Do you think these parents have a problem?

If I joined in it would have put them off their food!

Since when has nakedness been "completely wrong"? Dear me!

I'm with you Bags - my girls would get in the bath with their dad when they were little, so the male body was not some big mystery to them. It reminds me of that bible story of Adam and Eve, when they had to cover themselves because they had become ashamed of their bodies.
At my convent school, which did not have single man on the premises, we changed after gym in a communal changing room, and the contortions we had to use to prevent any other girl seeing our underwear were wonderful to behold. Boy, were those nuns good at instilling guilt!
At the other extreme, I never forced girls to use communal showers on the odd occasion I had to take a PE or games lesson, because I thought it was cruel to force them if they were embarrassed.

There are measures of acceptability in all things - of course there's nothing wrong with nakedness, but there is a time and a place and a children's party is neither - and if there was no element of discomfort about it, people wouldn't be fined for flashing in public, and naturalists would be pottering about Sainsbury doing their weekly shop. Nothing wrong with sex either but you wouldn't be doing that at a children's party either.

The nakedness wasn't at the children's party. The naked swimming was a separate event. Maybe the place where the children's party was held should invest in some curtains, but I really don't think those children have been or even would have been damaged by seeing some people swimming in the nude.

Flashing in public and such like overtly sexual behaviour is completely different.

The problem is that we equate nakedness with sexuality when we don't need to.

Wonder how the naked swimmers felt about being ogled at and having their innocent party subjected to attention when they where just as much the injured party,they hadn't done any wrong,they had probably booked their party telling the pool of their intention and it was a private party not an orgy.Two sides to every story methinks.

The common denominator was of course the swimming pool who should have made provision to protect both parties especially nowadays when there are so very many restrictions around children. I did say that I don't expect the children even noticed and wouldn't have been upset but that doesn't make it acceptable, and anything that arouses us to have this much of a conversation must have an element of distaste for some people who are as entitled to those feelings as much as anyone else.

People certainly are entitled to feelings of distate, and to express them. And other people are entitled to ask "what problem?", to suggest that there wasn't one, and to further suggest that there wasn't anything the children needed protecting from in this instance.

Which is what, between us, we've done. Cheers for gransnet.

Good morning bags

Bags, I love the succint way you sum up our discussions. I wonder if the attitude to nudity is related to age (although I am 72 and have no problem with it).

Oops - succinct!