts to wear to make him happy but I do really think she preferred being naked up top in the Summer. She took pics of me and the grand kids naked in the bath and with cookies all over us and stuff. On a fluffy rug when we were infants. But my Mom was no pervert. She just didn't have the hang ups my Dad has about nudity that's all. Naked baby butts were cute to her, not salacious.
Personally I think Pretty Baby was close to being porn. I've seen it. I don't think it was much of a film artistically speaking. Like Taxi Driver with Jodie Foster I think it's a lot more about the scandal of the kids being in it used in such a way than it is about actually being good movie making. Neither movie ranks well with me. B movies both of them, IMHO. I think that Brooke Shield's mother never should have allowed that. But that's her kid and she made her choice. I don't get that it affected Brooke Shields too negatively but still that's too close to child porn that movie for me and I wouldn't allow any child of mine at that age to do something like that. Now they'd use an adult petite body double or cut away from something like that. That bath scene? They'd get an X rating for that now and there would be a huge fuss like there was when Nicole Kidman made that one movie where she was in the bath with a kid.
After say 6 and until a person is 18 I don't think they should be photographed naked. I'm sure it can be perfectly innocent on a photographer's or film maker's part but what those photos or film can be used for can be a bit skeevy. Back when Brook Shields made Pretty Baby you didn't often see digitally enhanced naked shots of normal kids being used on child porn sites. You take an innocent artistic pic of your kid in the bath naked today and it could be on the internet tomorrow and all over the world for every pervert under the sun to digitally manipulate and make into something nasty. That changes the game a bit I think. You have to be more careful now with the internet and all. It's all a matter of intent though when you get down to it. One person's art can be another's porn.
Christa Meola was recently chided by some people for posing a women naked with a cigarette. This is the photo that completely wigged some people out. That got her some really nasty comments on her blog. (Not work safe, her site. Lots of boudoir work...) Personally I think this is a lot more art than porn, and I like her work a lot, but apparently some people didn't think so...
http://christameola.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/christa_meola_nude_boudoi...9,r:1,s:0,i:75
I don't even get wigged out about porn most of the time these days though. I don't like really truly violent or degrading stuff, or stuff involving kids or animals, but otherwise I don't care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms and I don't think sexy pics of naked people or porn videos are somehow intrinsically bad. So long as everyone is legal, there of their own free will, and the acts portrayed are legal it's not my business what people get their kinks off of. Meola? She's pretty darned tame if you ask me. The people that harassed her really need to get a life if they think that is porn, lol.
Ditto buck naked baby pics et all. A 10 year old posing shirtless, yeah, that can be a bit questionable, but a toddler or a baby? You have got to have a really dirty mind to think that's porn unless there is some adult there clearly posing the kid in a really nasty way. Little kids love being naked and even flaunting it and there is nothing wrong with that. I don't show my naked baby pics around, but that's not because I think my parents were wrong to take them. I just don't particularly want the whole world to see them, that's all. I'm not ashamed of them. I actually just like to keep any photos of me private.
Originally posted by RobA_Oz 
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