Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

[OogieBoogie]

I saw this article in todays paper and couldn't believe it.

Last fall A.J. and Lisa Demaree took a memory stick with family photos to the printing center at the Wal-Mart store in Peoria, Ariz. Some of the photos showed their three young girls, all under 5 years old, partially nude in the bathtub. The Demarees say these were innocent pictures that all families take. But a Wal-Mart employee felt otherwise and contacted the police who agreed that this was a child pornography situation.

The Demaree's lawyer released this photo to show the pictures of the girls are innocent.

The police report read, "The young girl appeared to be posed in a provocative manner." A report issued by Peoria authorities described the photos as "child erotica" and "sex exploitation."

Child Protective Services searched the Demaree home and took custody of the children for a month while the state investigated. The watched family videotapes and found a few in which the children were playing unclothed. Lisa was suspended from her school job for a year, and both of their names were placed on the sex offender registry. The couple spent $75,000 on legal bills.

The Demarees were eventually cleared of any charges and their daughters returned, but they are now suing the state and Wal-Mart for what they call unfair accusations.

This morning the Demarees appeared on "Good Morning America." "I don't' understand it at all," A.J. told "GMA." "Ninety-nine percent of the families in America have these exact same photos."

"It took us a long time to take a picture [again]," Lisa told "GMA." "I even worry about them in their bathing suits now, if I get a shot of them in their bathing suits and they're tilting their heads a certain way or their hips are sticking out a little bit, all I think of is 'Does someone think that it was posed? Or how is that going to be perceived?'"

"Honestly we've missed a year of our children's lives as far as our memories go," Lisa added, "As crazy as it may seem, what you may think are the most beautiful innocent pictures of your children may be seen as something completely different and completely perverted."

So what do you guys think about this?

[OogieBoogie]

re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Umm.. could a mod please change 'porographic' in the title of this thread to 'pornographic' or 'obscene'? Thanks.

[Stitchy]

re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

ridiculous. Sad that time is wasted persecuting innocent parents like this, when there are REAL threats out there. And being ignored.

[dsnylndmom]

re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Absolutely ridiculous.

[aimster]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Another case of being overly sensitive and overly PC.

[sir clinksalot]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Absolutely NOT!!!

The only thing that would make a picture like that pornographic would be the sick mind of somebody looking at it and MAKING it pornographic.

[Jesser-pie]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

This just proves how ridiculous society has become.

That photo looked like everyother childhood photo. All my friends and I have pictures like these people.

It is actually really upsetting...I'm more angry at the police and the employee for putting these people through this.

:verymad: I watch a disturbing show called Toddlers in tiara's where the girls wear more make up than me and bikinis (one pageant judge said going safe with a one piece suit was risky). If anyone should go through all this, its the parents that exploit their kids on that show...

http://borrowingtrouble.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/bathing.jpg

http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=fastidious.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthenewagenda.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F07%2Ftoddlerpageant.png

http://x05.xanga.com/dd0f3af242430250405512/b198735639.jpg

These are fake, staged, and entirely disgusting (particular since this is a show as opposed to a private photo of your kids having fun around bathtime).

[All4dISNEY]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Absolutely NOT!!!

The only thing that would make a picture like that pornographic would be the sick mind of somebody looking at it and MAKING it pornographic.

Word. My feelings exactly Clinks.

[Aladdin]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

yeah, good ol' arizona

I hope WalMart, City of Peoria Police, and CPS get their ***** Butts sued off!

[penguinsoda]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Well I hope they never look through any of my old photo albums. I've got one of my daughter when she was just a couple of weeks old, stark naked the first time I put her in her little plastic bath tub... then there's the pictures her running around the house with her diaper falling off...

Oh my! I've just admitted I have photos of my daughter!!! The authorities are going to be after me now!!

Insane.

[SummerInFL]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Well I hope they never look through any of my old photo albums. I've got one of my daughter when she was just a couple of weeks old, stark naked the first time I put her in her little plastic bath tub... then there's the pictures her running around the house with her diaper falling off...

Oh my! I've just admitted I have photos of my daughter!!! The authorities are going to be after me now!!

Insane.

Agreed.

[MsSarah]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

That's ridiculous. People have too much time on their hands...

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

The photo released by the lawyer doesn't remotely match the descriptions from the police and city reports. The disparity between the reports' language and the image shown here is so wide that I have to assume this particular photo is not one that raised red flags for store employees, law enforcement and social workers.

Without more information, I have to assume there's more to this story and the lawyer is attempting a media offensive by selectively releasing evidence favorable to his clients. The only alternative is incompetence by the public agencies in question on such a massive scale as to be farcical.

[SnorkletsMom]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Usually photos like this are questionable only when they are in the possession of someone other than a parent or grandparent. In other words, if you have an entire collection of little girl bathtime photos, you're probably a perv.

