Alot of Naked Kids Lately

In the gallery and on the featured section of the home page I have seen quite a few pics of naked little kidlets lately.

I know they are cute and the pages done in a sweet way but I can't help thinking about pedophiles coming on here to scope out your little kids' photos, especially in light of stuff on Facebook where there was a group about parenting that was actually pedophiles trying to get pics of people's kids.

How do you all feel about this? Are you at all worried that you're making it attractive for pedophiles to start trolling scrapbooking websites for pics of little kids?

I'm not trying to be mean nor do I honestly think that the pedophile will come stalk your kid cuz they saw their pic on your layout. Maybe I watch too much Law & Order. I'm just wondering why you don't blur out the little butt cheeks or something to make the pics a little more discreet for the internet, knowing there are grotesque predators out there and this is a completely legal site for them to come look at. I don't want to start a riot, please, and I do feel that you should be able to post what you want, I just wonder what your thoughts are on the subject.

I'm a bit funny about it. I TAKE photos that have my little man's bum in it. BUT the only ones I feel okay posting or doing a layout that I would post are the belly up.. I won't post one with anything lower showing.

I'm just like that though. lol.

I think if pedophiles are trolling the internet there are way worse things (unfortunately) for them to find than a scrapbook site with a picture of a picture of a nekid backside. JMO...

I wouldn't post my kiddos naked on here...if I did scrap a pic of them that way, I would put a block over any privates or blur it or something. I scrapped my DS' first pics on here and he was naked and I just put a black box around that area so no one could see.

For me...its not about the pedophilers...I have enough of those living within 100 miles of my house (yes, they are everywhere!) that I worry about it...but I do it more for my child's privacy. I wouldn't want anyone posted naked pics of me on the web (I really don't have any), and I'm sure my children don't want their naked parts displayed on the web either. It's jsut a matter of what is private and what can be shared.

Just the reminder that this is an open site and anyone can lurk, is timely! We could easily get lulled into thinking it's just us sbers here, enjoying each others' creations and chatting with each other. It's good to remember that ANYONE could be here.

I am with you Jennifer, While these photos and layouts have a place in our scrapbooks, I am not so sure they should be posted on the web. Just as TJ mentioned, it is a public and open site that you do not need to be a member of in order to view layouts.

My husband works in law enforcement and has seen and heard of some pretty sick things the pedophiles do, they depend on us to be lax and trusting in order for them to do their thing. I also agree that our children deserve some privacy, we are responsible for being their advocates so keep that in mind when posting pics.

JMO as well...

In this day of our privacy being invaded in so many ways that we have no control over I think it is important for us to take the best steps we can to protect ourselves and as Stacey pointed out protect the privacy of our loved ones...
I too have wondered about this from time to time and am glad to see it brought up and in that lovely respectful manner. Thanks Jennifer.

I have never thought of the pedophiles but I have blurred their cute little bums -- because if they see them -- they'll kill me!!

I am very aware of what I post online, and try not to post personal information and don't post many photos.

There is just too much weirdness out there.

Gramary said it well. There is a lot that is beyond our control, but... everyone can be a little more careful what they put "out there."

I will share a little story....


My mom took a picture of my daughter when she was about 3 years old playing at the beach. Daughter was squatting down playing in the sand. Her pants had scooted down and she had "plumber's crack."

Mom entered the photo in our county fair. When she went after the fair to pick it up, IT WAS GONE!

Now, it could be that it was misplaced or someone mistakenly picked it up. Or, some weirdo out there has a photo of my daughter's rear.

A bit off topic, but not really.... I was surprised how many people who entered Estee's "Home Sweet Home" challenge included their house number and street address. Innocent enough when you just imagine nice scrappers looking at it, but when you consider the possibility that someone sees a nice (naked or otherwise) picture of your child online, well, now they have a picture of your house and an address too. With google maps, it's incredibly easy to type in that address and use street view to see if you've found the correct city.

I try to find a healthy balance between diligence and paranoia, but it's hard! Very interesting to read everyone's perspectives.

Cindy

• cindy312 Said:

Good point!

Jennifer, I've noticed the increase of bare bottoms in the gallery too, and it always raises fear in me. I wouldn't post those pictures, cute as they are.

Artists here have seen their LOs/photos appear in advertisements and promotional materials in places like Taiwan and the Philippines. That is scary to me.

I post pictures of my niece and nephews and now their little ones, but only with their permission. I never post anything that shows exposed bodies. Not worth the risk.

I agree also, not only on the perv issue, but they way laws are and how crazy people get, I would be afraid of some one some how trying to saying we have kiddie porn on. And goodness knows how twisted that could get.

I do have a layout of my ds naked a jaybird, but I put a big old leaf on his private. And now, that I read and think about this, I'm gonna take it off here.

