A woman who took photos of herself breastfeeding her infant son was arrested together with her partner on child pornography charges; courts quickly ordered their children taken from them and they faced a 20 year sentence.
The couple, Peruvian immigrants to the USA who took up residence in Texas, took a variety of pictures of their two sons, aged 1 and 4, in various states of undress.
The picture which would become their undoing showed the 33-year-old lady breastfeeding her 1-year-old son; when she had these and other family photos developed, store employees decided to report their unnatural and immodest breastfeeding to the authorities, and soon police were building a case against them for child pornography.
Police decided the family snaps were definitely evidence of depraved perversion: “I viewed the photographs and had concern of possible sexual abuse, inappropriate sexual behavior and possible child pornography from nine.”
There is concern that police interpretations were overly strained; where the lady was posing with her arm covering her breasts, she is described as “topless and touching her breast.”
Police also mention their son “touching his genital area,” which the couple readily demonstrated was due to a rash, for which medication had been prescribed.
The stilted legalese of the court indictment for “sexual performance of a child” characterised the actual breastfeeding as sexual deviancy:
“To wit; actual lewd exhibition of… a portion of the female breast below the top of the areola, and the said defendant did and then employ, authorize and induce a child younger than 18 years of age, to engage in said sexual conduct and sexual performance.”
Police then arrested them and raided their home, but found no other incriminating evidence.
Undeterred, authorities recommended the couple’s children be placed into care, which was done, and the couple were then released on bond pending trial, with a possible 20 year prison sentence looming over their heads.
A key element of the couple’s defence was artistic precedent – even in Texas it should be possible to find art galleries displaying similar scenes, often of Mary nursing an infant Jesus, with the depictions lauded as celebrations of womanhood and maternity, to say nothing of artistic skill.
The couple was supported vigorously by their church and the large local Peruvian community, who patiently, if pointlessly, explained that breastfeeding is considered a normal human activity in Peru, as is the naked frolicking of small children.
The couple’s defence was scathing of the charges:
“Their theory, which is supported by nothing, is that these pictures were taken to satisfy the boyfriend’s sexual desires. These aren’t pictures that were peddled on the open market. This wasn’t on someone’s Web site. This is just a mother who took a roll of film and left it off at Eckerd’s. The state used them to arrest her, indict her for a felony and take away her kids.”
With the weakness of the case apparent to the state prosecutors, the District Attorney intervened and ordered the criminal charges dropped, but insisted their children remain in care, with the parents being forced to attend parenting classes and take lie detectors in order to regain custody of them.
Police and courts refuse to admit any errors and insist that they acted appropriately in trying to defend infants from their wicked breastfeeding mothers; indeed, police are apparently disappointed they could not get them jailed: “We thought they contained sexuality, if you saw the photos, you’d know what I mean,” said one open-minded officer.
Even the presiding judge’s staff refused to admit there was a problem with the charges, only unhappily noting that the case was “weak”:
“I looked at those pictures and there were some quirky things to them, and I can see where the grand jury had probable cause. But a woman has her breast exposed, and her child is there. I’m not sure that is a prosecutable offense.”
The charges were quietly dropped after state prosecutors decided they had no chance of winning, and the couple eventually regained custody of one of their children (the other staying with his biological father from a previous marriage).
Via Citizens for Change.
Interestingly, one of the objections raised in Japan against the recent efforts to more thoroughly ban such photos is the fear that laws would be used by law enforcement to pursue people for taking innocent photos of their children; fears which seem far from unfounded…
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Hahaha. WTF mate?
Texans should be locked up for stupidity. Texans need to stop going to church (hahaha, we all know they don't follow the idiotic morals of christianity anyways unless they have something to gain from it), watching football and try to start thinking for themselves. I don't know. Maby it's a lost cause by now. Inbreeding and all that.
society is so sick and deprived that we see sex or a sexual connotation in just about anything, if we ask any psycologist, they will tell us that babies masturbate, thus sex or sexual sitmulation is present even at such a young age, its very sad the amount of ignorance and the clasification that sex is evil we see in our society.
blame the Puritans that founded this country :/
It's Texas. Why does the fucking stupidity no longer surprise me? Seriously, if they coloured a map of the world with regional intelligence represented on the colour spectrum, Texas would be a black hole.
