I would not want you taking unauthorized pictures of ME... much less my kids.

I would be suspicious too, if someone took pictures of my kids at play, and did not ask me first.

Even if you did ask, I would probably say no, due to the experience I wrote about below, but that's my right as a parent.

If I'm taking photo's and your brat jumps in the frame I have to get a release? You've never taken a photo in a public place and accidentlly gotten other poeple in the shot? Grow up.

More than 30 years ago, on a sunny afternoon that happened to fall on Father's Day, I was waiting with my lover in a small crowd for a table at Juanita's restaurant in the Valley of the Moon area of Sonoma County, California. We were all milling around outside, and a young couple set their beautiful little boy, about 18 months old, free to cavort naked on the lawn.

To my surprise, out of the restaurant shot Juanita herself, an arresting figure at several hundred pounds, in a tentlike orange muu-muu, a trademark. She charged across the lawn and demanded that the couple put their son's clothes back on. Their reaction was swift, loud, and self-righteous, with much finger-wagging, but they followed Juanita's orders and got their baby dressed.

I was puzzled, not to mention stunned. What was Juanita thinking? Juanita was no prude. She was famous as a former "madam," and her present establishment was a zany, profane bazaar. Indeed, an hour later, she would sashay through one of the dining rooms, calling out, "Happy Father's Day, motherfuckers!" So why did she object to the nudity of a cherubic toddler?

Only she can say, but I feel confident that her reasons had nothing to do with prudery or puritanism or (heaven forbid) feminism gone wild or any of the other cheap shots fired on this forum by some letter writers, who are actually more censorious than those in whom they discern these failings.

Maybe she didn't want to set a precedent of public nudity being OK in front of her restaurant.

Maybe she thought that one couple's pleasure in their naked child was less important than other customers' possible discomfort.

Or maybe, for whatever reasons, she had already had too many hassles from the local police and wasn't looking for further trouble.

Only Juanita can answer for Juanita. But I'm no prude, either, and, three decades later, I think that children's naked bodies should be protected from the eyes of strangers (including the people who process photos), and that public nudity at any age, in any setting, should be a clear choice backed by informed consent--which pretty much leaves children with their clothes on.

Jake wrote:

"Probably not. But taking family portraits of the whole family standing around bare-butt naked pissing out a fire as a "ritual" is not exactly the stuff healthy parenting is made of."

Jesus, can't you people read? He said:

"Finally, I took a photo of everyone, as was our camping tradition, peeing on the ashes of the fire to put it out for the last time."

HE NEVER SAYS THE KIDS OR THE ADULTS WERE NAKED WHEN THEY DID THIS! HE NEVER SAYS THE ADULTS WERE NUDE AT ANY TIME!

Christ! Read the article before you start spouting your fecal matter!

- VK

I am a victim of sexual child abuse. My father sexually and physically abused me and my four younger sisters over a period of 20 years. He eventually was convicted of several charges and sent to prison for 10 years. What happened to me, as the oldest child, happened back in the day before the laws were reformed. For instance, there was a statute of limitations on these sorts of crimes, which meant that when I came forward as an adult to report abuse that had happened when I was a child, it was too late. My father could not be charged. When my father discovered that I had gone to the authorities, he got on a plane and traveled 1,000 miles to confront me at my front door. The most I could do to protect myself from him at that point, after more than a decade of being raped and beaten, was to get a restraining order to keep him away from my house. My husband and I ended up moving back to the town where my father lived, spiriting my younger sisters away from his house in the dark of night and taking them to the police station. Fortunately they were willing to talk in spite of the fact that my father had threatened to kill us all if we told anyone.

The investigation into my father’s case revealed that his psychosis had progressed since I had been his victim. Among other truly horrifying things, he apparently took photos of my two youngest sisters “together” – I didn’t ask them to go into any further details and I don’t really want to know. Maybe those photos were not explicit and appeared to be normal or cute. I have no idea. But I assume that he must have had some means of getting them developed; this was long before digital cameras existed. If only some photo clerk had wondered about those pictures, my sisters might have been spared years of abuse.

I have also been investigated by child protective services, which is infinitely scarier when you are an abuse victim because the “cycle of violence” is supposed to continue and you immediately feel as if you are wearing that scarlet letter. In my case, my son had gotten a black eye and a broken front tooth while playing on the jungle gym at the daycare center where he went after school. His kindergarten teacher reported it as possible child abuse. They interviewed my son, my husband, me and the daycare center, who explained what happened. It was very unnerving, but I was still happy that the teacher had been paying attention and had made the call.

So here’s the thing. The vast majority of abused kids don’t tell anyone about it. The vast majority of pedophiles look like your next-door neighbor. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that your next-door neighbor IS a pedophile or that they are lurking around every corner, or that we should fall prey to this latest bugaboo. And I don’t think Jenkins is guilty of anything beyond an inability to see beyond his own family’s ordeal. It would have been nice if discretion and common sense had intervened a little earlier in his situation. But ultimately any light that can be shone on the darkness of child abuse, whether it’s by a highly-paid professional or a minimum-wage photo clerk, might just save a child's life.