heh, sounds like she is learning how to make her body pay, or she is just monumentally stupid. Coupled with the kids on the yearbook staff thinkin this would be funny [maybe she did too, at the time]. Gee, all I ever had to worry about when shooting those pictures was kids throwing gang signs, I should have been so lucky...

"Big Vagina-Like Shadow."
To steal a march on Dave Barry - sounds like a good name for a band.

Okay, so the mother want to avoid humiliation for her daughter and went public, on national tv, about her daughter slutty lack of underwear? Or maybe showing that, once again, crass stupidly can drag anyone in court.

I think the school lawyer will have the proverbial field-trip over this.

I think the mom should be nominated for Mother of the Year. Seriously, she's willing to go on national TV to discuss images of her daughter's naughty bits.

A friend of mine has a name for this type of behavior. "Attention Whore". Someone seems to lack an inhibitory center to her brain, may have passed it on to her daughter, and now wants everyone else to pay for that mistake. Because as we all know, parenting is to be done by the school and the state, not at home. (that's sarcasm for those of you not familiar with it)

Stupid yatch.

1. "Whore" is hardly what you should be judging the girl to be. All teenagers are prone to stupidity...every single one of you were stupid at that age too (and some may still be, it seems).
2. What does parenting have to do with this?? Let's refer back to point #1 - teenagers do stupid things no matter how well they are raised. If yours hasn't, it's just because they haven't been caught by you. I will tell you this for sure - somewhere out there someone has looked at YOUR kid and said "What a fucking moron - who raised that brat".
3. I totally understand how this girl feels her life is ruined. She's a teenager for crying out loud!! Do you people not remember what it's like to be in high school?? Ok - yes, she did somethin dumb (I find it funny)...but she really does think her life is over! On the one hand I am laughing but on the other I do feel badly for her. We all do stupid crap - but we all don't get caught in such a public manner.
4. I don't see them having a case for her life being ruined - but if that is really her snatch in that picture, I smeel a child porn case coming up.

You know, if she hadn't said anything, no one would really have known for certain. It would have been "The Great Yearbook Mystery of 2009: Did That Girl Show Us Her Bush, Or Was That Just A Shadow?"

Hi Karen- I'm originally referring to the mother as the attention whore. Please examine both the preceding sentence and the one containing the observation and notice the progression of the descriptives.

As to the parenting portion, her daughter screwed up, and the mother is looking for remedies beyond where they truthfully belong, with personal responsibility, and at HOME. Not at the school, not at the publisher's, and not in court. It should be handled at home, either across the kitchen table, or more comfortingly on the sofa. Tears will probably be shed, kleenex can be offered, and it can be called a Learning Moment. As in "What have you learned from this fiasco?" Not now. Now this young woman has learned that you throw a tantrum, call the media, give interviews, watch yourself over and over again on internet access content, blow it all way out of proportion, and garner a huge amount of attention which reinforces the behavior.

And yes, I did many a stupid thing as a teenager. I was also allowed to suffer the consequences of my actions. I would say this young woman has not.

Isn't there a pretty obvious solution to this problem? When they realized the problem, someone from the school should have taken a permanent marker and just blotted out the student. Even if they had already distributed the books, there are ways of leaning on the kids to get them back.

I'm with Juliana.

In some cultures a girl shows she's available by putting a flower behind her ear.

What do American girls put behind their ears to show they're available?

... their ankles.

I blame bush.

The school has spent way too much money printing these, so unless the mom offers to replace them, they shouldn't destroy and reprint them. (It doesn't look like Mommy has enough money to do this.)

I've seen the uncensored picture and trust me, you can't see anything beyond a shadow that's normally there anyway.

The mother is the attention whore. The kid made a dumb mistake and will be teased about it all thru high school. (And if that's the worse thing that happens to her in life, she's getting it easy.)

I hope the mom is happy- She's made her daughter an internet meme.

Maybe next year, the girl will wear pantyhose or a thong. The shadow will still be there, but it will be just a shadow.

