Last week Channel 4 TV screened "Life Class" - three programmes about nude modelling. Unfortunately, I missed it.
It predictably gave rise to dozens of complaints.
One viewer, who watched the programme while ill in bed, croaked: "It nearly gave me a relapse. It was adult viewing, not for screening in the middle of the day."
John Beyer, of the TV pressure group Mediawatch UK, said he had referred the matter to Ofcom after being contacted by scandalised parents. "Obviously, people feel this is not suitable for daytime TV when they have children at home," he opined. "It's a pity Channel 4 cannot revive its Watercolour Challenge show."
Jemima Lewis commented in the Daily Telegraph:
"Going naked in front of your offspring is one of the duties of parenthood. Studies show – and common sense suggests – that children from households where nudity is commonplace grow up to feel more comfortable in their own skin.
We need the background scenery of other people's bodies – dumpy, scrawny, dimpled or lean – in order to be reassured that our own peculiarities are normal. Especially now, when most public images of the human form are airbrushed into a preposterous lie, children ought to know what actual people look like under their clothes.
Thanks to the internet, a generation of boys is growing up submerged in the fake aesthetic of pornography – as ignorant of real female beauty as the Victorian art critic John Ruskin, who discovered on his wedding night that women have pubic hair, and was so disgusted that he refused to consummate the marriage.
Life classes, like naked parents, are a no-strings-attached opportunity to see what other people are really made of."
Did you see your parents naked? And would you parade around nude in front of your children?
techieladybird
As a shift worker I caught one of the three programmes on channel 4. I have often wished I was able to draw accurately and was interested to watch. The only complaint I have about the particular episode is that the poor model was sitting in an uncomfortable position where her wrist was obviously aching. Yes she was nude, and we could see her breasts, but so what? She wasn't participating in sexual activity
My parents were terribly prudish and my father was extra careful that as a small child I was sheltered from the sight of anything deemed naked (both male and female). I think this was down to his insecurity with his often named 'lanky' body.
On a similar subject a male friend of mine e-mailed me a photo of his sister (who lives in Germany) and her new born a couple of weeks ago. It was a lovely photo that I was honoured to have seen, with baby just 2/3 minutes old. He later received complaints from another friend who had noticed his sister wasn't covered up and was horrified that he may have offended. Did they expect her to be fully dressed, with a full set of make up and pretty shoes?