The Right to Bare Arms (and Legs, and Breasts)

The Facebook generation is coming of age, the teens who don't blush when their parents bring out the naked baby bathtub pictures because they're too busy posting their own soft kiddie porn on line.

Back in the day, and by that I mean when my two older children graduated from high school earlier in the current millennium (which, if you do the math, is not that long ago), yearbook photos were subject to at least one strict guideline: head shots only. Implicit, I suppose, in that guideline, was a requirement that the student be appropriately clothed, at least from the neck up. Seemed reasonable at the time; still does.

Enter a babe-a-licious high school senior somewhere in the surprisingly not so wild wilds of Colorado, an aspiring model who thought it appropriate to submit a vampy shot of herself clad in a glorified bra and panties as her high school yearbook picture. Granted, it was hard for the geeks on the yearbook staff to say no to those smoky bedroom eyes, but, ultimately (possibly with a little help from the administration), they vetoed the shot.

So unfair! The poor child; even her mommy's unconditional support ("everyone has a right to self expression") can't help her. No worries, though. The Class of 2012's Most Likely To is smarter than your average bare ass. While morning show anchors shake their heads in empathy with her plight, she is pouting her way onto computer screens everywhere, maybe even to the cover of People Magazine once Kate Middleton turns thirty-one. Or gets fat.

Let's face it; Matt Lauer has never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but at least he once had youthful good looks on his side. "A slippery slope," he commented with a muted "tsk tsk," offering his support when the porn princess (oops, typo, I meant prom princess) suggested that next the staff would ban pictures of girls wearing something sleeveless. Oh, Matt. Wasn't that a great opportunity to point out the other slippery slope, the one littered with yearbooks full of nudity, maybe even a few masturbation shots for honor students?

Naturally, the issue is moot, since the circulation for this one yearbook picture has no doubt broken all sorts of records, and the little nymphet will be way too busy autographing wallet size copies of her rejected photo to pursue her constitutional rights all the way to the top. Even so, the school might be well advised to draft some guidelines to stave off further slides down the slope. And as for the little nymphet, she might as well enjoy the launching of her brief career before her fifteen minutes are up.