OKAY
This is getting fucking stupid.
Just because you are forced to live in a fucking region where stupid people roam, DOES NOT in fact make you stupid.
There's plenty of fucking bright people that live in Texas.
And when they move off, they don't affiliate themselves with Texas cause Texas has such a shitty reputation.
I'm so fucking glad people can actually think with their asses now-a-days.
It really just brightens my fucking day.
its texas
go figure
hi everyone.
i am peruvian, i think texans are monsters, brestfeeding a baby with naked noobs is something natural, beautiful.
they are separating babys from their parents, they are the monsters, how i hate them.
I'm Peruvian too but not a drama queen, it's been 6 years, let it go.
This makes me want to strangle someone, then beat some sense into with a blunt object. There is nothing sexual about breastfeeding a child! While I'll admit that breastfeeding over a certain age is... creepy, it's not inherently sexual and the people that thought that it was need a smack to the back of the head. This is a case of people seeing what they want to instead of the truth. Disgusting
Develop your photos bu yourself instead. Cheaper and less likely to attract "Attention"
Only in America, and one of the 'backward' states. I'm glad I'm not so closed-minded. There is nothing wrong with the human body. It's a shame that in our modern world, such things are seen as perverse. These people better learn the meaning of the word, as the law against it and those making a big deal of it are the perverse ones.
Why don't people understand that breastfeeding is WRONG?!
What retard goes to Texas as an immigrant?
Foreigners may not know the reputation the state has for bullshit laws and law officials.
this is so retarded I almost had a brain aneurysm
I'm surprised she didn't get charged with having an incestual relationship with her son
Welcome to the land of freedom...
Sigh...I have to live in Texas.... Of course Funimation is here too. lol
This is seriously fucked up. It's a mother breastfeeding her children. Humans have done this for hundreds of thousands of years. How is this any form of child pron?
“We thought they contained sexuality, if you saw the photos, you’d know what I mean,”
Hmm, must be pretty extreme photos. Mother masturbating while breast feeding or a child getting buttfucked, anything possible, but it wont get leaked to the media as is.
Ugh, this is why I'm so leaving this country.
I just can't stand how retarded the establishment is.
*rant rant rant*
You are a fucking idiot. One police department and district attorneys office does something stupid and you condemn an entire state. A state that covers more area than all other states but one and has a more diverse population than almost all others. This took place in Richardson population 101,589, compared to Texas pop. 24,326,974. Way to judge an entire population based on less than .4 percent of said population. Apparently the state isn't as crazy as you make it seem, as the charges were dropped. In addition, CPS issued an apology to the family. CPS, it should be pointed out, is governed by the federal government. To top it off this is old news, since Eckerds ceased to exist and became Rite Aid some time ago.
Well, well, well.
Did we really expect anything else?
This is a world of false fears and prejaduce, with small minded authorities imagining abuse everywhere they look; a true 1984 if you will.
GFTO of our earth you pig-headed, stupid governmental lapdogs, we don't want you :)
Sheriff catches Wild Wild Breast in the Wild Wild West.
Just because I get turned on by it doesn't make it porn
Has anyone seen those Abercrombie & Fitch ads?? Those photos, which are seen by general public, are far more suggestively explicit than these breast feeding pics. Leave it to a culture, especially in Texas, where walking around with a gun is considered the norm but having "private" breast feeding photos (of your own children) in your home a crime...
Didn't they get sued for that?
This is seriously fucked up
That is why I use a digital camera.
What a load of bullshit!
breast feeding is most natural way to feed a baby, that is WHAT they are there for, DUH! How else were babies feed before infant formula?
Why do you think, that in the OLD days - women WERE barefoot and pregnant is because they had to spend a lot of time breasts feeding, etc while the man worked. I'm for equal rights, glad women have a place besides being baby machines and a place to put a penis (I know some may disagree)
Even in Texas, there are public places for people to breast feed.
All the artwork as noted, should really help.
