There was a Country song out a while back, something about kids finding pictures of Mama, before she was Mama.

About what is legal – you can find a lawyer to give you an interpretation under your local and federal laws. But you can find a lawyer to take about any position you can imagine, and many that I cannot imagine.

A picture sent electronically, might get to parents, friends, the workplace, children. They can turn up years later, and very far from where they were supposed to be. Sending a beloved, sincere husband or wife erotic pictures is very different, than sending something to someone that hasn’t pledged their life and lived up to that pledge. Stuff happens.

Look at the kids today, getting into trouble with “child pornography” for sending nekkid pictures of themselves to classmates. Some places are recognizing this as minor and brushing it off – other places are treating it like sex crimes, including lifelong entry in a sex offender registry.

There are model releases and various records that are supposed to be kept on anything with an “adult” theme, records that have to be kept apparently until the last particle of grit falls from the last computer media on earth. Or until we trash the censors in Washington.

One area that struggles to maintain a presence is the long-lived body acceptance movements, the naturists or nudists, depending on the organization. A casual offended-by-sex crusader typically doesn’t understand that naked and sex act are unrelated. Thus naturist families have tough choices to make about family photos, vacation shots, etc.

Theoretically, in many places, if you have the records that anyone in the pictures consents (and you track the pictures, should anyone withdraw their consent), you don’t involve minors or other violations of local and federal laws, you shouldn’t have an issue. Most of the time there won’t be an immediate problem. But stuff does happen, and digital pictures tend to get surprising distributions. One for instance – in ten years, today’s sweet lover might become the hated about-to-be-ex-husband – with a handful of compromising images that won’t help you in court.

My own feeling is that getting too much electronic communication involved in the love life is a mistake. We see how EUMs rely on textmail, how little phone calls really mean, compared to investing the time and effort of face-to-face, actual physical visits offer.

Brad K.’s last blog post..br: Dignity and choosing a partner