NOT a Pervert
I have 3 small boys of my own and they attend swimming lessons every week at a public pool not far from where I live.
Anyway, last year, I had been bringing the lads for a few weeks in a row and my wife happened to be working, so she was missing out on their heartening progress (ahh... it would make you cry, so it would; like watching them learn to walk all over again, although it does scare you a bit to see them able to swim with better technique than you and thinking it's only a matter of time before they'll b able to pass you out in the pool).
- So, says she, why don't you take the camcorder with you to the pool?
- Really? says I, Don't you think I'll look a bit weird?
- Not at all! says she, sure I'd love to see them swimming.
So, I agreed to do it.
Off with us to the pool - me and my three ducklings, as I sometimes call them as a joke to their faces. They don't find it funny. Anyway, in they go - the 2 older ones in the big pool and the little guy (who's 5) into the baby pool.
So, anyway, I'm there in the public viewing area that overlooks the pool, videoing and waving back to the lads, who do like being noticed and admired by their father. I'm thinking : "She's going to love this, so she is." After racking up a good 20 minutes or so of top class footage, and as I lower the camera once again, a broad smile of satisfaction on my face, the woman who's sitting on the seat next to me leans over and says "Ehh, excuse me, but are you going to be doing that for much longer?" indicating with her scabby finger that by "that", she meant using the camcorder. My blood ran cold at this point because I recognised it as a confrontation and my normal reaction in any such confrontation would be to run away at speed. "Well," I said "Why? Is it bothering you?"
"Well yes, it is. It's just, like, in this day and age, you know, I wouldn't feel that comfortable... you know..."
I stared blankly at her for a second, before pointing out that I was filming my sons and I indicated where the three of them were around the pool.
"Yes, my little daughter is there too. If you don't mind..." she added with a painful persistence.
Now, what the fuck was I supposed to do? On the one hand, I can understand the paranoia of some parents, who are by their nature, constantly scouring their known worlds for dangers of every sort and discussing them in grand detail, focusing in on the horror headlines of the British and Brit-style tabloids that they're stupid enough to pay any attention to. So, I reserve a certain amount of sympathy for them, even though they've possibly conditioned their minds to believing that they're living in South-East England, when in fact they're living in peaceful West Cork.
But, on the other hand, I was angry with this open accusation of me. This bitch had just labelled me a pervert. She felt uncomfortable, but without thinking logically, she had decided to dump her stinking bucket of discomfort on top of my head and stuck a label saying "Pervert Suspect" on me for good measure. And anyway, even assuming that I was a pervert (which she obviously did), what did she possibly imagine that I would do with images of children swimming in a public swimming pool? Did she think that there would be a perverts' market for such a thing? I mean, it wasn't like I was filming in the dressing-room, for fuck's sake!
So, what I felt that I should have said at that point was something like: "Oh, which one's your daughter? Is it the one in the sexy yellow number or the little hotty with cute arse beside her?"
However, instead I succumbed to the fact that this dimwit felt uncomfortable and switched off the thing. I spent the remainder of the time glowering with the humiliation and the stupidity of it, while she rattled away talking to her stupid friends.
The next week, there was even a notice at the entrance "No camcorders allowed". Paranoia has set in and it's here to stay. People are too thick to look around them and engage with their immediate environment and they imagine that they are under attack, living as they do in the fantasy world created from the conditioning of their constant use of foreign media. They don't have enough respect for their fellow citizens to counter their fears.
The perverts have won.
Anyway, last year, I had been bringing the lads for a few weeks in a row and my wife happened to be working, so she was missing out on their heartening progress (ahh... it would make you cry, so it would; like watching them learn to walk all over again, although it does scare you a bit to see them able to swim with better technique than you and thinking it's only a matter of time before they'll b able to pass you out in the pool).
- So, says she, why don't you take the camcorder with you to the pool?
- Really? says I, Don't you think I'll look a bit weird?
- Not at all! says she, sure I'd love to see them swimming.
So, I agreed to do it.
Off with us to the pool - me and my three ducklings, as I sometimes call them as a joke to their faces. They don't find it funny. Anyway, in they go - the 2 older ones in the big pool and the little guy (who's 5) into the baby pool.
So, anyway, I'm there in the public viewing area that overlooks the pool, videoing and waving back to the lads, who do like being noticed and admired by their father. I'm thinking : "She's going to love this, so she is." After racking up a good 20 minutes or so of top class footage, and as I lower the camera once again, a broad smile of satisfaction on my face, the woman who's sitting on the seat next to me leans over and says "Ehh, excuse me, but are you going to be doing that for much longer?" indicating with her scabby finger that by "that", she meant using the camcorder. My blood ran cold at this point because I recognised it as a confrontation and my normal reaction in any such confrontation would be to run away at speed. "Well," I said "Why? Is it bothering you?"
"Well yes, it is. It's just, like, in this day and age, you know, I wouldn't feel that comfortable... you know..."
I stared blankly at her for a second, before pointing out that I was filming my sons and I indicated where the three of them were around the pool.
"Yes, my little daughter is there too. If you don't mind..." she added with a painful persistence.
Now, what the fuck was I supposed to do? On the one hand, I can understand the paranoia of some parents, who are by their nature, constantly scouring their known worlds for dangers of every sort and discussing them in grand detail, focusing in on the horror headlines of the British and Brit-style tabloids that they're stupid enough to pay any attention to. So, I reserve a certain amount of sympathy for them, even though they've possibly conditioned their minds to believing that they're living in South-East England, when in fact they're living in peaceful West Cork.
But, on the other hand, I was angry with this open accusation of me. This bitch had just labelled me a pervert. She felt uncomfortable, but without thinking logically, she had decided to dump her stinking bucket of discomfort on top of my head and stuck a label saying "Pervert Suspect" on me for good measure. And anyway, even assuming that I was a pervert (which she obviously did), what did she possibly imagine that I would do with images of children swimming in a public swimming pool? Did she think that there would be a perverts' market for such a thing? I mean, it wasn't like I was filming in the dressing-room, for fuck's sake!
So, what I felt that I should have said at that point was something like: "Oh, which one's your daughter? Is it the one in the sexy yellow number or the little hotty with cute arse beside her?"
However, instead I succumbed to the fact that this dimwit felt uncomfortable and switched off the thing. I spent the remainder of the time glowering with the humiliation and the stupidity of it, while she rattled away talking to her stupid friends.
The next week, there was even a notice at the entrance "No camcorders allowed". Paranoia has set in and it's here to stay. People are too thick to look around them and engage with their immediate environment and they imagine that they are under attack, living as they do in the fantasy world created from the conditioning of their constant use of foreign media. They don't have enough respect for their fellow citizens to counter their fears.
The perverts have won.
posted by MunsterMad at 9:26 AM
3 Comments:
You are a fucking pervert if I got my hands on you I'd break your skull and smash your balls into smudge you fuckwitted tool.
Elim jacta est
Hard to believe, while reading this, that such profound naiviety can exist in a father of three children.
There is clearly no point in countering your comments which are overloaded with a deep innate bitterness and an absolute lack of social awareness - especially in terms of children and their protection in society.
You just wouldn't get it.
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