DUDE. Put up a huge NSFW warning when posting porn like that. I'm so busted.

In 1863 critics tried to destroy this painting because it was vulgar.

so why do you get inside triathlon?

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"the trouble with normal is - it always gets worse"

- Cockburn

"Sorry I forgot about using pink color for those kinds of posts."

Again, apology accepted.

Did you see that giant thing that just flew over your head? I am guessing no.

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Proud Founder of the Jamis Mafia- Daring to be different.

"Did you see that giant thing that just flew over your head? I am guessing no."

Did you?

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen this pose in playboy (without the cherubs, of course).

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"the trouble with normal is - it always gets worse"

- Cockburn

Sorry man. I hope you didn't objectify these women in front of the kids...

I wholeheartedly agree that there is a difference between racing in swimsuits and posing in Playboy.

I also know there is a diffrence between showing the female form in it's finest , non-demeaning or pornograhic manner ( Playboy ) and in a format that "may" cause undesireable thoughts , etc. ( Hustler and the thousands of others ).

Perhaps you should stop trying to equate the two , my dear friend.

Terry

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"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" - Les Brown
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" - Jim Rohn

Am I missing your point? Not sure anyone has mentioned destroying Playboy.

~Matt

I also know there is a diffrence between showing the female form in it's finest , non-demeaning or pornograhic manner ( Playboy ) and in a format that "may" cause undesireable thoughts , etc. ( Hustler and the thousands of others ).

Ok so you pick up Playboy and look at the pcitures...what are your thoughts? Are they significantly different than those that you would have while looking at the pictures in Hustler? OTOH you may indeed have similar thoughts while seeing an attractive female in a tri suit or completely clothed in a business suit, HOWEVER, the difference is that the female in the tri suit and the business suit is not there EXPRESSLY for you to have those thoughts. In short they are not purposefully trying to provoke those thoughts.

~Matt

you are missing the point.

Why do you guys insist on over analyzing such trivial matters.

There are far more important issues that need to be dealt with in the world , specifically the USA where : crystal-meth , crack , school shootings , an enormous deficit on the balance sheet , gun-legislation , etc. etc.

So what if a male has thoughts of desire when seeing a woman dressed or undressed , who cares , it IS NATURAL.

So many on this board are hypocrites living in denial.

Lighten up and enjoy life for what it is.

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"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" - Les Brown
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" - Jim Rohn

"So many on this board are hypocrites living in denial."

Does Teddy post here?

I believe in being focused , but living life with horse-blinkers is just plain narrow-minded.

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"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" - Les Brown
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" - Jim Rohn

Sad statistics, but altogether not unexpected. I am however saddened even more several people's denial of these stats and the immense casualty of these types of images and such. Oh, and I am (probably) the youngest contributor to this thread at 23... and I'm a single male in college... and most everything said about the children of super-prudish parents and laissez faire parents is generally true.

But if you believe that people look at playboy to see "art", I'm going to have to disagree with you. And it may have much less to do with the image itself than the intention it portrays. I don't care if playboy is less "risqué" than other magazines in they are all making the same insinuations--which is to draw attention away from the human being and more to the human body.

Which is where the problems lie. Human beings are a holistic entity, and any point in which you focus on one aspect at the detriment of any other, you have cheapened that person. In the case of the subject at hand, you have reduced the value of a person’s intellect, accomplishments, motivations, history, etc in order to disproportionately increase the importance of her looks. So if you can appreciate how amazing the entirety of a person is while looking at a picture of a female nude with the focus of the image being solely on her physical attributes, congratulations--you're in the great minority. Heck, if you can even note there's a person in that picture you're probably in the minority, to most it's likely an object.

Logically, slipping into this mentality every once in a while isn't so bad, but when something is easy to access and induces such pleasure, the likelihood of "just looking once" is pretty low. Habits form and soon your perspective on humanity is likely affected--perhaps not a focus toward a man or woman's physicality but a focus on one aspect of the person to the detriment of all others. If you go on this path deep enough (e.g. addiction), you’re likely to perceive people as a service to you. In the same way that you use good looking people to give you visual stimulus, you will use others as a means to an end. Not all find their way out of this addiction either.

I know all this from personal experience, and how powerful an effect the change in my perspective has been.

How does this relate to kids? Simply put, they’re not old/experience enough to understand the damages of such a perspective until they’ve likely learned lessons that probably don’t need to be learned. And that’s under the premise that they learn the lesson.

Since I’m younger than some of the people’s children on this forum you can commence to ignore me from here J Parents, IMO, need not totally shelter children, but control the flow of information in such way that their children can actually understand and appreciate the entirety of the experience. It’s not to tell them that it’s bad outright and leave it there, but to appreciate the good and the bad in everything. They do not have the foresight at the time to wholly understand the consequences of their action and will likely follow their immediate feelings. So do most adults who never grow up and are having kids at an alarming rate! Whether that’s through shaping whom they associate with to generally managing the media they’re experiencing, so be it. And sometimes that means bringing topics up that aren’t going to be talked about over the dinner table (does anyone still do this?) when asking your kid what they did over at their friend’s house. Your kids are your responsibility, and I have no doubt they will turn out more like how you shape them than not. Whatever you do not shape, society will eventually—which is equally true for both extremes of parenting. It seems the more out of touch the parents are, the worse off the kid is, whether that’s from extreme freedom or Puritanism. This isn’t new, but the explosion of communication does mean that kids are being exposed to things at a younger and younger age. It’s the job of the parents to help them synthesize these experiences.

