Naked children at tourist spot - diagram included

[Irishfarmer]

Basically children playing/ swimming naked at a tourist waterfall. Strange or not?

Longer. So to me this didn't seem right. Yesterday I went to visit a very pretty waterfall - my first attempt at a MN diagram attached 😂 There is a car park then a walk of less than 1km up to the waterfall with a stream running down from the waterfall.

Got to a very pretty bridge and could see up to the waterfall. But couldn't take any pics or actually really look cause there were about 4 DC buck naked having a swim! It was raining and not that warm. But also just thought it was a really weird/ inappropriate place for DC to be swimming at all, 1 dad was with them, 2 mums were sitting (blocking a lot of the path) making flower chains/ pictures.

Went further up and there was another dad and a dc maybe 6ish on the surrounds of the plunge pool. Which was rock covered in green moss/ ferns. Walking back to the car there was 1 dc the far side of the bridge with no adult supervision dc looked maybe 4. Again lots of moss. Reasonably fast moving stream😑

IDK, I know kids like being naked and swimming but this wasn't the place was it?! The car park holds maybe 50ish cars and all spots were taken + 1 small bus load of Americans (one lady insisted on taking a pic of me and DH when we were taking a selfie which was nice!). It didn't seem busy but there had to be 100ish ppl milling around. Judging by the amount of signs in German/ French it must be a popular tourist spot.

Anyway:

YABU - Children can swim naked at tourist spots why wouldn't they
YANBU - It is weird

Crikey fancy producing such a fancy diagram just to say there were naked kids in a nature spot..

If you can’t stop yourself from staring at naked children so you could experience the beauty (or take photos) of a waterfall then that sounds like a you problem, not the children’s or their parents problem …

Well said @00100001

Another one who thinks the diagram is a bit odd and unnecessary

If someone takes pics of your naked child and has a w*nk over it, you'd never know. You can't spend all your time worrying that a paedophile is looking at your child.

Well I’m very familiar with Glencar waterfall and honestly have never seen anyone swim there. I remember as children we were told of a young man who drowned there, which terrified us. Definitely wouldn’t have thought of it as an ideal swimming spot for young children!

"The majority of perpetrators of sexual abuse before the age of 16 years were males
Around 9 in 10 adults (92%) experienced sexual abuse committed by males only. A further 4% experienced sexual abuse committed by both males and females, and 4% experienced sexual abuse by females only "

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/childsexualabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2019#child-sexual-abuse-recorded-by-the-police

So it's absolutely fair to generalise that men are more pervert.

I wouldn't care at all. I'm not at all embarrassed or ashamed by my naked body, it just is what it is- functional.
I grew up in Britain but have family on the continent so am used to swimming, showering and going in saunas naked with other people.

@bridgetreilly unless the children can't possibly enjoy themselves without being naked, a mutually beneficial solution would be for them to put clothes on and then they, and also the 100s more of picture taking tourists, get to enjoy the sight.

If you work in criminal justice then you just know the word ’pornography’ cannot apply to children

^^This basically.

I think that allowing young children to be naked in the situation described is wholly inappropriate.
My previous professional career in child protection social work has led me to believe that such behaviour in UK is inappropriate.

Inappropriate to and for what? This didn’t happen in the UK.

I once was eating at the cafe at the V&A that has a fountain in the middle. Two children, maybe 3/4 were playing naked in it. It was all very odd sight for a museum. I can see it being okay at a beach but a museum doesn’t seem appropriate!

I’d suggest avoiding beaches and splash pads in summer then. Naked preschoolers and toddlers everywhere. The majority have swim nappies or shorts on, but up to 10% don’t, so clearly many people are pretty comfortable with it.

What an unutterably sad world we live in.

Ds would run about with no clothes on at the beach when he was little

i think it’s lovely that young children can be so care free it doesn’t last long but to not care is so innocent what is so awful about that

I’ve worked with child sex offenders I am well aware they are around but I can’t spend time obsessing about what is going on in their mind

I think it’s such a shame that such tiny children can’t feel free to enjoy a summers (albeit rainy) day without some nosey adult making it seem tawdry. Just let them be kids ffs.

Is it such a shame though? It's not children who care whether they're nude or in trunks, it's just adults thinking back to their childhood. I'm not sure what's sad about it, really. I don't feel I missed out on anything because I didn't swim naked as a toddler and wore a nappy.

Yes it’s a massive shame innocent little children can’t have an impromptu splash about without being sexualised.

Not sure what your profession has to do with to be honest. I'm a social worker, previously in child protection and currently with adults, including sex offenders and child abusers. I still let my kids get naked in this sort of scenario.

Bizarrely by people claiming to work in fields where you'd think they'd know better.
A couple of pretend experts on this thread and lots of other posters rubbing their hands (and probably worse) every time the words 'naked" and "child" is mentioned.
It's really not the parents of the children with a problem round here.

You can tell who has never had the joy of swimming in the nip.

Hi all,

We are closing this thread while we take a closer look.