I'm with Juliana.

Amy,

I am with you and Julia, to a point. Especially your mention of Overlawyed.

I do not know what is possessing anybody to be sympathetic to the daughter or the mother.

This is not a "screw up", it is the mom not giving her daughter the basics of proper public appearance and behavior. It does not stop there either. She had to know better from her friends too.

Jockey and other manufacturers make panty-line free panties for women. This is not rocket science.

Sorry Juliet - I was referring to the term "slutty lack of underwear" that Toubrouk had to say. Please examine what other people have said in the forum. I also mentioned that I don't think their actual case has any merit.

They have not shown the picture properly for us to judge on the matter. To be honest - if some kids cootchie is on full display in the yearbook, it should have been removed. Not because it was stupid move on the girls part or the impact it has on her life, but pussy has no place in a high school yearbook. There are editors for such things and if it is a blatant crotch shot, it was the editors mistake for publishing it. Whether on purpose or accidental on the part of the person in the picture, editors for high school yearbooks are responsible for the content of the package it presents. I am quite sure they are not supposed to allow breasts, butts, penis or vaginas in the yearbook (for obvious reasons).

If the picture really is not clear then there is good reason for an editor to miss it then no mistake has been made. Like i said - the picture was fuzzed out in the new report so it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to decide for ourselves.

I'm with Juliana, too. If my daughter ended up with a shot of her snooch in the yearbook, I certainly wouldn't advertise it to the entire country.

Of course, my mom taught me how to sit property when wearing a skirt. The girl obviously hasn't learned anything from this incident... did anyone else notice the way she was sitting during the interview? Hmm?

So now, they're threatening to sue the school? How appropriate... hmph. I think that the yearbook staff should get an apology from that girl; they put a lot of effort into the annual, and this girl is fucking it up because Momma didn't teach her the importance of wearing panties when you've got a dress on. Yearbooks are EXPENSIVE. The cost that they charge the students for the actual book doesn't even begin to cover the real cost of publication. That's why yearbook staff have to do fundraisers and sell ads.

Unfortunately, they're probably going to have to go through and either mark out the picture, or remove the page with the offending photo. They can publish an insert later. That's pretty lame, though.

I saw that too ahw but hey I'm just a pervy man for lookin. :) I should really avert my gaze as she sits on the couch with her dress hiked up damn near the equator while on tv. At least she had her hands strategically placed. That had me considering both mom and daughter as attention whores. This is a good lesson for the girl to learn and she needs to grow up and laugh it off otherwise its going to ruin her whole life as she makes herself a drama queen that no one will want to be around.

I dub this Cootergate 2009: Attack of the Beaver's Shadow.

I think the girl did it intentionally but when mom found out, she changed her tune.

Are panty lines in a group picture really that big a problem?

"All teenagers are prone to stupidity...every single one of you were stupid at that age too"

BS; I'm tired of hearing this claptrap about teenagers all being inherently stupid. I knew smart teenagers who grew to be smart adults, and stupid teenagers who grew to be stupid adults.

"Are panty lines in a group picture really that big a problem?" Conan

only when they aren't there...

truly, the appropriate action is for the girl to be punished by going through each and every yearbook with a marker to mark in some pantsu.

She is wasting everyone elses time, and is in the wrong here.

I always thing of panty lines as being visible when the person is viewed from behind. What kind of photo did the kid think this was going to be. Everyone was going to be looking back over their shoulder at the camera?

I think the kid did it intentionally.

In any case, at most it seems like a black marker and some time is all that is needed here.

I must say this girl was extremely stupid - I always thought all little girls were taught from a young age to close their legs for photos etc., especially if not wearing panties (!). This kind of "mistake" you make when you're 8, by her age you most certainly are supposed to know better ... if you don't have the self-control to keep your legs closed, you can't expect the entire world to constantly watch out for you instead. There was clearly a parenting "lapse" here.

