[davidguetta]

I have weirdly mixed feelings on your comment.

- I agree that parents who publicize their children on social media are massive creep in my opinion, who do a massive invasion of the child privacy. That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent.

- At the same time saying that no skin should ever be shown ever because "it titills sexual creeps" is a dark road that points in a direction which in some places ends up at covering the faces of women for the exact same reason. Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ?

On the other hand in many places of Northern europe nudity is more common even in public. That works because they don't culturally associate as much nudity with sex as americans or other parts of the world do.. (You'd obviously get beaten up for masturbating in these places especially with children around.). And that doesn't seem like so bad a thing to me

[germinalphrase]

You’re underselling the social and financial dynamic of specifically recording children in minimal clothing and asking them to perform for anonymous strangers on the internet.

It’s entirely different than standard social standards about clothing and nudity in public.

[ceejayoz]

Precisely.

A prominent example; it's quite the read: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-12-18/...

> But it is the suit filed by 11 former members of the Squad that has placed the Piper Rockelle saga at the center of an explosive online controversy. The plaintiffs, all of whom are minors, allege in the lawsuit that Smith offered to show an 11-year-old girl how to perform oral sex, mailed Piper’s underwear to men and pretended to be a raunchy version of the family’s dead cat while inappropriately touching and harassing the children.

> Trimmer, a photographer, said Smith often urged the kids to pose more provocatively for thumbnail photo shoots — the images used to promote YouTube videos. She would frequently tell the Squad members to make ‘sexy kissing faces’ for thumbnails, to ‘push their butts out,’ to ‘suck their stomachs in,’ ‘wear something sluttier’ and would otherwise position Plaintiffs’ bodies in explicitly and sexually suggestive positions,” the complaint said.

> Numerous Squad members also allege that Smith regularly interacted online with a man posing as a young girl named “Megan” who sent her money, a Gucci bag, laptops, lawn furniture and other expensive gifts in exchange for images of Piper. In the lawsuit, Corinne said she witnessed Smith mail “several of Piper’s soiled training bras and panties to an unknown individual,” adding that Smith told her “old men like to smell this stuff.”

They know who the audience is.

[davidguetta]

We don't disagree, I was just not EVEN speaking about that.

This is miles away more horrific.

[PuppyTailWags]

TBH I agree with you that we shouldn't forbid children from wearing standard amounts of clothing (i.e. not much) to go swimming due to creeps existing generally in the world.

I'm talking about intentionally filming one's own children for the viewership of creeps online for perpetual consumption in order to make a profit. This would be akin to making one's living by nonconsensually filming nude beach visitors in northern europe for 8 hrs+/day and uploading that online vs someone just visiting a nude beach.

[eloisant]

Going to the pool and posting online are 2 different things.

I would be happy with a law forbidding to post public pictures of your underage kids, regardless of skin exposure.

[sramam]

Personally, I agree with your view-point.

However, the law you are proposing would prohibit a parent from posting an image of their child winning the spelling bee, in a full suit.

I have no idea how to thread this needle, outside making my personal choices.

[nradov]

I'm not sure where to draw the line in order to protect children, but a blanket ban on posting pictures of them would never survive a First Amendment challenge. US Supreme Court precedents have made it clear that any restrictions must be more narrowly targeted.

[lotsofpulp]

This reminds me of

https://arresteddevelopment.fandom.com/wiki/Milford_School

> Children should be neither seen nor heard.

Surely, kids can be seen in movies, tv shows, news articles about kids competitions or events, etc?

[valarauko]

> That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent.

Genuine Q: at what point can the child consent? A lot of people here are talking about a media blackout of their children since the child can't consent, but when does that end? Can a 5-year-old consent to have their pictures posted online? 10? 15?

[blooalien]

I've known 5 year olds who understood the world well enough to make such decisions about their own lives (and surprisingly enough make wise decisions about such things, and able to explain why they feel their choice is valid) but in my experience, that's always been due to good parenting giving the child early access to important "brain functionality" (logic, reason, slowing down and taking time to think before taking action and not just "freaking out" and jumping into a situation wildly, etc.) and those simply aren't skills a lotta parents teach these days (for wildly varying reasons I'm sure). Children like that are a ridiculously rare breed anymore. It'd be nice if the decision about such things depended upon the child being capable of such decisions, but how would one even determine let alone verify that a child's decision making skills were appropriate for that type of choice? Only truly caring parents, other adults who spend a lot of time around the family, and the child themselves could be really truly "in the know" about it…

[valarauko]

My discomfort arises from centering this on the idea of a child's consent. While I admit your point makes sense, it also feels like a slippery slope - "No Chris Hansen, she was one of those rare breeds of 15-year-olds who is capable of giving consent..."

As a society we have settled on the idea that regardless of the emotional development of a minor, they are materially incapable of granting consent since we believe they do not yet the maturity to comprehend it. I know this is a terrible analogy, but alas, this is where I feel the slippery slope leads by centering this debate on the idea of consent. Yes, there is a material difference in the kinds of consent we're dealing with, but I'm not sure if they're all that different.

[davidguetta]

The real question is not "when can the child consent" (depends on the child, hard to even define) but "where put the legal age for best reasonable protection of the children". I'd be fine with "no minor on social media" < 16.

[valarauko]

> I'd be fine with "no minor on social media" < 16.

I think is pretty broad, but do you suggest no depictions of under 16s on any online media? It's one thing to restrict minors from participating on social media, but are you suggesting their likeness cannot appear online posted by other people? Parents? School yearbook? School social club?

[prepend]

> Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ?