Anywho, I've said too much, but many of your comments alarm me on how little you weigh in the breadth of information flowing around nowadays. The societal message probably haven’t changed much over the years, but the volume of messages has increased tremendously. It’s a lot to ask of children to synthesize all those incidences.


Best,
Daniel

Seriously, that was the most well explained post on this whole subject. Thank you. I couldn't have put it better. - Ernie

I read Playboy for the articles, Little Elvis likes the pictures. ;)

At age 26, I believe she is a young model or actress, just with a lot more name recognition and fame than your average 26 year old aspiring actress. She likely has one more olympics in her. Then what does she do? In my view, this is part of an orchestrated effort on her part to build a non-sporting resume - allowing her to move to modelling or, more likely, acting. Without just doing the Amanda Beard as Amanda Beard cameo spots for the rest of her life.

My parents raised me where seeing nudity and sex (not p0rn, but lovescenes etc) in movies was okay but not sought out. However, action movies with gratuitous violence etc or soap opera type immorality was not permitted. I believe this allowed me to have a healthy view towards sex and the opposite sex. By the way this was in a family where my grandfather was a minister, my parents were youth group leaders in the church and church was a regular part of life.

When I think back to all of my classmates over the years (I was in the public school system) that had problems with teen pregnancy, improper behaviour towards women, or violence issues (assault, fights, etc.) all of them were from one of two kinds of families 1) complete parental neglect - no guidance, parents horrible role models or 2) protectionist families - heavy handed curfews and rules, sex was never discussed - and parents pretended such urges were not normal, no movie that even showed a breast or had 'adult themes, but Rambo, Die Hard, etc were okay to watch.

I have three children; two boys, one girl. I intend to try and follow a similar pattern with my children because I think it is the most balanced and realistic in todays world. Maybe I should be a European... But I am a Canadian.

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"which is like watching one of your buddies announce that he's quitting booze and cigarettes, switching to a Vegan diet and training for triathalons ... but he's going to keep snorting heroin." Bill Simmons, ESPN

Great post. I love this part especially:

"...need not totally shelter children, but control the flow of information in such way that their children can actually understand and appreciate the entirety of the experience. It’s not to tell them that it’s bad outright and leave it there, but to appreciate the good and the bad in everything. "

Nice post Daniel.

One of your points is that (if I'm reading right) while Playboy itself isn't that bad, it's the first step in the path to ########### and potential addiction. There are plenty of other analagous addictions that plague our society. Such as "Marijuana's not that bad..." But. Many addictive bahaviors even stem from normal parts of life, such as computer use and shopping. So how does one avoid destructive behaviors and help their children to do so in this minefield.

My belief is that modeling is by far the most effective way to shape your kid's values. I don't have to tell my kids posing nude is bad; they understand it because they've never seen such a magazine in our home. Telling my son to respect girls will do nothing; he well "get it" by watching how I treat his mother and sisters. Whenever I get in the lecture/preachy mode with my kids, they can see straight through me and tend to challenge what I'm saying.

We try not to shelter our kids. For instance, we let our 13 year old girl watch Grey's Anatomy knowing it is far from representing our values. In that way, I think we show her that we have confidence that she can "handle it." And we try to take a grace approach with our kids rather than a legalistic one, hopefully assuring them that we'll be beside them not above them when they make mistakes.

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Coach at KonaCoach Multisport

Having pride in one's body does not mean showing it in public for any joe to get excited over. That is usually a sign of just the opposite.
I have a feeling, and this is not a jab, that House, you do not have a daughter. I sincerely hope that you do not confuse the girls you work with, especially at such a formable age, to think that nudity in such a public forum is how an athlete pridefully shows off her hard work and discipline.
But as a parent of a 12 yr old daughter and an 11 yr old son, I do not blame these publications for influencing my children. Instead, I use it as an example of what not to do. It is true that many of the people who tend to blame outside influences about the condition of their kids take very little time or responsibility themselves in their rearing.
On another note - would we have this discussion of a male athlete would pose nude in Playgirl? Anyone remember Steve Yeager's bum? :)

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maylene jackson, cscs
http://www.kidsintraining.org

would we have this discussion of a male athlete would pose nude in Playgirl?

I think that is an interesting line of thought. I have a feeling that most folks wouldn't bat an eyelash.

Regardless, it isn't relevant how the hyopthetical "an athlete" should generally display their bodies. It is only about whether Amanda Beard is comfortable doing it, or not, and the lines that she personally is and is not willing to cross. She isn't a little kid, she is a 26year old adult.

As an aside, I have a 3 year old girl now. I hope that she will realise that the primary way to show off hard work and discipline is through her athletic achievements, and to parlay that discipline into non-sporting endevours.

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