OK, I can't take credit for this -- It's a repost of an open letter that my friend Tom posted to the following complaint about his own web page (similar in subject to parts of BME):

   > MY 5 YO SAW YOUR PICTS AND THE WEB SITE
   >
   > YOUR WEB SITE SHOULD BE BANNED
   >

And do you also let your 5yo play in the streets, without any supervision at all? Do you let your 5yo play in the kitchen, and the cleaning chemical cabinets, the knives drawer, without supervising her? If she happened to see it while you were here yourself, do you also allow her to watch while you and your wife have sex at night?

What a world this is coming to, when no one is responsible for their own actions, or lack of them, but the blame goes to everyone "else". Take responsibility for your own actions, and your OWN responsibilities. The other person is right, when he said that your parenting skills are sorely lacking, if you LET her see this site and then got upset "afterwards" that she did see it. And yes, you LET her see it, even if by just lack of supervision and safety of your own. I don't let my 5yo run around without supervision, I can't see how others could, at that age they can be SO dangerous in their own ignorance. And of that websites are my LAST concern, I am more concerned with hazards IN the home, than what an image on the net could possibly do.

Of course you could be one of those that think the world should be molded after Disney, to be safe, in ALL places, for kids, and that ANY place that MAY have ANY type of negative impact on a kid should be locked up securely, so that only adults can enter. Well that is ridiculous. Teach your children well, but don't go trying to rule everyone ELSE's life because of your own lack of parenting skills or responsibilities. Personally I just don't see how an image can harm a child. I can see how people can PUT harm in a child, by making them feel shame, or put things IN their mind, on how they act when their kids see an image. But an image alone is not the cause of the harm. My 5yo could see, not that I would show him, but he could possibly, by chance of life, see a picture of some really grotesque thing, but I would not overreact, and he would probably forget it 5 minutes later as well, especially if Pokeyman was on TV. Get a life, and please stay out of our lives.

If this site offends you than the answer is very simple. Just DON'T go there. No one, no one, forced you to go there, you initiated that all by yourself. And I can't see how a 5yo could figure out how to run, subscribe to, and download images off of Usenet, as well as decode them, and then go view them. If your story is true, most likely it was YOU that did it, so you only have yourself to blame then.

     Tom