That said, and on the other hand, I think it's unbelievably disgusting that the school is not doing anything about it, and in fact are knowingly distributing more books with this in - that is incredibly sick and disgusting and vile, and frankly I hope they sue the school for distributing child porn or something.

Note it's also the responsibility of publication *editors* to catch just such things before publishing something ... this should never have gotten this far. The school was in the wrong for letting it get as far as being published. They then, furthermore, should have responded pro-actively when notified! Smells to me like the actions of a guilty party attempting to avoid admitting liability by claiming nothing is wrong. The subject of a photo in a publication is not responsible for the action of publishing that photo and making sure it's safe to publish. That's why publications have editors, and the editor is always responsible for what gets published.

Now that you've publicized the fact that the yearbook is basically soft-core porn, good luck collecting the ones that have already gone out.

Any time you run around sans undergarments, you run the risk of exposure - especially in a dress.

Has this girl never heard of wind?

Was she isolated in a convent when Brittany flashed the world?

Did she not see "The Simpsons" episode in which Groundskeeper Willie wore a kilt?

"I think the girl did it intentionally but when mom found out, she changed her tune."

Conan, you may be right. Think back towards the beginning of the school year, when a bunch of celebutants (Brit-brit, Paris, Lindsay Lohan) "accidentally" revealed themselves going commando and paparazzi recorded it for posterity. This has the makings of a prank.
Why would this girl make such an overt fuss, unless she was afraid it would go unnoticed? If truly concerned, she could still address this with the school admin, publisher, etc. on a quieter scale than calling in a full-court media press.

Bugger. I come in with the redundancy prize for hitting "submit" two minutes after Conan.

Why would this girl make such an overt fuss, unless she was afraid it would go unnoticed? If truly concerned, she could still address this with the school admin, publisher, etc. on a quieter scale than calling in a full-court media press.

Mom may also be involved. You make a big deal out of the humiliation and your indignation so the lawsuit has a better chance to succeed.

I think the girl did it intentionally but when mom found out, she changed her tune.

Paris Hilton sure got a lot of attention that way.

"I'm tired of hearing this claptrap about teenagers all being inherently stupid."

It's actually scientifically proven that the teenaged brain is not wired the same as a adults. Their logic and reasoning circuits have not matured and this is why they tend to do more daring, crazy stunts without really thinking of the consequences.

http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=news-in-rev/teen-frontal

for more info

It's actually scientifically proven that the teenaged brain is not wired the same as a adults.

This is true and has a lot to do with boys driving stupid and being loud to get attention from girls.

It is also true for girls acting dumb, doing their hair big and wearing too much makeup.

Has something to do with both drinking and toking too much too.

Bit it has NOTHING to do with not wearing panties when the camera can see up your dress.

This is an ongoing problem in the schools. Whether it is a lack of panties or anything that kids do now days,the parents go to the schools and defend their kids for their kids bad behavior.
Their children are always victims and the school should have been watching their kid better.

When I grew up the parents felt a responsibility to send a kid to school that could behave properly. We were kids and we occasionally did things on a dare. If we got caught we were held accountable and not the school.
My friends son held his middle finger pointed down during freshman football pictures. They got a call from the school. The kid got detention at school, my buddy grounded him and cut his cool Joe Namath golden locks down to a crew cut. As a betting man, I'm betting his son won't be making that same gesture next year.
As TV's show Baretta used to say "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

> I blame bush.
>
> Posted by: Eric at May 16, 2009 7:54 AM

Anyone? Did that register with anyone at all? Did anybuddy even hear the rustling wind as it flew by? (Props anyway, dude... Don't feel bad! Nobody responded to Amy's point about "smelling a case for Overlawyered," either.)

(And since when does a cooter cast a 'big shadow'?)

Listen, I have a personal rule for internet fulfillment which forbids watching freak-of-the-week youtube clips of the tase-me-bro / Britney-haircut school.*

So will someone watch this and please tell us if the girl had a loving father in the home? Or if the mother had a loving father in her home? Anyone wanna wager?