Idiots! Idiots like that make mankind seem... worthless.
WTF!?
Now who's the racism bastard?
I always find it funny that you can be a violent sociopath, a drug dealer, a drunk driver, an unrepentant thief, a serial rapist, or a murderer, and you will NEVER be punished adequately enough, while average joe-dumb asses will skirt through the grey areas in the legal system and be punished worse than any real criminal who has done worse.
It's like: You murdered a family of 5 while driving drunk and fled the scene where you struk a child crossing the road with her dog. 25 years. With parole, good behavior, rehab, etc, etc, you won't even do 7 years. In 8 years, you'll be out killing innocent people again.
And you: You're 21 years old and were caught in public kissing your 17 year old girlfriend of 4 years the day before her birthday. You will do 10 years without chance of early release then be branded a sex offender for the rest of your life so you can never again support a family or live in any community were a family has a child.
The legal system fails so badly, that at times I think those nutcase surivivalists and anarchists have it right.
slightly off topic i know, but the area where i live in UK, the police busted a house for drugs, frightening the shit out of a young mum and her 2 little kids, then the cops found out they had the right house number, but the WRONG STREET !
dumbf**k british cops
hahaha,police shouldn't make mistakes like that XD.
It would never happen to me.Since i needed to know such things when going around in a new city.
Have pretty good orientation.
http://beam.to/chatx
This is just so sad. There is nothing more beautiful than a mother breast-feeding her child.
Now on a personal note I would often suckle on my wife lactating breast while our son was nursing on her other breast. It was a very beautiful and tender way for her to express her heart love for the both of us.
Of course I found that I loved the milk so much I kept her lactating for the next 15 years. And yes our son was allowed to enjoy the milk at that age also.
Fuckin out of control government
talk about political correctness !!!!!
and this from the country that gave us Nixon, Regan
and Bush. Who would have thought it?
Typical bloody septics......
Wow people in TX are pretty stupid, or retarded, not sure yet.
I take offense to that.
O.o
Just because there's dumbasses in Texas doesn't mean that EVERYONE from fkn TX is a dumbass.
I'm pretty sure there's dumbass people where ever you live.
Does that make you a dumbass as well?
In USA is the most stupid law in the world. I don't know how it is possible that so stupid nation is the most powerful in the world. I think it wouldn't be long.
Your fucking joking .....right,....some breast feeding photos...bet the cop and the judge jacked off right...well you'd better go through every museum and tear down all those religious photo and statues of the breast feeding Madonna.....fuckin back ward hicks..back to the dark ages.....Spanish Inquisition..American style....
this is stupid
In other words. Porn is legal even in broad daylight, but breastfeeding or being naked in your own home is illegal?
They need to be nuked.
rule 41 no matter what it is, someone has a fetish of it no exeptions XD
What the hell is wrong with my fuckin country.....this is just....insane whats next....they take away my psp because I took a pic of me playing it....Oh wait I know my mother gets charged with child pornography because I'm walking around my house in my boxers.
For a bunch of people that are supposed to be enlightened, your reading comprehension isn't very good. This wasn't about tits, it was about taking pictures of naked children for the sexual gratification of the boyfriend...
So god damned ridiculous, this is the shit that happens when you make it okay to outlaw media as a substitute for being incompetant at saving actual people. Let's just save our morals instead and forget the people getting victimized!
amerikkkas a sick shitbed of nutjobs that needs to be wiped from the pages of history
My exact reaction to this was, "HAHAHA! What the fuck?! What's the world coming to anyway? Fucking Texas."
number 1..do u stupid ppl read? and number 2 dont believe everything u do read. the photos were posted by the woman and the photographer on a porn sharing site!...that makes them porn! its not like she only put them on myspace or sumthing! dont be stupid...
Wow, bob, you failed so hard. The photos weren't posted anywhere, much less a porn site — they were simply for a family album. I saw he photo in question (admittedly it was blurred and grainy) and there was nothing sexual in it except in the sick minds of the "authorities" who arrested them.
bob, next time you accuse people of not reading, perhaps you should take your own advice? Maybe then you wouldn't fail so hard.
number 1 learn english
number 2 stop lying
number 3 stop being texan (aka stupid)
America is so fucking stupid. First we vote Bush in two terms, now we're attempting to arrest women for having pictures of themselves breast feeding. wtf..
fuck u america is awesome
Fair is fair though, this is an old story dating back to when Junior was President.
