Child Gets Nintendo 3DS Full of Porn For Christmas 370
dotarray writes "One Colorado family received more than they'd bargained for this Christmas when they gave five-year-old Braydon Giles a pre-owned Nintendo 3DS that apparently still contained 'graphic images' from a previous owner. From the article: 'Refurbishing is an art, as well as a craft. The whole point is to make a gadget feel pristine, even when it used to be owned by a cult leader, a scout leader or an exhibitionist.
Sadly, someone in a Colorado GameStop stopped refurbishing before the job was complete.
So much so that 5-year-old Braydon Giles opened his Xmas gift — a Nintendo 3DS — and discovered images of naked people doing less than pristine things. As Channel 9 News tells it, Braydon showed the 3DS to his brother Bryton. He wanted his help to remove these weird pictures. '"
Re:Make love not war (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you miss the point of the question, or at least a very important point here. Nudity != pornography, at least in Europe. It is not at all rare to see nudity in commercials or programs in much of European TV, for example, even on, say, Viva, the German analogue to MTV. Which is of course watched by kids.
Now this in itself may be off topic to the original post here, as it does sound that what the child found on the 3DS could be considered pornography most anywhere. I still think it is a very interesting set of questions: Where does the line between art, or documentary photography, and porn lie? How does this vary by country, or regionally? At what age is nudity ok for people to view? And what age pornography? What affect does viewing such "too early" have?
Now, I'm ultra-liberal. I don't believe pornography should be regulated for adults, and I believe that education is the best defense, not regulation beyond reason (again, entirely subjective).
So, apologies for being off-topic, but I think parent should think twice before dismissing the question of differing cultural and national attitudes toward nudity.
The Dad is an idiot (Score:4, Interesting)
While I would be pissed if this happened to me as well, lets look at a quote from the full article:
"You can't un-see this. He's five years old. Maybe when he's 18 or 20 maybe he won't know anything about it but he's not going to forget about it tomorrow,"
I'll bet a months pay that unless someone reminds him, he won't remember it in a week. He might not forget it tomorrow, but in a week he'll be long past it. By the time next christmas comes around he won't remember a thing that happened this christmas unless you bring it up to him and point it out, if you ask him what he got for christmas last year he'd probably have to put serious effort into thinking about it. His mind has far more important things to worry about ... like being a fucking 5 year old and playing video games themselves or playing with his friends/toys.
On that same note however, when he's 18 or 20, he probably WILL remember it and picture it in his quest to satisfy himself when he can't get a date or some else to do it. Of course, at that point he'll be looking at any sexually arousing thing on the planet and wanting to bone its brains out so its really stupid to care.
This guy is just trying to blow it out of proportion to extort some money from GameStop. Fucking leech.
Gamestop Fail (Score:2, Interesting)
I process returns at a retail store, this situation happened at the location I work at. It was with a digital camera instead of a 3ds, but otherwise the same. The parent complained, and a new policy was set of sending all returned electronics with internal memory back to the manufacturer for a reset. You can't expect someone working at minimum wage to know how to operate every electronic device the store sells, and how to do the factory reset (if it even has such a function). Many of the units are uncharged, which requires charging the battery beforehand in order to wipe it.
TBH I saw this coming a mile away when I first heard of the DSi having a camera. I'm just waiting for the case of a refurbished 3ds with pics a teenager took of themselves nude.
Re:Translation (Score:4, Interesting)
I assure you, having seen my first porn at around age 6 or so, courtesy of another kid down the street whose Dad didn't hide his collection very well, that you don't actually forget that you saw it even if your parents have no idea you saw it. I can't remember for the life of me anything about it, but I knew it was porn.
Re:Human sentimentality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Kids are violent from the moment they are born.
They're also sexual from the moment they are born. Not to the same extent as when hitting puberty, but certainly not asexual cherubs.
Some repress and deny that they themselves were sexual creatures even as children, quite possibly out of guilt, thinking it was themselves there was something wrong with.
But pictures of grown-ups? Largely uninteresting to a five year old boy, I should think. To him, it would be a lemon party - something to say "yuck" at and delete.
Which apparently he tried to do, and it was his father who blew a fuse, not the kid. Sure, the kid is probably traumatized now, by his father's behavior.
And unless he changes his name, likely to be ridiculed in a few years in school, when classmates enter his name in a search engine. All thanks to dad, who wanted his fifteen minutes of fame, but apparently didn't give a flying fuck about causing his kids problems.
Re:Why sex is deemed not "pristine"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as natural is the act of guarding the privacy of sex. It reinforces the advantages of the natural practice of monogamy in nature in general.
You have never been to the park in spring and seen ducks fuck? Or looked out a city window to see pigeons fuck? They certainly don't hide it.
And if you're of European descent, neither did your ancestors. The sleeping partition of typical houses was for everyone, both children and adults, and the adults fucked with the children present. It was no more interesting to the kids than watching the farm animals go at it.
If anything, fucking in front of others strengthens monogamous relationships, because you make your claim on the partner where others of your gender can see it. And that's at least partially why couples kiss in public too.
Re:Why sex is deemed not "pristine"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people can get off on Saw. It really straddles somewhere between extreme S&M and snuff. So our priorities are extreme S&M/snuff - rated R; normal porn however - rated X.
Aww hey.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw porn as a kid initially because some blew into my Grandparents' back garden from a neighbour who'd had his stash ripped up.. Probably some domestic there, but I can remember wondering why the women were wearing pretend beards in strange places. I thought it was funny and an oddity.. Couldn't have been more than 6 at the time..
Then a few years later (still sub 10), one of my friends uncovered his dad's stash.. There was the thrill of doing something I knew I wasn't meant to be doing, but nothing out of the ordinary. No ill effects, apart from the fallout from having my folks hit the roof when they found out about it..
A few years later, I watched a horror movie (that would be considered tame by today's standards) and I didn't sleep properly for weeks, and I remember being so nervous and anxious for ages.. Hey, I got over that too.. But from my perspective and recall, being exposed to horror and violence is far more damaging to a young psyche than porn.. But being young, you get over it.
Now for real problems, you just have to step over into a third world country where death is common and visible, people you know are abducted and killed. Disease is rife and a killer. And yet some of them are far more well adjusted than a lot of the people I've seen raised in 'safe' environments...