If LW was a man and said the same things, would he receive the same kind of understanding and support this woman is receiving by the other letter writers? I really doubt it.

Imagine something along the lines the "I am a man and my son and daughter see me naked on a daily basis. And when my son or daughter become teen, I'll say them that, if they are not comfortable, they can leave the room".

Well I can almost read the innuendos about dark intentions, the fact that the father is being authoritarian (a male characteristic, of course, because of all this testosterone) trying to force his nudity to their children in a difficult age. Furthermore, he is being selfish, unconsiderate and not empathetic with their children (because only females are empathetic) and so on and so on (imagine your favorite kind of male-bashing).

But, hey, this would be a man, and everybody knows that every man is a potential sexual molester. On the contrary, every woman is angelical and unable of any bad feeling, so she must have all our support and understanding (this is why female child molesters get such soft sentences).

I'm not sure what being "angelical" IS, so maybe I'm misreading your post... Oh, wait... did you mean "angelic"? OH! Now it makes sense. You're making the wild assumption that we're giving a woman a free pass where a man would get nailed to the wall. How predictable.

...

Really??? ALL the time? Is dad naked too? Is there a dad involved? Would it be OK for dad to be naked in front of a 10-year old daughter? Should a 10-year old son and a 10-year old daughter see each other naked ALL THE TME? I'm just trying to figure out the geography of this house such that it's necessary for mom to be constantly naked in front of her tween son...methinks she doth protest too much.

Anyway, this is all way too Running with Scissors for me....Why don't we just let Britney's gift to the human race be a hard-earned lesson to moms like this one ... BUY A DAMN BATHROBE!!!

Yes, it is predictable. It is predictable because it's true (and lots of real cases prove this double standard). Now, I am going to bed, but tomorrow I can give some examples.

Besides that, I think being naked in front of your teen son (as opposed to a little child) is a really bad idea. But saying this is being a prude.

Oh well I guess they're probably heard what you think anyway. It will make parent teacher conferences interesting though when little Kaylie or Kyle start scribbling swastikas and such.

My husband is European. His folks still parade around naked in front of us (they even shocked my parents with their skinny dipping photos). They're not nudists. Nudity is just not a big deal to them. I was not that comfortable with that, but I got used to it. My husband has a very healthy attitude toward sex. He is surprised that anyone would be ashamed to see their parents naked. He really doesn't get it. He keeps saying, "but they're your parents". I lived in Europe for a while and I've seen women lying completely nude in a city park. Completely nude! No one looked, they were sunbathing-in the city. And there is a really positive side to that. Very few men look at your cleavage. They really couldn't care less (so unlike here). It's a cultural thing and trust me, your kids will be fine. Or most European nations are doomed.

The only time I am naked is in the bathroom and when changing clothes which most of the time takes place in the bathroom.

I don't sleep or eat or watch TV in the nude.

I love swimming in the nude if the situation allows.

As a child I saw my mother naked all the time.

I saw my father naked once as a child, once when I was over 30-ish.

I think the LW is a great mom and her kids have not been negatively affected. They regard it as natural and comfortable.

I do agree w the reader who said that it wld be a good idea to start putting on a robe before her pre-puberty son has to ask her. Just out of consideration, to relieve him of that bit of effort.

Your tattoos example is a red herring. The problem would be the pictures themselves, not that the pictures were drawn on naked skin. You could have the exact same issue using swastikas scribbled on Post-It notes and stuck all over the house. Try not to conflate unrelated concepts.

If you want an idea of where this is going, watch that "Sex and The City" episode where Charlotte's new husband walks around naked and all of her furniture is white.

Gotta wonder what color the furniture is in Nudie Mom's house.

Then again, maybe I don't want to wonder.

I'm with ya.

About double standards, not that I think it really deserves an answer:

My parents both had no issues with nudity, and I saw my naked father getting dressed or leaving the shower, or in the friggin' swimming pool hundreds of times in my young life. My 60-year-old mother still walks around in front of me naked when I'm home for a visit (though she's conceded to modesty for my much-more-easily-freaked-out husband).

So, nope. He was a man, his nudity wasn't remotely creepy or sexual in nature, and I grew up with a very healthy attitude towards nudity and sex (which are not remotely the same thing, though under the right circumstances each can certainly lead to the other). The simple act of walking across the house naked in front of one's children does not a pedophile make.

My parents walked around naked, and I resented it because my father was intact, but they had my brothers and I circumcised. My parents violated our right to uninterrupted sexual development; to my mind, they were flaunting their unscarred, unmutilated bodies. Arguments on this score are often less persuasive than poetry:

They lost their rights by violating mine!

Contempt for parents lost these days I find

and hatred for those circum-pedophiles

who strapped me, gasping, to a circumstraint

who tore off, like a nail from the nail bed

the foreskin from my neonatal glans.

My mother enjoyed my father intact:

surely they desired the same for their sons?

They did what was best, we like to believe:

lost structure and function, reason to grieve.

When I attempt to recall who they were

"genital terrorists!" I now aver.

Their history went the way of my skin:

scarred, tattered remnants, in memoriam.