Review of BSA files leads to arrest of former scout leader and his boyfriend in Phoenix

[King Ding Dong]

"It was also suggested that swimming nude would build character, in some unexplainable way." I don't know about character, but certainly creates a bit of drag.

[skeptic]

When I was a member of the Y in the early fifties, they had father/son swims on Friday evening that were suits optional. They had a window above that had a curtain on it. And the kids used the same locker area as the adults, including the showers. Of course, skinny-dipping was fairly common even then, even in scouts when in the outback. Of course, we also had to take real showers in open shower areas for PE and sports; there was no excuse that someone might be emotionally harmed by lack of modesty or whatever. It was just the way it was then. In some respects, it may have been better in that we did not have the modern fears of adolescent boys (and likely girls too). Do not know how often I have to almost force boys to go to the showers, even in their bathing suits, while at camp. And they often will not change to suits or clothing if their tent mate is there.

 

But, as I have often said, I am OLD, and was raised in different circumstances and cultural ideas.

[packsaddle]

In some areas of the tropics the spectre of the candiru fish is enough to prevent 'skinny dipping'. In the South, I stopped it when I first learned about snapping turtles. A few years back we had some Russian visitors. When we visited the lake, I had only turned my attention elsewhere for a few minutes and when I turned back there they were, big hulking Russians stripped down and dashing into the lake. I guess they don't have snappers in Moscow. Or candiru fish.

[fred johnson]

RememberSchiff ... The 2002 conviction was based on more current laws. Laws passed in 1988, 1996, 2002, 2003 and 2006 to address it.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_p..._United_States

 

From best of what I read, before the 1980s and in the early 1980s, child pornography was not illegal as the laws were missing or lacking. During that time obscenity laws tried to ban all pornography outright and the US Supreme Court held pornography was a first amendment right. But the USSC did hold that child pornography was different.

 

So in this case the BSA had statements about actions in 1986 or earlier when from what I can see it was not necessarily illegal. Laws have changed.

 

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RememberSchiff ... I'll fully agree with you on your last point. BSA is supposed to be the preeminent youth organization in the United States. They could have done more as an advocacy group. As a research and teaching group. Instead, they chalked it up to perverts and wanted those guys out. They could have done more.

 

But then again, we could say the same thing about churches, schools, YMCA, etc etc etc. In fact, I get very upset that we have schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc etc etc that have whole colleges dedicated to teaching teachers, to teaching medicine, psychology ... AND THE LAW.

 

Why did it take until the late 1980s and 1990s to understand the nature of pedophiles???? ???? ???? Why did it take until 1988 or so to start establishing effective laws ??????

 

I do wish BSA would have done more earlier. But I also wish all of society would have done more earlier.

 

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AZMike ... My dad used to tell me stories about that too. His high school had pool times for each gender and each gender (male or female) were not required to have swim suits.

 

Here's an interesting article on that with some good points. https://sites.google.com/site/histor...es/jumper-swim

 

---- Until 1962, the American Public Health Association pool management guidelines recommended male nude swimming in every edition. It was about keeping pools disinfected and disease free. Previous decades had polio and typhoid and other diseases to worry about. Filtration and keeping water clean was a big issue.

 

---- Schools followed suit (no pun intended) because they were following recommendations of the best authorities.

 

---- YMCA and Boys Club Operations manuals also followed the APHA guidelines.

 

---- Nude male swimming also became a patriotic response to the WWII need for cloth. During the war years, camps had nude swimming.

 

---- In 1962, APHA dropped nude swimming recommendation. I guess that's why I never swam nude at the YMCA as our YMCA was built in around 1969 and I remember swimming there around that time.

 

---- You could find pictures in Life Magazine and others about male nude swimming. I don't know if the pictures showed anything. The point is that it was common knowledge and accepted practice.

 

----- Here's a big one that I had yet to make the connection. Plumbing was not always available for bathing. People would go to streams to bathe. Soap was advertised as good for indoor and river use. I myself remember doing that at cabins in the 1980s. We'd make sure we bought biodegradable soap. Then early in the morning or late in the evening, we'd go to the lake and wash up.

