Censorship

There's a newspaper ad for Blue Cross that depicts a little baby on the beach, being held up in a standing position by his hand by an adult, so that he can play at walking. I can't tell you numerically how old the baby would be, but he's too young to walk by himself, but old enough to walk in a walker or when held up by a grownup. He's just a bit taller than up to his parent's knees. The photo is taken from the back, so we see the back of the baby framed by his parent's legs, and the slogan says "Protection doesn't get any better than this," with a blurb on the side about Blue Cross. The ad is on the bottom of page A22 of today's Toronto Star, if you want to see it.

I've seen this ad before. When I saw it before, the baby was naked. Today, the baby has a blue bathing suit rather obviously edited on. It's rather funny, because if the bathing suit were real it wouldn't leave any room for a diaper, and I seriously doubt anyone would take a baby that age out in clothing without a diaper.

I'm kind of surprised that people would complain. In retrospect I can see their point, because the nudity was completely gratuitous and I'd assume this would be the sort of thing that would titillate a pedophile, but it would never have occurred to me upon seeing the original ad that someone might complain.