Julianna's right to say this is the sort of thing that ought to be handled in the home, but this is the behavior of someone who doesn't have an intimate relationship with a parent who sets boundaries. It's a backhanded, desperate-cry-for-help thing. And setting those boundaries isn't the responsibility of the larger community. If it were, we'd be more worried about inner-city gangbangers than goofy suburban girls.

---

* I finally got around to watching Susan Boyle. What was fascinating is that her singing was mixed so low that you often couldn't judge her precious "talent"... For several passages, people in the auditorium were verbally describing their amazement –in full speaking voice and camera foreground– as she was delivering the performance which was supposed to amaze us..

This is not simply like a fool who talks during a movie... It's not just that people think the whole world is their living room. It's that people are so desperate for these tales of melodrama and commuppance that the evoked emotions are essentially impervious to poor telling. Pavlov! People think they're supposed to feel admiration for her singing, whether they actually do or not. Religion works that way, too. Ratzinger and Cowell are in the same enterprise!

If this girl thinks this is the end of the world, she should go to Walter Reed hospital and talk to and see veterans with missing limbs etc... and hear their stories.

I think if would give her a realistic perspective on the magnitude of her problem.

>"I blame Bush." Made me chuckle out loud. I just didn't comment.

Um, yeah, Crid, we got it. Eric made a bush joke, and it was funny. Is it not enough for you that we laugh out loud and move on, or do we all have to post him a standing ovation on the internet?

Or were you just being cuntrary?

Crid, we got the joke. But it wasn't exactly exquisitely funny.

And after eight years of Dubya in office, I'm sure that in every corner of the world they have thoroughly exhausted gag lines involving conflating the name of the former President with female genitalia.

Eight years ago you might have been on the cutting edge of comedy!

"If this girl thinks this is the end of the world, she should go to Walter Reed hospital and talk to and see veterans with missing limbs etc... and hear their stories.

I think if would give her a realistic perspective on the magnitude of her problem."

David, you assume that physical suffering is always worse than psychological suffering or shame. For some people, losing a limb would actually be easier to deal with than being publicly humiliated.

On a similar note, the other day I was walking down the street and I shunted another pedestrian into the gutter. When they turned to complain, I set them straight:

"If you think this is the end of the world, you should go to Walter Reed hospital and talk to and see veterans with missing limbs etc ... and hear their stories. I think it will give you a realistic perspective on the magnitude of your problem"

You gotta love those wounded vets. They provide such convenient fall guys for whenever you need to dismiss someone else's problems.

BTW: Did I mention starving children in Africa? Must save that for next time!

>David, you assume that physical suffering is >always worse than psychological suffering or >shame. For some people, losing a limb would >actually be easier to deal with than being >publicly humiliated.

Nick, Not sure what planet your living on when you say that there are people who would rather lose a limb than be publicly shamed.

Give me an example if your so sure of yourself. And I'm not talking about the japanese culture, I'm talking about the context of this culture and this arguement.

Lets take the Paris Hilton sex tape. Do you think she would choose public humiliation at the highest level or losing a limb?
She is way more famous and has more public humiliation than this girl will ever deal with.

"If you think this is the end of the world, you should go to Walter Reed hospital and talk to and see veterans with missing limbs etc ... and hear their stories. I think it will give you a realistic perspective on the magnitude of your problem"

You gotta love those wounded vets. They provide such convenient fall guys for whenever you need to dismiss someone else's problems.

BTW: Did I mention starving children in Africa? Must save that for next time!
--------------
Nick, you must be a bleeding heart liberal as you offered nothing but critism for my arguement but offered nothing from yourself.

Perhaps a nice hefty law suit against the school, so that we can teach everyone else out there that anytime you are a minor and do something stupid someone else is to blame.

And when you are talking personal embarrassment yes losing a limb or starving no matter who you are are legitimate arguements and can put things in perspective.

I would like to know what you would do?

