The Daily Newds 5/14/09

• In the fallout the Carrie Prejean Miss California fiasco, a photographer contradicts her story that her breasts were exposed because the wind blew open her top.

  (Domnic) Petruzzi says he shot the photos on a "normal day" and it's ridiculous to blame it on a breeze. As for Prejean's claim the pics were taken between shots for the modeling session (she was posing for Bliss Magazine), Petruzzi says -- "she was totally posing and looking into the camera."

• The co-executive director of the Miss California Pageant resigned yesterday saying she no longer believes in the organization because Prejean was allowed to keep her crown, despite apparent violations of her agreement.
• Yet more Prejean news. The Baptist Standard reports that conservatives are split over the beauty queen and if she is the appropriate role model for Christian women.

  Writer Dave Welch added comments on the conservative website World Net Daily in his article, "Is Carrie Prejean Really a Hero?" "I respect Miss Prejean for her stand and her willingness to testify of her faith," Welch wrote. "However, I much more highly admire, respect and esteem my wife, my daughters and all the girls and women who have chosen the higher road. They are determined to show that their worth is not in how they look in a bathing suit but that they are wonderful creations of a loving God who designed them with meticulous detail as they are."

• Is Gok Wan "genuinely interested in changing the perception of beauty", or is he just exploiting ordinary people with his contest "Miss Naked Beauty"?
• A clear sign that mass media and cultural pressures are destroying the body images of yet another generation, British swimming champion Rebecca Adlington, age 19, thinks of herself as "unfeminine".

  "I think there is a problem in that girls don't think it's cool to be sporty. I had that feeling when I used to trudge into school after training with my hair wet, smelling of chlorine, with no make-up on and thinking, 'Oh God, all the other girls look fantastic.' We need to change the view that you can't be a sportswoman and be feminine. I am certainly feminine outside the pool.'"

• Radio talk show Michael Smerconish puts his ass on the line. Literally.
• A Nevada assemblyman was reprimanded for viewing pictures of "scantily clad women" on his own personal computer.
• Legal challenges continue in Virginia over the constitutionality of regulations defining nudity in adult establishments.

  The ABC board revised its own regulations, which prohibit the display of "genitals, pubic hair or anus by an entertainer, or any portion of the areola of the breast of a female entertainer."

• In the face of mounting legal pressures, Craigslist will no longer offer an "Erotic Services" category, and will create a new one titled "Adult Services". That should do the trick.
• Julie Hilden, writing on FindLaw, says that prosecutors should not charge sexting teens with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor".

  It would be absurd, for instance, for two sixteen-year-olds who are dating to be deemed criminals because each sent a nude photo of him- or herself to the other, while meaning for the photo to be kept entirely private. Teenagers do have First Amendment rights – and, with the exception of obscene (and in this context, obscene-as-to-minors) speech, sexual speech is protected.

• Auburn, California, seeks to crack down on nudity and "lewd acts" on a remote stretch of the American River.

  Council members say the beach has long been a destination for nude sunbathers without a problem. But it's recently become known for sex encounters after it became more accessible to boaters with the opening of a new section of river last year.

• A 35,000 year old figure of a voluptuous nude woman is perhaps the world's oldest sculpture.