"I'm confident that the 55-60 year old man who purchased this video wasn't planning on taking it home, watching it, "firing up", and heading to the school yard."

-- LemurMaster

Let's see. The man who makes his living purveying this trash, the man who now knowingly understands what he trades in, what puts food on his table, and why at least one person is buying it, the man who fully understands that he is selling pictures of naked children in a way that knowingly, deliberately skits a law designed to protect children...this man brushes off all mature commentary by stating "[I'm] confident....."

Well, if that's how low the bar is, we are all in trouble. Allow me to be the first card-carrying ACLU member to state on this forum that you, LemurMaster, disgust me. You are a poor excuse for a human being, let alone a man. And if I were standing next to you and in posession of the information you shared, I would willingly break the law regarding assault and battery.

I'm glad Salon printed this article. It shows the system works. It demonstrates the faults in the system, to be sure, but it shows the system works nonetheless. The author is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and many suspicious points were raised--including the red-flag of the "men's rights expert" who is a documented protector of abusers. However, benefit of the doubt prevailed because they went trough the system. Ultimately, children were protected. Any parent who truly loves their children understands that is all that really matters.

This columnist could seriously benefit from some Al-anon meetings, where he could learn not to allow himself to obsess over "what might happen" and live more in the present. Even if he isn't a pornographer (and I'll take the investigators' word on that) he allowed this potentially harmless situation to turn him into an angry and out-of-control parent for a while. One can get help for that kind of behavior.

Also, all of the worse case scenarios-- innocents going to prison, being investigated for breast-feeding, etc.-- are just that: the worst cases. This is not the kind of thing which happens in the average case, as the columnist demonstrates. He could have found other facts to comfort himself if he had been looking for them instead of catastophizing and making himself miserable, e.g.-- child service employees really don't like to put children into foster care, so they wil allow them to stay with relatives or family friends during an investigation, when this is possible, and if 7 out of 10 investigations leads to dismissal of the charges, then this was the most likely outcome for him, too. Think of those 3 out of 10 children who are actually being abused, though; would you rather have a system in place that was less likely to move them to safety, when you could have a little trust in the good intentions of the police and social workers who make these decisions, instead. They are (mostly) not idiots. They may not move as fast as we would like, but you know the reason for that-- we must not raise taxes and give them reduced, manageable case loads.

Also, people who know you will not be swayed in their affection for you if they are true friends. If they gossip and look at you funny in the future, they're people you don't need to associate with anyway. And I'm sure every school teacher knows the routine for these investigations-- they are also require to report questionable behavior, you know.

Many of you respondants, and the original colomn for that matter, sound like writers for the tabloids. Area Man Investigated for Child Pornography!!! Then you read the article and find that nothing bad ever happened to the man or his children.

Growing up in the 70s with two hippie parents, I spent a lot of my summers on a nude beach in Ma. Everyone was nude, kids, parents, seniors - it was such a wonderful, freeing feeling. At some point, my Dad snapped a black and white photo of me standing in the sun, with the ocean behind me (I'd estimate that I'm 7 or 8) and I'm nude.

My parents know that I love photos, so they have given me the bulk of our family photos and when I came across this photo of me it made me smile and I had such a crystal clear recollection of those days on the nude beach. I took that photo and put it in a frame and its displayed openly in my dining room (I'm 34 now). We entertain a lot and people in my home come across that photo as they search for a wine glass. Even the folks who had a much more conservative upbringing than me, love that photo and recognize it for what it is - childhood joy.

What a horrible tale, set in the Bible belt, its natural home, but one that would not be out of place anywhere in America now.

You are the victim of sick minds who think imposing their will on others endears them to Jesus. I daresay a good number of your tormentors are themselves perverts and pornographers. One can only imagine what they do with the photos in their private dens. I wager someone will put them into the stream of illicit commerce.

You are lucky to be living in France, an enlightened and civilized country.

A lot of years ago, in the early seventies, I made my husband a beautiful silk robe. He modelled it for my camera. In one picture, unbeknownst to us, if you looked very, very closely, a quarter inch of shadowy genitalia was visible. The gimlet-eyed photo clerks at Eckerd's caught the "pornography" and I was informed by letter from Eckerd's that not only were they refusing to print the offending frame, they were confiscating my negative. We were incredibly lucky, I guess, that the children were not in the picture. I was mad as hell, hired a lawyer, and finally received my offending negative (undeveloped) from the drug store chain. I believed at the time that Eckerd's was on a mission resulting from the very conservative and excessively sanctimonious views of its founder. Apparently, they still are. It is vital that we protect ourselves assiduously from the self-righteousness of ignorant, meddling strangers.