"It's actually scientifically proven that the teenaged brain is not wired the same as a adults."

Right, so scientifically this girl was incapable of wearing panties and keeping her legs closed for a photo. Yeah, whatever. Dunno how I managed to go the first twenty years of my life without doing anything stupendously dumb, likewise for many of the other intelligent, mature, well-raised people that I knew at school who were pretty capable of controlling themselves, and grew up into like adults.

I guess I grew up in a different time, when there were these quaint concepts called "discipline" and "a sense of personal responsibility for your actions", and even teenagers were held to them, even when adults weren't around.

Lots of adults do dumb things all the time, we just don't get to blame it on "being a teen". What distinguishes humans from animals is our ability to recognize the consequences of our possible future actions and change our actions accordingly. I've always found that the type of people who whine the loudest about forgiving mistakes and being allowed to "make mistakes" when you're a teen, are those who weren't bothered to be disciplined when they were teens, and usually still aren't.

While it's true that everyone makes mistakes, I've found that it's also generally the case that the people who cry "everyone makes mistakes" the loudest, and cry the loudest for others in society to adopt more mistake "safety nets" for them, tend to be those who are the laziest when it comes to controlling themselves and thinking about their actions. Not always, but a general truth.

Incidentally, if you look around the Net, you'll find some interesting pictures of this "mother" partying it up with her daughter and teenage friends, in their house, complete with drug use and underage drinking not just under her nose, but her taking part in all of the above too. So yes, she's a crappy parent with an undisciplined child. This is just another lousy parent who wants the world to cushion the fall when they make stupid mistakes.

"Perhaps a nice hefty law suit against the school, so that we can teach everyone else out there that anytime you are a minor and do something stupid someone else is to blame."

Quick thought experiment: If I'm at the scene of some major news incident, and stand in the background where reporters are taking photos and flash the cameras, whose fault is it really if pictures of my nude self end up being published in a newspaper? (And what if I am underage, just to make it more interesting?) Isn't it the editor's *job description* to check what gets published? If you bought a newspaper with that in, you'd blame the newspaper for sure, not the stranger in the photo. Furthermore, the school was notified in advance of distributing thousands of these books, and still did nothing. Now sure, we don't hold yearbook editors up to the same standards as a newspaper, but surely we hold them up to *some* standards.

Uh, I went to trueslant and he had written, like you, that her vagina was hanging out. Was she sent to the hospital to have it put back in?

Vulva, vulva, not vagina. The vagina ends at the opening,it is the internal part of the genetalia. The external genitalia are the vulva aka labia, majora and minora, and prepuce/clitoris. We won't even go into the urethral meatus above the vaginal opening. The schools have failed so many so much.

> Or were you just being cuntrary?

Too late to make friends!

> BTW: Did I mention starving
> children in Africa? Must save
> that for next time!

Word.

> I would like to know what
> you would do?

I'm kinda with Nick... What I was trying to get at earlier is that when kids misbehave in these ways, it's not about a failure of the broader society.

When the broader society dreams of of fixing problems like this, it dreams of doing it with inexpensive, short-term, emotionally gratifying bitch-slap techniques, as if a sparky little burst of shame were likely to do anything more than irritate a kid who's already off the tracks.

The person who truly convinces a little girl not to strip for the class photo, or convinces the gangbanger not to stab his classmate, is going to be an intimate.

Or not. (Nobody got back to me on what her father thought of this scandal.)

I tend to agree that with any publication, the editors have some responsibility to pick up things like this before it gets to publication. That said, there was clearly contributory negligence on the girl's part, so perhaps she or her parents should contribute some of the cost of pulping the books and reprinting.

"No, you don't -- a bunch of students putting together a yearbook are amateurs, and frankly, so is the teacher in charge of them. They don't have exacting standards for scoping out photos with a loup. I think the standard is probably "Do you have the photo of the glee club and is it reasonably in focus." "

But it's no defence to say that people can simply publish whatever they please on the grounds that they are amateurs, not professionals. If I published a whole lot of defamatory material I could not simply go into court and say "hey, I'm an amateur. So what."