I don’t suggest that, but I think it’s pretty bad to post lots of swimsuit pics to social media. And it’s absolutely horrible to accept money in exchange for 1:1 videos or commissioned photos for internet strangers. There’s no legitimate purposes for adults to ask little kids to pose on swimsuits for them. I’m not sure if it should be illegal, but certainly scorned and people who practice to have appropriate levels of opprobrium.

[PurpleRamen]

> Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ?

It's significant easier to hone your creepiness when you have an endless supply of training-material. It might even help you to discover this side of you in the first place.

> On the other hand in many places of Northern europe nudity is more common even in public.

Not with children. Even in Europe parents are generally quite protective with them. And here the topic of family-influencer and sexualization of their children is also a hot topic.

[watwut]

I have seen naked toddlers in European swimming pools/lakes.

[PurpleRamen]

Toddlers are infants, not children. There is different awareness according to their abilities and demands.

[lotsofpulp]

In the US, toddlers are toddlers, infants are infants. Both toddlers and infants are children.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/difference-between-baby-newbo...

[klyrs]

In the late 90s I was startled by a billboard in Germany which featured a dozenish naked boys, standing shoulder to shoulder and bearing all for the camera. It was an ad for a telecom, if I recall. Some of them had pubic hair, some were too young for that. Reading up on the legality of public nudity in Germany, I wonder if this would still fly today.

[golergka]

Should we make Nirvana's Nevermind cover illegal?

[nradov]

The subject of the Nevermind album cover actually filed a civil suit over child sexual exploitation. His case was dismissed because he had waited too long to file it, so the core legal issue hasn't really been adjudicated.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/entertainment/spencer-elden-n...

[_trampeltier]

Today it would be impossible. But also much other things in media. Like the first James Bond Casino Royale (1967). There is a scene in a tube with Bond and a younger than 18 years old girl in a tube. Or a in the movie Kickboxer (1988) with Van Damme. There is a scene when they are on a boat on a river in Thailand. You can see at least one young boy complete nude from frontside. Another scene later in the hospital. The brother just grop the butt from the nurse and everybody is laughing. To watch it today feels very strange.

[stametseater]

Was there ever a pressing need for that cover to exist in the first place? I don't think our society would be culturally impoverished if they had simply taken a picture of something else.

[mablopoule]

Yeah, society would absolutely be culturally impoverished if this would be considered off-limit.

Limiting the space of 'allowed' expression and saying it's okay because culture is not essential isn't really the best path to take as a society.

[jstarfish]

If you Photoshop the penis out, there would be nothing remarkable about the cover. It was child exploitation as a marketing gimmick.

I think the Scorpions did something similar with putting an underage girl on the Virgin Killer album, but that may have been non-photographic (not looking it up).

Decades later, Nirvana is still a topic of discussion because of it (and still earning royalties), while the kid in question whose image is used in perpetuity gets told to pound sand because he missed an arbitrary deadline.

We don't need to exploit children as a form of creative expression. We just don't. Depravity is not cultural enrichment.

[mablopoule]

If you let the penis visible, there is still not that much remarkable. The picture was mainly about a baby swimming toward a bill used as a bait.

There is at least one picture of me (not on social media, admittedly), as a toddler, buck naked in a pool with another toddler. It was (and still is) and innocent picture even with the visible genitalia. So no, it's not automatically "depravity" to show nude people, even kids.

Don't be mistaken, I'm not for child exploration, stuff like kids beauty pageant, or over-exposed young people are downright creepy, but I'm reacting at the idea of making any representation of kids taboo.

[akaij]

> If you Photoshop the penis out, there would be nothing remarkable about the cover.

Says you.

> Decades later, Nirvana is still a topic of discussion because of it (and still earning royalties), ...

I think the album's popularity and the royalties aren't solely attributable to the cover :)

> We don't need to exploit children as a form of creative expression...

There is no pornography, no sexual abuse, in fact there's nothing sexual about it at all, and the parents were paid for the photo. Please help me understand how it constitutes exploitation.

[peterashford]

How? In what way would not having a child's penis on an album cover have impoverished society?

[golergka]

There's no "pressing need" for any art at all, or many other wonderful things that make our lives better. It's a very shitty criteria to determine whether something should be banned or not.

[peterashford]

That's much broader than the argument that I think is being made - or should be made. Which is that the need for an album cover art doesn't justify making public images of a nude child who clearly cannot consent to such.

[stametseater]

I find it hard to believe anybody could describe that cover as a "wonderful thing" that "made their life better."

If it's really art for the sake of art, art justifying itself, then let it be done for free. I want the monetization of such things banned, because I don't think this is art for the sake of art. I think child modelling is done for the sake of commercial exploitation.

[karaterobot]

I sympathize with your position, but if it leads to us saying "I don't think this art does enough good for society, so it should not exist" then I'm out, and if it leads to us saying "you can say what you want, but you can't make a living off it unless it gets approval by a moral authority" then I'm also out.

[stametseater]

The "slippery slope" here is that I apply my above argument to all monetization of children. But that is where the slope stops. The slope is in fact simply the existing social standard against child labor, with the entertainment industry carve-outs removed.

[golergka]

> I find it hard to believe anybody could describe that cover as a "wonderful thing" that "made their life better."

I didn't say that this art cover is such a thing. I attacked your criteria of a "pressing need" with this description, this argument is independent of discussion about this particular cover.

> I want the monetization of such things banned, because I don't think this is art for the sake of art.

I don't think anyone should be able to ban other people from committing voluntary transactions. The band wants to sell the album. I want to buy it. Somebody else's opinions on what is and what isn't art are not relevant to either of us.