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March 23 1988 letter from Lee Baxandall (The Naturist Society) to Arne Erikson (The American Sunbathing Association [ASA, now AANR]).
Arne Eriksen
American Sunbathing Association
1703 N. Main Street
Kissimmee, FL 32743
Dear Arne,
I enjoyed our meeting last week and found much in it that is positive and constructive. Please forgive me, and do not withhold your attention, if I now outline one matter in our talks that deeply troubles me.
It was your roar of delight as you exclaimed at how much you like the advertising revenues that you get from a monthly H&E [Health & Efficiency]ad; revenues which add to an ASA financial growth of which you may in other respects be justifiably proud.
However, I am convinced you do not understand what H&E means to the reputation of ASA. To give H&E visibility in the American nudist community severely tarnishes the ASA image and reputation. And it also encourages pedophiles and pedarasts into our community.
I will not be silent about this, and I will become only more vocal about it until others in ASA stop the H&E advertising, if you will not.
I know you've already got your justifications in place, but hear me out.
I know you ignore, or swallow, H&E's crass appeal to the "men's magazine" market, as that appeal is wrapped incredibly in the garb of 'naturist' claims. Arne, instead consider, then, that the H&E corporation also publishes one other magazine, Jeunes et Naturels. Moreover, *every issue* of H&E carries a full page ad for Jeunes et Natureis.
J&N caters undisguisedly to pedophiles. This is why I find it disgusting that Peenhill are supported, and a chain of advertising is initiated in The ASA Bulletin, which encourages pedophiles to find what they want in nudism and then leads them to J&N.
Will you question that Jeunes et Naturels is the youth- oriented photomagazine of prurient interest? Any photographer wanting to study how Camera Angle will silently make the difference between a normal and a Prurient interest in children, may study J&N. Either its photographers are dwarfs or their sex-emotional growth or ethics are stunted.
You be the judge, Arne, as their cameras shoot at their shorter-than-adult subjects from the level of these small breasts, vaginas, and penises.
Is the interest perhaps in Family Nudism? No. Issue no. 15 currently distributed (March 1988), for example, includes a total of 336 frontal images of nude juveniles - from smallish images in groups, to 11" high crotch-level views on the all-color pages. Only seven nude adult woman and six nude adult males appear in similar fore or middle ground poses. Adults appear only incidentally; this is not a "family nudist" publication. Its audience is inescapeable for juveniles do not buy it.
Talk about latchkey children, these kids are seen through the keyholes! Where are their parents? Who are they? What nudist clubs put these kids on exhibition for commercial exploitation? Does anybody care? Do you care? But we should care; ask survivors of America's wave of similar 'nudist' magazines in the Sixties, about the devastation that awaited some of the young 'models'. (More on this is available if you are unbelieving.)
No photographer is 'credited', no editor is named, and just one individual, one 'Robert Galonl for text (almost nonexistent amid the pix), is named. No advertisements. Only one address is given: That of H&E's business office at Peenhill Ltd. in London.
Peenhill, Arne, are the "Ugly (non)Nudist" Publishers of our time. Peenhill are the equivalent of notorious forerunners in the Sixties, described by child-abuse policeman Toby Tyler (as you heard at the Nudist Park Management Conference last October), as the exploiters of innocent nudists, leading pedophiles and pedarasts to explore the nudist parks. (Did you not hear Tyler's talk? I'll send it to you.)
Arne, your tolerance of Peenhill, Ltd.'s publications in ASA goes beyond the normal realm of disagreements of taste and standards. It opens the stinking box of child predation and the bringing of sexual criminals into our environment.
For this reason, I am prepared to carry this to the local leadership and entire membership of ASA in every way that I am able to do so. I am first offering you this one final opportunity, quietly to dissociate ASA from this disgusting advertiser, before I do so.
Hereafter, I won't keep it quiet if you find you cannot agree.
Naturally, Lee Baxandall, March 23 1988
cc: To no one at this point.
[Nikki Craft interjects: When Baxandall wants to accomplish things behind the scenes he takes for granted his right to use heavy-handed tactics and threats.]
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