With any publication like this, unless someone is prepared to sign off on it or accept legal responsibility, it ought not be published.

The other issue here is that even if the girl had worn underwear, would it have been acceptable for her underwear to have appeared in the school yearbook?

So this raises a couple of issues. Should the school have allowed skirts that short, especially for these photos?

Surely any photographer who is not a moron would organise the students in such a way as to minimise the likelihood of things like unsavoury crotch shots ruining the photo. At the very least, if there are girls in the front row then get them to put their hands on their laps or something.

Generally these photos are taken by professional photographers, so this sort of stuff should be elementary.

"The young lady at the front. I want you to sit commando style with your skirt hoiked up as far as it will go. Now, all smile and say cheese!"

I was thinking that maybe this girl was just having a bad hair day.

Sorry. Couldn't resist!

When I was on the high school yearbook staff we spent hour upon hour with magnifying glasses looking for anything our sponsor deemed inappropriate. Each year we had a few pictures rejected and a few retaken, usually because of some young lady who forgot to put hers knees together.

It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it. I would recommend volunteering for the yearbook staff to all future voyeuristic journalists.

This is an early lesson in personal responsibility. This girl is not in grade school.
I have one friend that is a teacher and one that is a teaching assistant.

They tell me the children who misbehave and whose parents take their kids side, are the kids they consistently have problems with.

The kids whose parents hold them responsible(which is becoming less and less all the time)they have very few problems with them.

Amy, just trying to my part for proper anatomical description. Which is why I do prefer the soft sibilant slang "pussy", no confusion there.

After seeing the pictures of the mom and daughter in party mode at invizabletouch.com I can see we have another mother of the year candidate.

See those pictures and you can see this girl is far from innocent.

The daughter is back pedaling with an excuse and mom is going to try and cash in if she can get a bleeding heart jury.

"Vulva"

I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? ;)

This is the everyone is a victim mentality so popular in our culture today.

Couldn't be her fault she didn't wear panty's.

The nanny government needs to come in and save the day.

Maybe they (the government) can institute a mandatory panty check before every picture.

"Generally these photos are taken by professional photographers, so this sort of stuff should be elementary" Nick.

Some places that is true, some places not. I worked that school photography jungle for 10 years in Illinois, it is true in many places there. In Colorado? Not. I'm guessin it wouldn't have made it through had it been a professional, because that is what they are... professionals. If it had been on film, it would have been noticed in quality control coming out of the lab. If it was digital, it would be under the same scrutiny. They don't just send raw files over to the school, because their compnay name is on the yearbook.

If it was a student yearbook staff, OTOH. Different ballgame. ESPECIALLY if the section editor is in on the joke, which I am sure it was. It had to make it into the final file to the printer in that condition, without anyone scrutinizing it too much. Once the final file is sent to the publishing house, they don't likely look for editiroial content.

Either way, the kid knew what she was doing, since she was holding up the skirt. So all the faux tears now are bull. The mom too is just lookin for a buck.

Sure perhaps they should be reprinted, but it is the offending party that must pay. Which is the kid, and her mom.

On the other hand,

Swiss Army, when I was at school they generally used to hire a photography company to come in and do all the photos on one or two days so I assumed that was the situation here. I guess that is not what happens everywhere though.

I agree that the mom is probably just out to make a buck from this. If she was really so concerned about her daughter, then why go on fucking national television to generate more notoriety?

If she did it deliberately, then she or her mom should have to pay the cost of reprinting or correcting the books.

It's people like this who give white trash a bad name!

My high school cropped a pentacle necklace out of my senior yearbook photo. What the hell were the editor and faculty advisor doing with their time that this made it into the yearbook in the first place?

My high school cropped a pentacle necklace out of my senior yearbook photo.

That is just remarkably stupid. That is a pagan symbol of protection.