So what did you really expect? I mean, around that time you had Ashcroft covering up statues because they were too nude for his tastes. Irrespective of them being in the Greek style, thus having said "nudity" be in complete compliance with the artistic style used.
And now we've voted in Obama, which makes Americans even more stupid, Amirite?
(Not kidding, I seriously fucking hate nobama and the uneducated retards that voted him in)
INB4 RACIST
I voted for Obama. Was it because I wanted his "change" for the country?
No.
It's because there needs to be chaos in this country to fuck with everyone, especially the Conservatives, and keep them on their toes.
Ignore troll
this kind of BS happens world wide.. so fu#$ texas or america isn't the right coment.
just another case of someone inflicting there own moral values over another... "i think this is bad, and i have a badge, even though, they didn't break the law, lets arrest them"
THe damn parents should sue for wrongful imprisonment, they'll win.
breastfeeding is one of those gray areas in teh US, most states have laws that says breastfeading in public and what not is fine, though some states still push the issue. the whole world is fuc$ed this is just another page in the book.
I'm pretty sure America is the only country where a mother could get arrested for breastfeeding her child. Most other countries have common sense when dealing with things like that.
the difference is that they made a sexual act out of it! stupid...
bob, they *didn't* make a sexual act out of it. That's the point. The only sexual interpretation in the entire case is in the dirty minds of the police and prosecution involved.
Learn to read more. Tell me, are you Texan?
Outside of the Middle East, you are quite right. Heck, even in EGYPT, it is seen as perfectly normal to do that out in public.
all this is ridiculous
this happens for ban loli. the world is in wrong way
America, the nation of idiots.
You're lumping every single human living there into the idiot category for what 1 state does? Where's the logic in that?
world is going fucking retarded i swear
not going. it has long been there, and may very well always be there unless there's some kind of cataclysmic event that wipes out/reformats humanity as we know it...
Another aspect of the story - Texas doesn't like immigrants. They could be harassing the couple because they are immigrants. Any difference in culture, no matter how slight, is disliked.
proves again how much child-caring paranoia is seriously heading in the wrong direction.
dark times ahead!
There's always idiots going ONLY IN THE USA LOL
And on Russia articles ONLY IN RUSSIA LOL
And in Chinese articles ONLY IN CHINA LOL
ONLY IN KOREA LOL
Seriously, it's getting old.
20 years? OMG! They're so wasting Tax-payer money right there!!
Now this is getting ridiculously stupid. Come on, this a completely natural act. Making pictures of it is also natural, you pin it in an album and that's it.
If we continue this way, we'll probably even see the death of western civilisation.
*bangs head against a wall*
Not really a bad thing over all... Western civilization and its basic philosophy of "I think there for I am" is the leading cause of some of the greatest problems in the world.
i think that the american public needs to die.
Where are YOU from, by the way?
They all will.....eventually.
hey douchebag, don't lump me in with all the retard americans out there. talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water...
This just reinforces my views that there is nothing in Texas worth going there for. Just a shit load of racists, sand, and the Bush family.
Actually the food is pretty good.
...and for about 2 months, we have weather.
dude... Austin Texas is the best!
My my, aren't we a racist dumbass? And you call me a racist for being a Texan with you spouting bullshit like that? Sorry, boya, but I hate to break this to you: Human is Human. There is no two ways about it. Down here are some of the most reasonable people I've ever met, with the occasional epic fail moron, but five bucks says they weren't raised here. As many people have said, don't dock it until you've tried it. So don't spout BS like that until you actually come down here and seen it for yourself.
Oh, and it's not like that failure of a president Obama is any better than Bush, you know. Same problems, different name, only he's screwing us over 16x faster than Bush did... They're BOTH failures, in my book, though. >_>
Well, there are normal humans and dumb fucks. Bible belt etc are of the last category and should be deleted from the gene pool.
