Reply #27: Are you a parent? I am and can't imagine a child being traumatized

[DemBones DemBones]

by that, unless their parents made a big fuss about it and convinced them to be traumatized. Kids below a certain age would be unlikely to notice if no one drew their attention to it, older boys would have liked it and older girls probably would, too, thinking it was daring.

Way, way back in the mid-Fifties, as a mere third-grader, I saw a magazine with a naked woman on the cover, on the coffee table at a friend's house. I think it was an early Playboy, it was her father's magazine, she said, we looked at it a bit and went on our way. I remember it because it was the first time I ever saw a photo of a naked woman, but I'd seen my mother naked and knew I'd grow up to have breasts, too, so it didn't traumatize me. It was just mildly interesting.

Some horror comics I found on the playground the same year gave me nightmares. Reading the Chicago newspaper reports about a 16 year-old girl whose dismembered body was found in an oil drum in Lake Superior gave me nightmares. My daughter watched Hitchcock's "The Birds" at a friend's house when she was in third grade, and had nightmares about it.

We did not have television for years, not because of sex on tv but because of violence, including the overly grisly news reports of local '"If it bleeds, it leads" television.

If I had children at home now, I'd be far more concerned about them hearing the crude remarks Imus makes than about Janet Jackson's nipple being briefly shown at the Super Bowl half-time show.

(But I wouldn't have tv if I had kids at home, more now than ever. It's too difficult being sure they don't see disturbing things. I love "Law and Order" but it's not a show for kids.)