Without seeing the actual photos and arrest warrants, etc. none of us know what really happened. Remember that there is a lot of child porn out there and sick as it is, much of it is produced by or with the consent of a parent or guardian.

[cositaluvsmickey]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

ridiculous. Sad that time is wasted persecuting innocent parents like this, when there are REAL threats out there. And being ignored.

here here...there are soo many preverts out there and they waste time like this...its totally rediculous..

[NeverNeverland]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

Not based on that one pic. But you can't judge it without seeing all of the pics.

[ghosty4]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

The photo released by the lawyer doesn't remotely match the descriptions from the police and city reports. The disparity between the reports' language and the image shown here is so wide that I have to assume this particular photo is not one that raised red flags for store employees, law enforcement and social workers.

Without more information, I have to assume there's more to this story and the lawyer is attempting a media offensive by selectively releasing evidence favorable to his clients. The only alternative is incompetence by the public agencies in question on such a massive scale as to be farcical.

THANK YOU!!! A friend and I have been discussing this through emails over the past week. She also takes the side that several are taking on this message board, and it's because they are READING WHAT THEY WANT TO READ. The picture in this article was NOT one of the pictures in question. IN FACT, they couldn't release the pictures in question because if they released them they WOULD be considered child porn. The action of taking them is no longer in question. A judge ruled that TAKING them is not an issue. The issue is taking them to your local photo developers and printing them for ANYONE to see. The parents also like to cite, "a time and a place" for nudity. And I agree totally. The place is YOUR HOME. The place is NOT WAL*MART. It is in my opinion that they did NOT need a hardcopy of the pictures in question. AGAIN, the picture from this article WAS NOT IN QUESTION. The pictures in question were of the girls laying down naked beside each other and touching each other.

I develop photos at a local retailer, and one of the women I work with stated it best, "If I thought the pictures in question WERE showing abuse, and I didn't report it, I'd never be able to forgive myself!". Which I'm sure is EXACTLY how the Wal*mart employees felt.

[IzzyInWonderland]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

I saw this on The View this morning and was absolutely appalled. How could this ever be construed as inappropriate?? Every person I know takes pictures of their children in the bath and in their towels. You can tell by the photos that there is clearly nothing wrong with them. This is just some sicko trying to get attention.

[sir clinksalot]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

I may have to change my reply:

Based on the original picture shown, it's NOT. But based on others who are in the local area of the issue saying that the pictures go FAR beyond normal "bath-time" photos ... then there may be an issue.

In a "Normal" circumstance, this is not an issue, but sadly, people sometimes take it too far.

[EvilQueen]

Re: Are bath time photographs of your kids pornographic?

"... in the eye of the beholder"

Photo #1: Buffy and Sissy in the bubble bath
Photo #2: Buffy and Sissy making "bubble beards"
Photo #3: Sissy crying
Photo #4: Buffy crying
Photo #5: Out of the bath, naked, kissing and hugging
Photo #6: "Buffy, point to Sissy's belly button!"
Photo #7: Sissy pointing to Buffy's who-who
Photo #8: Buffy and Sissy laughing, naked
Photo #9: both girls looking at the camera, looking concerned / scared
Photo #10: Buffy and Sissy all wrapped up in towels, smiling at camera

Innocent? Absolutely. 100%. No Question.

Now, view these photos out of context: Wal-Mart employee scanning a zillion photos per day, comes across 24 photos of two little girls, naked, touching, kissing, pointing to 'privates', one of naked little girl crying (shampoo in her eye? man telling her to do something ugly? how can you tell?), no adult in picture - and I have to agree with an earlier poster: if you DIDN'T report the photos and found out later that these little girls were molested and the photos were in YOUR hands and you did nothing - how could you live with yourself?

I talked about this with a friend / former DCA Cast Member who used to work at Flik's Fair a lot; she said that it was a daily (if not hourly) struggle to tell parents to put their little ones' clothes back on their toddlers / small children who were playing in the giant sprinkler / water area. "Oh, they're just children! They're FINE!" every parent would tell her, as the mother had a pile of dry clothes sitting next to her, as the naked 2-year old boy - sans diaper, 3-year old boy and 4-year old girl - all three without clothes or shoes - played in the water. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to please put their clothes and shoes back on..." as her eyes would scan the area noticing that a lot of the folks watching the scene did not happen to have any "little ones" of their own.

"What if..."

How is anyone to know what / when / who is safe these days? You don't want to sound an alarm and ruin someone's life, but the news is full of tragedies every day. (I am not going to list the several well-publicized events of the last couple of months where little ones were abducted / molested / found dead; we have ALL heard the reports. One crime was committed by a woman / mother, who doesn't at all fit the "usual" profile of a pedophile / murderer); what if a photo of a naked little one fell into your lap at work and you thought later, "If I had only picked up the phone and called..." ?