Stop the Baby Porn

My friend gave birth to a baby boy last weekend. In celebration of the moment, they sent around a brief e-mail announcement with a photo attached. Of course, the photo was of the baby... but it was a full-on nude shot, including Baby Boy's franks and beans.

So my question to you is, "Is this appropriate?" Personally, I was immediately shocked, uncomfortable and – frankly – horrified. I mean, I know it's a baby, but I don't really want to see all that. Does anyone really need to see this?? I usually download and save every photo that my friends send to me, but this was one that I immediately deleted. Honestly, it kind of killed the joy I had for my friend - I couldn't enjoy looking at the photo or celebrating the birth because of the subject matter. I couldn't pass it along to other friends saying, "Look at friend's new baby - how cute!"

Am I alone in thinking that this is a completely inappropriate photo to blast e-mail all your friends and post on your family's Internet site? I know you are proud, but can't we do some discrete editing or something? Is this the only photo you have to send to all of us?!

It's not that I object to babies having genitalia - that's not their fault. The thing that bothered me, and my real question is, why would the parents consciously elect to send out that type of photo to everyone? They don't have to prove to me that he is a boy, I think the name "Tom" makes that pretty clear. So please don't send me a spread-eagle photo of his cock and balls. I'm just confused why the parents didn't do one of the following things: (1) tastefully and strategically use a blanket; (2) crop the full-body photo to exclude the inappropriate part; or (3) take a photo above the waist. (By the way, not only do I NOT want to see the vagina/penis in baby photos, I also don't want to see that nightmare of a belly button either! Freaking disgusting. First, they have the giant clothespin on it, then later it gets all dark, shriveled and gross. Look at the above photo - there is still blood everywhere! I understand that is this all part of the "miracle of life", but, seriously, do I need to see it?? The miracle of life also includes me taking a shit, but I don't photograph it and send it around to everyone, do I?)

OK, now THIS is more like it (by the way, it's the same baby as above). Just use a blanket or dress him up - it's not hard to do, is it?!

When we take a photographs of ourselves as adults, we make sure our hair is fixed properly and that we don't have a nip-slip, or have something in our teeth, right?... so why are we going out of our way to take photographs of our babies in the worse possible positions? You know that the babies themselves would absolutely object to many of these photos, if they could. The proof is when we are older and these photographs get shown to us for the first time. We never say, "Awh, what a good baby photo of me!... you can see my penis and everything!" No, instead, we shriek in horror when our moms pull out these photographs in front of our friends.

You would think that modestly and decently would be inherent in all of us, and parents wouldn't be trying to take photos of naked babies (let alone, mass e-mailing them out to everyone). But maybe I'm just being prudishly American and immature about the whole thing. (Believe me, I want to see photos of naked girls - just not naked BABY girls.)

My last comment just raised an interesting point... in what situations do these naked baby photos become illegal? I'm not sure what the child pornography laws are, but if someone sends me a photo of their naked baby, I assume that is OK. But what if they are 2 years old? 5 years old? 13 years old? What if they are a boy?... or a girl? Does it matter? I think somewhere along the line, we can all agree that it crosses over into "inappropriateness". I imagine somewhere along the line it also crosses over into "illegality" - I just don't know where that point is (and I'm not interested in finding out). So new parents should all do us a favor and not send around naked photos of their kids.

You can criticize me for being a baby myself and acting all upset over these photographs. I agree that one can definitely overlook the nudity - after all, it's a freshly-born baby... just hours old, and the parents are (justifiably) excited and proud. But I guess I want to criticize the parents for not using a just a little more common sense and simply taking a more appropriate photo of the baby. It just kind of shocks me that they didn't recognize and think about it. When the parents take photographs of themselves on vacation and put them up on Snapfish, they don't take photos of themselves walking around naked or in the shower, so why would they do this to the baby?

By the way, the only thing worse than a full-on nude, spread-eagle baby photo is the freshly-birthed shot with all the goo and gunk still on the kid. No one wants to see this, either. If I did, I'd become an OB/GYN.