You're perfectly right about Obama, though. He's the same ass Bush was, not as dumb but still a goddam lying fucking asshole.
But the stereotype exist and is reinforced by Texan culture itself and the media (which affects everything and everyone). The whole Lone Star state mentality and "we are Texans" thing you see so much in media creates a culture that reacts badly to criticism and outside influences.
It is a statistical fact that racial segregation is still VERY prevalent in Texan communities and religious influences are overwhelmingly evangelical Protestantism.
You got it all wrong pall, there are Humans and there are Texans. It's common sense, don't you read the papers? Oh wait, it's Texas
Have you ever been anywhere in Texas? Do you think all of the people there live on Ranches and wear cowboy hats too?
There's a lot of retardation, but for the most part all of the people there are very wholesome, and family-oriented.
we are living in a world where saying hi to a loli will make you the most wanted man on the planet...
Not in the *other* sense unfortunately.
i fukking hate usa laws so gay... especially when it comes to children laws
How many of these damn commenters actually read the full article? D: And not fuck the police, fuck the people who mentioned the pictures to the authorities.
Fuck the police for taking actions
hate to tell you, but it's the eternal "they're just doing their job excuse".
humans are so easy to manipulate and control it's both hilarious and scary. ever hear of the experiment where they pretty much showed people will do something if told to (I think it was the Millikan Experiment), regardless how fucked up it is?
I think you're barking up the wrong tree by wasting your brain power hating cops. They're bound by the law, regardless of what it says. If the government bans Dihydrogen Monoxide, they'd shoot anyone with a water bottle. So they're like robots, only worse.
thanks
Milgram Experiment.
Well that's bullshit, good thing I destroyed all the pictures my mom had of bathing me when i was a child.
Feels good being a paying my taxes knowing they are used for the common good! Shame the 'criminal' didn't get 20 years for this utterly vile act against humanity! Breastfeeding, 'never' heard of such a thing in mankind's history!
That it went that far is really stupid, but this is old news.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2003-04-17/news/1-hour-arrest/
wow this is a 6 years old story
Yes I could tell this was pretty old given Eckerds hasn't been around in a long time.
you know what's sad? I can say with absolute certainty things have improved very little, if at all for this country at large when it comes to shit like this.
my thoughts still stand: fuck Texas
I could be misinformed but does this happen all over America? Over here we are told that in America its the land of the free where individual rights are respected.
Its just Texas right? Or did the part about freedom and individual rights die a quiet death without being publicized.
Over here we are told that in America its the land of the free where individual rights are respected.
ROTFL
Ever heard of the patriot act?
In short, the USA are almost as fashist as nazi germany once was.
A lot of things I am sure are not publicized heavily outside the US. I live in the US and still don't hear about things until weeks later.
Land of the free unless you piss off the hardline christians. I don't know which version of theism that church was but I am impressed they actually got off their ass and helped for once.
I noticed that too, usually you would expect the church to excommunicate them for some free publicity and rabble rousing
The movement to legislate everything that moves is a global one.
Certain areas cope better than others.
Take the ideal American image of "Land of the Free" with a big, big grain of salt.
I wouldn't say it's just Texas, although I'll agree this is pretty typical of Texas.
If you're like me, you stay the fuck out of the South, period. Georgia is another state I can think of where things like this happen, although really it could happen anywhere these days.
Freedom and individual rights here in reality are nothing like what most idiot Americans will tell you. More than what some countries get? Perhaps, but that's no excuse for authority to go around fucking shit up for innocent people like this.
Hello, ignorant: Texas is not a part of the "South".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._South
um...okay then
Texas isn't exactly the south- there's at least some mitigating factors.
Actual freedom will always be a losing battle, as long people see it as an extension of politics.
Freedom in the U.S.? look at all the constitutional rights Americans gave up because the loss "Made it easier for Their leaders to protect them!" from terrorists.
What makes it worse is that the "leaders" were morons.
That's just it- delegating authority will ALWAYS lead to erosion of freedom, it doesn't matter to who.
Not all politicians are morons, either. Some are deeply cynical men who are trying to profit from said erosion.