[Scouter99]

One other interesting thing from looking at those old reports:

There is actually a lot of info in the reports worth mining for lessons learned - I don't know if anyone has done that other than internally within BSA headquarters for risk factors.

 

Yes, it's the Warren Report. Link on the bottom left of http://www.scouting.org/jamboree/sitecore/content/bsayouthprotection.aspx

Direct link to the report: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/youthprotection/pdf/WarrenReport.pdf

[RememberSchiff]

RememberSchiff ...

From best of what I read, before the 1980s and in the early 1980s, child pornography was not illegal as the laws were missing or lacking. During that time obscenity laws tried to ban all pornography outright and the US Supreme Court held pornography was a first amendment right. But the USSC did hold that child pornography was different.

 

In the late 70's to 80's, because of the increasing distribution of child porn via the emerging boundary-less Internet as well as interstate mailing, the federal government became involved in making child pornography illegal, e.g., Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 which was later amended.

 

Some interesting reading of that period is in this Senate Hearing on the Child Sexual Abuse and Pornography Act of 1986

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/106466NCJRS.pdf

Pages 25 thru 30 "Prepared Statement of Bruce A. Taylor" is particularly informative of this time period.

 

"Timeline of Significant Events in Child Pornography" 1977-2008

http://www.uscourts.gov/news/TheThirdBranch/09-12-01/Timeline_of_Significant_Events_in_Child_Pornography_Legislation.aspx

 

Child Pornography on the Internet

http://www.popcenter.org/problems/child_pornography/

 

Another $0.02,

[Rick_in_CA]

Here's an interesting article on that with some good points. https://sites.google.com/site/histor...es/jumper-swim

 

An interesting article. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[fred johnson]

RememberSchiff ... Still reading. The evolution of the law is always fascinating. I am having vivid memories of my college constituational law classes.

 

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The 1977 "Proection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act" leveraged the commerce clause of the US Constitution. As such, it required "commerce" and "interstate" activity ... or the activity happened in the District of Columbia, a territory (Guam, Puerto Rico, etc), maritime waters, a federal prison or similar. From what I understood, Challberg had pictures he took. There was no discussion that he traded, sold or transported the pictures. Or that he transported the kids for the purposes of pornography across state lines.

 

Page 28, middle column ... https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digi...93129NCJRS.pdf

 

Fifth paragraph ... http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/01/us...raphy-law.html

 

------------------------------

 

The best summary of these laws is here ... on page 4 ... http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshal...2_07132012.pdf

 

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It is interesting that from 1977 to 1982 no one had been prosecuted successfully based on the law. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publicatio....aspx?ID=86631

 

----------------------------------------

 

Still reading ...

[fred johnson]

RememberSchiff ... The discussion in the Senate hearing was fascinating. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digi...06466NCJRS.pdf

 

I only read pages 19-30 and piecemeal of the first 10 pages. The 1986 law expanded to remove the commerce requirement. It made it illegal to solicit or advertise the material also. I guess that leverages the commerce clause without actually requiring a sale or exchange of material.

 

I didn't see any of that in statement made to BSA about Challberg. Even then BSA could have refer it to police. But if they don't know of a crime having occurred and the family doesn't want to involve the police, it's hard for the BSA to go forward with a report to police that is essentially "we're reporting creepy behavior".

 

IMHO, BSA was removing leaders before the laws had made it illegal.

 

Please note that I have very different opinion on this stuff if it happened later when the laws were improved and people were more enlightened. I don't have a strict date, but anything 1995 onward (last 20 years).

[Scouter99]

When I was a member of the Y in the early fifties, they had father/son swims on Friday evening that were suits optional. They had a window above that had a curtain on it. And the kids used the same locker area as the adults, including the showers. Of course, skinny-dipping was fairly common even then, even in scouts when in the outback. Of course, we also had to take real showers in open shower areas for PE and sports; there was no excuse that someone might be emotionally harmed by lack of modesty or whatever. It was just the way it was then. In some respects, it may have been better in that we did not have the modern fears of adolescent boys (and likely girls too). Do not know how often I have to almost force boys to go to the showers, even in their bathing suits, while at camp. And they often will not change to suits or clothing if their tent mate is there.

