Friday, 27 April 2012
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Pictures of Underage Girls: Fair Game?
Not so, according to Lori Mathews of Chillicothe, Ohio.
Daughter Alaska Mathews who was previously featured on TLC's "Toddlers & Tiaras," has found herself at the center of a controversy which could result in future legal ramifications if Lori has her way. The 9-year-old pageant contestant became an Internet user's fodder for sexual pleasure on an "adult website."
The comment posted by the anonymous user goes as follows:
"...I’m really ashamed of myself and have no one to turn to. Last night I was watching (a) Toddlers and Tiaras recording with my wife because we are having a baby in 3 weeks. We always watch the show to make sure she doesn’t end up trying to do something crazy like this with our daughter when she arrives. Lately I have developed a very strong attraction for Alaska, she is one of the girls on the show.And what I did after my wife passed out is beyond me and I still can’t shake it out of my head. I pushed pause and masturbated to freeze frames of Alaska, and I really enjoyed it and now I don’t know what to do with this guilt. Personally I blame the people at TLC for ruining my life... ...what do I do now, do I tell my wife? Do I go see a counselor? Because I’m scared I will do it again. PLEASE I need help!"
Lori Mathews states, “This isn’t about pageants. This is about a child being put on an adult website and talked about in an explicit way and it being okay.” The act in question isn't illegal, but Mathews wants to change that.
Viewing pictures of fully clothed, underage girls and making lewd comments detailing a sex act is protected under U.S. law. What's most disturbing in this case is that the image in question was lifted from the network's television program. Mothers encouraging their children to participate in a pageant that sexualizes young girls is the real crime, if any.
What an individual decides to do with legal images is their business, and the right to free speech in this case is as legal as the pornography that portrays a rape scenario through role-play. It's also no less legal than turning easily influenced prepubescent girls into caricatures of our skewed standards of beauty.
With recent bills such as CISPA aiming to censor the Internet despite public outcry, it would not be shocking to see yet another grotesque head grow out of the freedom-fucking body of U.S. politics. Citizens really do learn by example.
Lori Mathews certainly has the right to get upset over the decidedly disturbing post, but she should recognize the rights of others to legally ogle over her tiny creation as well.
No harm, no foul.Do you believe Lori Mathews has a case and should rightfully seek to alter current laws? Is the mother somewhat at fault?
Should people be allowed to pleasure themselves to legal images of pre-teens?
Sincerely,
Nunez Love Doctor
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- From: AsylumBlue
- Name: AsylumBlue
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Comments (54)
What those people are doing is disturbing and wrong, yes. She has a right to be pissed off but if thier acts are protected by the law then she can't do anything about it.
agreed. if you're dumb enough dress up your toddler like a hooker and then get upset when people talk about her as though she IS a hooker, i don't feel sorry for you.
Sigh...so many things. I would see these pageants in the mall where I live, and there were always these men that looked like perverts in the back row. You could always tell the fathers, they were with the mothers and children either cheering or looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. 5 or 6 rows behind everyone else at the very back were the oglers and it was disturbing. I find myself watching that show and I think you want your daughter to
dance like that in that outfit, I know they know that they are on TV.
However, I absolutely agree with what you posted. As gross as perverts are, they aren't breaking the law in this case. They took images that the parents already signed waivers for and posted them on the internet. She can't control what people think about her daughter. Even if her child were dressed normally, perverts will still ogle her and have sexual thoughts. She should put her efforts in teaching her daughter about child molesters, sexual abusing, etc. Moreover, where was she when it wasn't her daughter? Does she suddenly care because it is her little girl?
Yes, I think it is wrong for people to view pictures of her daughter in a sexual manner, but I also see something wrong with Ms. Mathews exploiting her child by putting her in these contests in the first place. She made a spectacle of her child and now she's upset people are looking. She can't control everyone's thoughts, or make them not look. I can see that the moms that appear on Toddlers and Tiaras aren't doing this because their kids find it fun. Next thing they'll do is say that companies like Gap or Carters can't use real children in their print ads for their clothes, because some pervert might look at the pictures inappropriately.
This blog may as well be titled "urine in swimming pools, is this acceptable?" Either way, good luck getting rid of it.
Plus the first amendment gives people the right to say disgusting things as long as they're not threatening anyone or lying about them or inciting a crime.
People can sexualize anything. Including pictures of small children, dressed up in pageant clothes or not. If you don't want a picture of you/your child/your dog used as sexual stimulus by someone somewhere, then don't put it online. If you do, understand that what people do with it in private is their own business. If anything, the mother simply allowed her child to become something of a public figure who was more likely to be noticed.
If the image was lifted from the network's site and not approved by the copyright holder, there's probably legal standing to force it to be removed unless it's being used for news purposes or some such thing, legality of comments and private image use aside.
I don't understand why we blame the depiction instead of the violence.
We do this a lot though: It is illegal in the United States to even produce a visual work that depicts underage children in sexual ways. Even if it's fake---indeed, even if it's literature or cel animation, which wouldn't even involve actual children in any way. (Nabokov's Lolita narrowly escaped being banned, on the grounds that it is of high "literary merit"; as though it is the right of a court to decide such a thing!)