• Bxr-Linda Said:

All well stated, I do the same & I agree!

Also, just to add, why take the chance as to who might see them or where they ultimately may end up.

Thanks for bringing this up, Jennifer! I completely agree.

I have only posted one nekked baby pic LO. But I did so tastefully and humorously. http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/14549/view/ 2332283/-...
I used a censored tag to cover the nekked bootie.

The only one I have is one of my dd when she was one and in the pool with a swim diaper on and her back to the camera but still wasn't comfortable with just her back showing so I put brown paper over her bare skin.

• cindy312 Said:

FYI Photoshop has a smudge tool. You can use it to smudge your address or other identifying information that may make it into your photos. If you can't afford Photoshop, it IS pricey; Gimp is very similar and free.

I don't believe in posting pictures of people in my family on here or anywhere else. Because you never know who might be looking with wrong ideas on their minds.

I did a lo with my son. However the pic of him in the tub I put a censored paper over his butt.

I believe all kids deserve to have their private bits respected. As someone else said, I wouldn't want someone posting a LO with my bum smack dab in the middle of the page, I should honor that my child would feel the same way.

I don't think they're trolling our site but I sitll don't take the chance. I think if you have a cute LO with a naked child you should password protect it and only invite people you KNOW to view it.

I don't agree that you should ever show genetaila. A Butt shot maybe but even that needs to be tasteful. And there has to be an age limit on that too.

Even if you don't agree about the privacy issue or think it's just cute and harmless, Kim raised an interesting point about the law. Look at all the uproar lately about teens 'sexting' and being charged with distribution of child pornography and labeled as sex offenders for life. I would think it wouldn't be worth the risk.

Trivia to add to this post. Technically only a Doctor can label someone a pedophile, it is a diagnosis. Until someone who prefers children over adult humans for certain activities (you know what I mean) is formally diagnosed they are called "preferential child molesters".

• dancinirish90 Said:

Interesting issue. The intent as well as content of the transmission are the legal issues. "Sexting" is done to garner a certain type (again, you know what I mean) attention. It has to fit the legal description of p#@*ography, that the photo is transmitted with a specific intent, purpose and suggestion along with revealing specific parts of the body that are normally covered.

If you think about it, millions of parents and grandparents would have a problem when they electronically share nude photos of their babies and toddlers.

What I fail to see anyone mention here is that pedophiles don't just get "turned on" by naked kids. If that were true then they wouldn't be stalking parks and other places that children frequent to take pictures of them fully clothed.

• fatwhippet Said:

Parents have been arrested for having nude photos of their own children printed.

I think a common sense approach is warranted...

I think the real danger is pics of kids (naked or not) COMBINED WITH easily obtainable address details - that is dangerous IMO.

A realisation that anyone can look at the pics on this site balanced with whether you think a scrapbooking site is somewhere a creep would come looking..

My personal opinion is that I would never post a pic with genetalia showing (even a newborn babies cute willy!) but I actually deleted pics I had like that from my personal albums - I am just not comfortable with it.

I agree with somebody who said that they can find enough pics elsewhere without having to worry about a butt picture here. I'd rather not have the butt pics blurred. Baby butts are cute! And if the parent finds it bothersome, they don't have to post it. Obviously most don't have a problem with it, considering how many pics you said there have been.
now, if I was truly worried that somebody online could see my cute pic, find my name and address, and track down my kid, I'd rather it not be there. But I really don't need to think about the weirdos looking at the pics. Weirdos are everywhere.

I have noticed this trend lately. In the past, I would see a few nekked photos show up in layouts, but now it seems to be evolving into a popular trend. I've seen it in many internet sb galleries.

Personally I don't really want to see your darling's nekked anything.....as cute as it is. I just feel like I'm invading their privacy.

Out of respect for my children's privacy, I wouldn't post a layout like that in a public venue. I would still scrap it.....I just wouldn't post it for the world to see.

As for pedophiles.....they are out there everywhere. Don't invite them in to your lives. As parents, our top priority should be protecting our family.

And........stepping down from my soapbox now

• cindy312 Said:

Cindy.....I wonder if some of these women didn't realize that they were putting their info out there? One of the first layouts I posted had my name and address as part of it (it was on a postcard I scrapped). I didn't even realize that the addy was showing. It wasn't until a sb.c neighbor pointed it out to me, and I removed it immediately. *whew* I guess I was so excited to post my creation, that I didn't notice the private information that I was putting out there.

Yep I never post photos of my children in their birthday suits - I always use the blur tool. I also never post photos of their friends or other family members without their permission, and blur them too. You really never know who is looking at your photos - anything could turn up in a google search, and any of your photos could be swiped by anyone - for this I don't mind being paranoid.