 

But, as I have often said, I am OLD, and was raised in different circumstances and cultural ideas.

 

And at Boy Scout camps: (warning, obviously there are very old photos of rear ends in this article on the subject at hand) 9th image down is Bucks County Council's Camp Ockanickon http://houseofmirthphotos.blogspot.com/2010/04/old-swimming-hole-by-brooks-peters.html

 

And on the cover of the official magazine of the UK Scouting association in 1951: (again, be aware, a side view of a rear on a Scouting mag cover) http://storage.canalblog.com/75/55/326328/32474750_p.jpg

 

Nothing so forward in American Scouting mags, as far as I know, but of course our patron saint Greenbar Bill's photos of Indian campouts would curdle the modern Scouter's blood. http://boyslife.org/wayback/#issue=wfUIHchKA94C&pg=38

[skeptic]

My troop dates to 1921, as does our council. In the local museum there is a scrapbook with photos from the first 10 years of the council. And when you look closely at camp photos there are naked scouts in the water or on the shore. In my troop scrapbook, I have one of some of my scouts, along with other senior scouts, who posed very carefully in the buff (so nothing showed but bare limbs and skin) somewhere near a Sierra lake in the mid forties on a hike after staffing the local camp. The adult that sent it to me even included most of their names and a map. At our 85th anniversary, I got a complaint from a parent about the photo, so I now do not display when we have the reunions, though it is still in the archive.

 

Funny how today, the traditional baby on a blanket on a lawn or the floor is seldom seen anymore. That was always one of the ones you did not want mom to show to visitors when you were a teen; or at least we didn't. And almost everyone had at least one of that type.

[King Ding Dong]

When my boys were about 3 and 5 they started wrestling in the hall after a bath, got lots of great pics. Going to write a program for posting them to Facebook in a few years. "At 11 those photos are posting, better be home by then to exit the program. Have fun, I'm going to bed".

[Scouter99]

My troop dates to 1921, as does our council. In the local museum there is a scrapbook with photos from the first 10 years of the council. And when you look closely at camp photos there are naked scouts in the water or on the shore. In my troop scrapbook, I have one of some of my scouts, along with other senior scouts, who posed very carefully in the buff (so nothing showed but bare limbs and skin) somewhere near a Sierra lake in the mid forties on a hike after staffing the local camp. The adult that sent it to me even included most of their names and a map. At our 85th anniversary, I got a complaint from a parent about the photo, so I now do not display when we have the reunions, though it is still in the archive.

 

Funny how today, the traditional baby on a blanket on a lawn or the floor is seldom seen anymore. That was always one of the ones you did not want mom to show to visitors when you were a teen; or at least we didn't. And almost everyone had at least one of that type.

 

There are a couple of moons in our troop archive. As many adults as youth

[packsaddle]

Those vanishing baby photos could be explained by zealous prosecutors who view them as kiddie porn. We took the photoschildren of our and show them to no one...mostly for that reason. But the ones of ME, I'm thinking of posting them on the internet to see if someone can be prosecuted for exploiting themself. To me the irony is that in this day of almost anything goes with regard to certain aspects of human sexuality, on the other hand we seem to have become even more prudish about other aspects.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Those vanishing baby photos could be explained by zealous prosecutors who view them as kiddie porn. We took the photoschildren of our and show them to no one...mostly for that reason. But the ones of ME' date=' I'm thinking of posting them on the internet to see if someone can be prosecuted for exploiting themself. To me the irony is that in this day of almost anything goes with regard to certain aspects of human sexuality, on the other hand we seem to have become even more prudish about other aspects. [/quote']

 

 

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20081006/UPDATES01/81006033/Girl-15-accused-sending-nude-photos-over-phone