Nude Family swim at Stoke Waterworld

Yea there’s also the issue that you know it’s too shameful to tell anyone at school

Ok, a- there are many reasons children don’t feel able to speak up, b- it’s not realistic that teenagers are with parents every minute of a holiday, c- you can’t police the way a man looks at a naked teenage girl.

Fucking traumatic, and I’m not telling you my story for fun

Safeguarding would mean secondly, ensuring that participating children weren't left alone without their parents.

Safeguarding would mean, thirdly, being alert to signs of inappropriate interest - staring, signs of arousal etc. - as you might be at a swimming pool, for example, and reporting/removing children from that situation.

What would safeguarding mean in that environment though? Not making me see a load of strangers genitals? Not making me feel incongruous/weird for keeping my clothes on?

It’s impossible, the situation itself crosses a boundary

How do you safeguard when children and adults are all naked together, and no one is gatekeeping?!!!

My comment telling the truth was deleted. Not rude, no insults. Just truth. Wow. This place gets more ridiculous every day. Defending this perverse shit. Seriously.

What's to stop a convicted paedophile doing anything other than taking a job where DBS checks are required? What's to stop a convicted paedophile moving to the house next door and seeing your children naked in the paddling pool? What's to stop a convicted paedophile getting a job at Marks & Spencer and installing a hidden camera in the children's changing rooms? What's to stop a convicted paedophile in your neighbourhood attending a barbecue in your street and cornering the neighbourhood children in the garden shed?

This is your answer?

No.

If you are hosting events where children don't have any clothes on, and any adult can show up, without their clothes on, there needs to be some kind of gatekeeping, ffs.

I’m not some unfortunate worst case scenario!

They weren’t “complicit in the abuse”. The abuse was being taken there. Which all the other families were doing to their dc too.

SterFran00

I'm still trying to get my head around this.

Is it the case that a convicted paedophile could easily show up at every single naturist event, because you don't DBS check?

Agree about consent being so important. For me, I was with a parent I rarely saw and I felt my whole relationship with him could be lost if I was seen as causing a problem. The holidays were booked and that was that.

There are so many reasons why children can’t speak up

The answer is that it's for the parents to safeguard their children in situations where they will be interacting with people who are an unknown quantity.

Darkmilk has described some terrible experiences - if I have understood her posts correctly, these happened because her father and step mother were complicit in the abuse.

Parental complicity isn't something, sadly, that DBS checks are going to prevent. If parents are complicit in abuse, it can take place anywhere - naturism is just one of many contexts in which family abuse might take place.

The recurring theme in these stories is parents forcing their children into things they aren’t comfortable with. And children being in positions where they are alone with other adults, again, not something of our experience as we are always together.

As well as knowing that we talk a lot as our family, and the things my children already tell me, I can be confident we have provided safe relationships for them to share with us. As well as that though, parents Should be tuned into their kids eg body language etc. It’s how we know they are upset before they tell, it the little cues when we know they might be nervous or want to tell us something. These are ways we can also observe our children’s comfort levels.

Other things are we can go to trusted naturist places where we are with a familiar friendship group and we know it is a respectful environment as we do, and safeguarding is well in place.

When it comes to bodies, often young people's ideas of the naked body are informed by air-brushed pictures of celebrities, or even pornography - which can lead to body dysmorphia, eating disorders etc. because people have few opportunities to see what real and ageing human bodies look like, in a context free of sexual titillation.

But the only difference between swimwear and nudity is the display of genitals. Real and ageing bodies are perfectly visible in swimwear. Why is it necessary for children to specifically see the genitals of other people? Genitals which in every other area of their life they are taught are private?

I've spent a lot of time reading the full thread as this is something that I didn't really know about before (not naturism obv, I mean naturism involving children).

So sorry to hear of PP's distressing experiences

I understand the points made about body positivity/freedom etc. But I must say the idea makes me uncomfortable for several reasons. I appreciate the point that children are more likely to experience abuse from, say, a football coach. My concern would be that a child who believes it is normal to be naked in front of adults they don't really know and for those adults to be naked in front of them may be more vulnerable.

I do find it surprising that some posters don't think it's more likely than other events/locations to draw paedophiles. Surely, any event where children are going to be naked is going to be attractive to people like that.

I'm also concerned about consent. We can never really know what our children are thinking privately, no matter how sure we are that they're happy and comfortable. Children generally want to please their parents, and if the parent clearly sees naturism as an important part of their life, the child may start to feel that they don't want to attend but keep going so as not to upset their mum or dad. This wouldn't even be an indication that the parents were 'pushing' the child to go- if a child gets subtle messages that this is a good thing, the way our family lives, it's important to us, it may be harder than some parents may realise for them to speak up and say no.

Teenagers do not spend every moment of a week long holiday accompanied by their parents.

So if DBS checks aren't done, what is to stop a convicted paedophile attending every single one of your events?

It would also be of limited value. If a paedophile were using naturist events as a voyeur, it would be very difficult to prove that he was going home afterwards and using his mental images (cameras are banned at naturist events) for sexual gratification. Therefore, it's unlikely he would be a convicted paedophile, which is the only kind a DBS check can screen.

Hence paedophiles regrettably surfacing in professions that are DBS checked, such as sports coaching or teaching.

Thanks, it feels good to hear that I wasn’t being oversensitive or uptight (as I was often described)

Believe me, it wasn’t just me feeling that way. Mostly the young children were happy, but I noticed many of us older ones couldn’t look each other in the eye and never spoke to each other. It was mortifying at times