Our newspaper and others have stopped posting birth announcements in the newspaper because someone realistically could go to the hospital website to see the baby's photo and see the names w/ their hometown listed. Connect the dots.

I have a rubby ducky that my grandson plays with in his bath tub. I creatively copied and pasted it over his part in the front. It just looks like the duckie is suppposed to be there.

It's funny this is a topic that I've just been pondering over recently. I recently did a LO that had several photos of DD. One of which showed her laying in the bath with her tushy showing a bit. It was a fuzzy photo. So I debated taking it back down. I tried to edit the photo about TEN times- but does anyone ELSE have problems changing photos in the gallery here??? It kept giving me an error message. Finally, i got sick of stressing about it and took it down. For all the the reasons people have discussed here already.

This topic came up here a couple years ago. Someone posted the words ch*!d and nekked (spelling errors intentional) and some trolls must do a regular google search and stirred up a bit of fuss here. So be careful using certain words together and making a search easy.

BTW, I personally wouldn't post a potentially embarrassing picture. It's a wonder I post ANYTHING with my picture on it for that reason .

• Luvmyfam Said:

Jenn......glad you got on your soapbox. Important reminder to people....Above all else: protect your children.

I haven't really been paying attention to the gallery lately, so I haven't noticed but I don't post nekkid pics.. I have one in my gallery that I covered up with something of my 4 month old when she was born and thats it.

• SQ Mandi Said:

i did one bath time pic for a challenge and i covered up all but the face in the pic. i figured we all know what a child in a bathtub looks like i am not sticking my child out there in that way for the world to see.

What an absolutely sad commentary on our society! But truthfully, with all that the internet carries meaning the porn sites, the pedophile sites, etc, I have a hard time believing some pervert is sitting at his computer surfing thru galleries on sb.com. Nope....can't wrap my mind around that one.
But as the old saying goes...."better safe than sorry"!

I have been concerned about posting layout due to the fact that I don't want to expose myself.. I may start just blurring faces but if you look in my gallery I have yet to post any layouts!! The world is a scary place and its hard to know who to trust!!!

Thanks for all the comments everyone--so glad this is a nice discussion

• stephie056 Said:

I definitly agree. And my gallery is empty as well, not for the fact i dont want anyone to see what i do, but i have an "ex husband" and dont want him having any leverage to say im posting pics of our daughter. I may have to figure out how to do the "blur" thing.

• Abby0317 Said:

The thing is is that when they are looking...no site no matter what is off limits to feed their sickness. It may not be that he specifically comes to this site for that...but if he does some kind of internet search that brings him to this site or any site with pics on it, he's going to look.

I don't even like to TAKE nekkie pics of my gc,,,,the way the world is now, I've heard of people making a big hairy deal out of pretty innocent pics,,,,,,and someone winds up defending themselves against child porn when what they HAD was a cute bathtub pic!!!

sad, but it has happened.

My brother's GF posted a pic of her 2 dd's in the bathtub on FB. You couldn't see any privates, but the older daughter had her arms around the younger daughter and you could see her bare arms, torso and legs. The older DD's dad got on there and started throwing a fit about her posting this pic on FB (published it to her feed), and a lot of controversy followed with lots of comments being made both in favor and against the pic being on there. FB removed the picture themselves.

Some things are just not proper for public viewing.

I'm not sure I'd personally be concerned about the photo if no privates were shown,,,,,

I mean, we can go too far the other direction too,,,,,,but that's just me,,,,,

I do think this has been an intelligent - good natured discussion.

I rasied a similar point on a UK parenting forum I once belonged too, when there was a cute pic of a toddler running away from you w/ nothing on as part of the front page banner.

I posted that I just thought it was a little un-necessary and I thought it was a bit of a red flag, as anyone looking for pictures for the wrong reasons might start out by looking at a parenting site where people posted pics of their kids.

I was then accused of being sick even thinking about and how dare I suggest that anyone might be looking at pics of their kids for the wrong reasons. I pointed out that if I was the type of person interested in looking at pics of young children, a parenting site would be the first place I would start, but people just could not accept that.

I e-mailed site admin who totally agreed and changed it straight away, but peoples reaction to my comments that we should just be careful about what is posted online REALLY shocked me!

Sorry - bit off-topic, but just wanted to say this thread has been very good natured!

It's hard to tell sometimes which was a thread will go. If you'd said 'I think they ought to put a picture of a child's bare bum on the site' you'd probably have been verbally assaulted for that too. SOme people just like to adgue I guess.

• Abby0317 Said:

I can fully understand having a hard time believing that some creep would have nothing better to do than to go through this site's photos. It would never occur to me to do such a thing. However, sadly, I have had encounters with creeps like this, and this is how they think. Some of them have full time jobs and families, but are obsessed with finding pics like the ones shown here. The more innocent, the better. It's pretty appalling and disgusting.