This is not a sensible policy designed to protect children from victimization. It is a moral panic, an aggressive overresponse that is "justified" only by the intensity of horror it is designed to prevent. To see the problem with this argument, imagine banning depictions of the Holocaust as part of a policy to prevent genocide.
That said, I do have a bit of a problem with beauty pageants in general, especially of young girls, and especially with revealing clothing. There is definitely something abusive about it; it's almost like selling your daughter's body image.
God bless America: both the pervert and preacher have the right to publish their opinions. I may be offended by both the pervert and preacher, but my offense does not limit their right to free speech.
I think parents must get a whole lot smarter about the internet. They must realize that as soon as they publish pictures of their children on the net they risk these pictures being hijacked by perverts. Parents need to take the steps needed to ensure pictures of their children are only shared with those who truly love those children and wish them no harm.
In my opinion parents who dress their daughters up as sex vamps are really too stupid to be parents. But once again my opinions of the parenting skills of pageant moms has no force in the law and nor should it. We must remember that there are many secularist and humanist citizens who think religious upbringing is akin to child abuse.
I prefer the risks and offense that comes with living in a free society to living in an autocratic or theocratic big brother State.
I pretty much agree with every commenter and i've seen some disturbing anonymous online confessions. But I have one objection. The issue isn't broadly "underage girls" but prepubescent girls. Some places "underage" is under 16 for example, and in others it is under 18. Most people can remember when they were in highschool being sexually attracted to the opposite sex when they were "underage". It's biologically normal because they were physically and biologically mature enough to be attractive. "Jailbait" is a term that refers to young women who can trick you into thinking they are old enough because it is recognized that they are attractive by normal healthy males. And also there is the fact that people who are not underage may look youthful enough where this fact may be in doubt. For example, I have a boyish face, and a few years ago I was actually carded when I went to see and R rated movie. And there are women who've been in similar situations. But obviously it isn't wrong if someone finds us sexually attractive. Therefore I think the title of this entry might be a bit overkill.
The "adult" website that the mom is upset about is just the thedirty.com. It's not actually like a sex website or porn website or anything. It's just random people who send in pictures of people they don't like anonymously and just talk badly and the guy who runs the site adds comments. In the case of this picture the guy said he was really ashamed of himself and didn't know what he should do. Not saying I agree with what he did, but I think it's only fair to share that the website it was posted to wasn't an adult website. I look at the dirty all the time when I'm bored and saw the original post when it was first shown.
http://thedirty.com/2012/04/i-cant-believe-what-i-did/
@sunflowersforlove@xanga - Thanks, will add this.
People pleasuring themselves to legal images of pre-teens is not an example of child abuse.
People making things illegal that hurt no one is an example of a childish abuse of power.
"EWW, THAT'S GROSS! GO TO JAIL YOU GROSS PERSON!"
http://youtu.be/z2JkxabuIcY
"I can make anybody go to prison, just because I don't like 'em..."
The question is should people be allowed to determine what other, equally fallible people should be allowed to do?
Maybe she shouldn't sexualise her daughter and parade her around on television then?
@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - Exactly.
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - Well, don't feel sorry for the mother, but how in the hell is that the fault of the little girl? I mean, what's the point in saying you don't feel sorry for the mother? It's the little girl or some other little girl that could be harmed here.
I hope someone suggested ways for him to get help!
You can't go around banning everything in the world. How would you police this?
Wow. This is what pedos are into. Child pornography is often "modeled children". Disgusting.
@TiredSoVeryTired@xanga - i feel sorry for the little girl for being encouraged to dress like a tramp in the first place.
Preteen girls aren't my thing, but I'm generally opposed to censorship of any type. If the girls aren't being exploited or mistreated in some way when the pictures are being taken, I can't think of much legal justification for making it illegal, even if it is kind of creepy.
The mother is just another idiot. First of all, why the hell are you going to put a 9 year old little girl in beauty pageants? For what? How does that benefit her? Second, you're a moron if you have yet to realize that in the internet, people can do whatever the hell they want, including masturbating using your daughter's beauty pageant pictures...
What goes around comes around, honey
you put your feet in the shit and now you have to deal with it.
Technically, it was her mother who released those pictures on the internet, to the PUBLIC. She doesn't really have a case. She used her free speech to release her daughter's photos, he used them to be a closet pervert. Immoral yes but not illegal.
I’m not a fan of these pageants and don’t watch them. But it takes a very sick person to add an underage girl to an adult website! I thought that child porn was illegal and in my eyes that is what this is!
@Traveler_In_Time@xanga - an innocent picture of a child on a dirty website isn't porn. Porn is when children are forced into sexual positions and are made to do sexual things. The photos are just pageant photographs - sexualised yes, but that's the parents' fault, nobody else's.
Then don't parade your child in skimpy revealing outfits and display it on the internets?
der.
#badparenting