Re: Naturism

Wizard, I am so sad for what you've been going through re: the sheriffs and nudity around your children. EastBay is right on with "how low we've sunk" (as a society). As an undergraduate studying sociology, I once did a research paper on sexuality and the child-rearing practices of ten societies on five continents. For each continent, I did one ancient and one modern society. I correlated my results with instances of child abuse in the same societies, and found that it did not exist in those societies that did not hide nudity and sexual information from children. That proved correlation, of course, but not causation. (Meaning that I could not claim that open attitudes about bodies and sex caused less child abuse) However, I do believe that causation exists. I undertook the study out of an interest in and concern about child abuse, and not because I at the time had any opinion about nudity or openness about sexual matters with children. My findings support what I now feel strongly about: that our society condones and perpetuates all manner of violence and depravity with children by the way in which we hide it and yet sensationalize it. Of course, as I say, the causation here is only my opinion and cannot be proven by my research.

That's a long way to say that I think your parenting, Wizard, is just the kind of parenting that our society needs, and your children will be healthier and less likely to be victimized because of it. I hope that you find a way to continue bringing them to DCHS.