Who would have thought bath time could cause such a fuss?
Not Danish comedian Torbin Chris who has spent a chunk of December experiencing the internet outrage cycle.
A Facebook post he put up of himself in the bath with his two-year-old daughter attracted the ire of online judgement-passers.
It was picked up by media around the world, and reported as though the bulk of comments on the post, which got almost 60,000 likes and was shared thousands of times, were negative attacks.
Chris posted the picture to make a point about the normality of children seeing their parents naked, and parents bathing with their small children.
In a video he has since uploaded to Facebook, Chris talks about how surprised he was by the way the post had been reported.
“So I took this picture of me and my daughter nude in the bathroom and that just went way viral and apparently it’s about time we had that debate because if a picture of me being totally natural in a natural setting can go viral and be on newspapers all over the world… we were on the wrong track,” he said.
“The wide majority of people were on my side, there were of course was a little number of people who were really upset about the whole thing but who gives a s**t about them?
“Those little number of people, they’ve somehow gotten their will, they’ve gotten their way and so the rest of us who know its OK to be naked with your child think “oh maybe this is wrong”.
“Why do that when we know they’re wrong? …Somehow the people who are scared of nudity got the upper hand, where really they weren’t dealt a good hand to begin with.”
Watch the whole video here:
Comments on the video seem to echo Chris’ point.
“I think it’s sad how people have reacted on your photo. It’s wonderful that you take time for your daughter… like many fathers should do more often! That some people are offended by this photo tells us more about their twisted minds than about how you are as a father. Taking a bath with your child has nothing to do with sex. If they think it is then they have a problem!” one commenter wrote.
Another said: “Why do people have to turn something innocent and loving into something dirty!! At her age all she knows is she is having fun! Get off it people!”
And this is perhaps the best response of all (Finland has got this you guys): “In Finland the whole family can go to the sauna naked together. This is completely ridiculous.”
The picture that started the whole furore has since been taken down, but the caption made it very clear that Chris was posting it to support people who had been attacked for posting similar snaps.
“Someone told me that he had been accused of paedophilia by a stranger because he bathed with his two-year-old daughter.”
“Another had been warned on his “urge” towards paedophilia, because he had shared a picture of a French braid on his 11-year-old daughter’s bare back on social media.”
“There was even a father whose wife thinks it was inappropriate, if your daughter sees her father urinate.”
“Listen: children and adults can be naked together.
“There is nothing wrong with a father who washes his daughter’s bottom and vagina when she’s a child. On the contrary, it is bloody disgusting if nobody does it, and unfair if only the mother does it.”
“If we couldn’t stand to see each other naked we’d be born with clothes on. Nudity with your child’s not gross, but natural. A father in the shower with his daughter’s not paedophilia, it’s fun.”
Earlier this year high profile US blogger Perez Hilton found himself a similar target when he posted a picture of himself in the shower with his son.
He was forced to add a clarification that he was wearing a bathing suit.
Songstress Mariah Carey also revealed she wore swimmers while in the bath with her children.
It appears lots of people think this debate is a long way from settled.
Top Comments
That like saying nudests are pedophile's its OK for people to be nudest an its their way of life and they teach their children that their is nothing to be ashamed of
This guy is right. But I suppose the issue is that there is so much paedophillia, and I suppose there would be some people who would use getting nude and bathing etc as an excuse to abuse. I've no doubt the majority of this nudity between parent and child is innocent but the subset of people who are perverted and make up an excuse to be naked ruin it for everyone else.
I guess the issue that needs to be looked at is why is there so much paedophillia? We do numerous things to try and protect children but the actual issue of why this is so common seems underlooked. It must be the biggest taboo in just about every society yet it seems like a huge problem worldwide, it occurred to me that I probably know some, seemingly perfectly respectable people who are child molesters. It just boggles the mind why it's so prevalent. It makes me wonder what percentage of people are child molesters, I know there is a huge amount of people who are molested, so that either means there are a lot of molesters, or there is a small amount of molesters who do most of the attacks. I do hope it's the latter.
I hope one day, with advance technology and medical understanding of the brain that we can rid these urges from people's minds so that it can become a horror from history and not our current reality.