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Teen Model’s Parents File $28 Million Lawsuit Over ‘Salacious’ Crotch Photo

Posted on | August 19, 2011 | 17 Comments

Has the world gone completely insane? Pole-dancing classes for 7-year-olds, 12-year-old bikini models, academics trying to de-stigmatize pedophilia and now this:

Clothes store Urban Outfitters is being sued for using sexually suggestive pictures of a 15-year-old model on some of its merchandise.
The ‘salacious’ images, taken in March 2010, showed the girl — named this morning in the New York Post as Hailey Clauson — with her legs spread in a provocative pose.
Her parents are suing photographer Jason Lee Parry, Urban and two other stores for $28 million damages, claiming they did not give permission for the photographs to be used on T-shirts and other apparel. . . .
It is also claimed that Mr Parry – who specialises in topless shots – agreed never to release the image after a complaint from the girl’s agent at the time.  . . .

Read the rest. The photo in question has been online since April 2010, and the lawsuit doesn’t seem to be generating sympathy from commenters:

Please… she should sue her mother for being on the set and allowing her to be posed this way. She has many other over the top sexy pictures so what… she is going to sue every photographer for her choices.

As if this is her most provocative picture? Mommy & Daddy have pimped out their child for far worse, they are suing becasue they are not getting any money from the sales of the shirts with this image, spare us the decency line, as if you know what that is!

Let’s ask some questions: Why is a 15-year-old working as a top fashion model? Who are the designers, advertising directors and magazine editors who represent the demand side of this market equation? Why aren’t the readers of fashion magazines (i.e., women) complaining about advertising and pictorials which offer anorexic adolescents as a beauty ideal?

That’s the real kick in the head: These “provocative” and “salacious” images aren’t being produced as pornography, but rather are being used in fashion ads targeted at women consumers — and those consumers don’t seem to mind.

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Category: Culture, Sex

Comments

17 Responses to “Teen Model’s Parents File $28 Million Lawsuit Over ‘Salacious’ Crotch Photo”

  1. AngelaTC
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:07 pm

    That t-shirt wasn’t designed with a female market in mind.

  2. Dell Hill
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:11 pm

    A pretty good scam, this way comes.

    The whole shebang gives the “victim” and her parents exactly what they want — massive amounts of attention, thus catapulting their “darling daughter” to the top of the nearly pornographic professional models field.

    I have zero sympathy for their “case”.

    It would make for interesting discovery to subpoena the family photo albums.  I can only imagine what photos might be found.  

  3. Mike
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:11 pm

    We’re going to Hell in a hand basket. What are these kids’ parents thinking? Friggin’ Morons.

  4. Ronin
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:19 pm

    Just like “Toddlers and Tiaras”

    I meant ‘Prostitots”

  5. Julie
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:38 pm

    I’m going to put a word in for the parents here…   the idea that they were present for the photos and had to have *obviously* approved that one or at least obviously approved salacious photos isn’t a fact just because some photos were rather rude.   Unless television totally lies, the model is moving around and the photographer is clicking away non-stop.   Some photos are going to be awkward or bad or rude.

    According to the little bit here, the photos were seen and that one objected to by the agent and the photographer promised not to use it.  

    If the objection is modeling by teenagers, then that’s the objection.    But most people don’t object to the *modeling*, they want to object to the inappropriate pictures.    It seems to me that the parents *are* objecting to the inappropriate picture, so they’re doing what they ought to do.   And the photographer and everyone else should know better and know that “how old is this model” is a question they ought to ask.   Why blame the parents who said “no” to that shot instead of the people who sold it and use it anyway?

    Is it just more fun to blame parents?

  6. Donald Douglas
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:42 pm

    Nice. 

    And you’ll like this: ‘Jerry Buell, Florida History Teacher, Suspended for Posting His Personal Gay Marriage Opinions on Facebook’.

  7. Julie
    August 19th, 2011 @ 11:44 pm

    Maybe there are other pictures than the one in the article, but in the crotch picture she is wearing reasonably modest clothing.   The shorts aren’t so short that her butt would hang half out if she were standing in them, they’re just shorts.   The shirt covers her.   The fashion shots are of something a girl would wear to prom or else swathes of clothes covering her from head to toe.

    They couldn’t find “sexy” professional photos of her for the article?  Really?    Her folks aren’t letting her dress up in next to nothing with all her what-all hanging out?   Really?

     

  8. ThePaganTemple
    August 20th, 2011 @ 2:34 am

    Never mind the family photo albums, subpoena their computers hard drives. That’s where the action is.

  9. Alan Kellogg
    August 20th, 2011 @ 4:47 am

    “When correctly viewed
    Everything is lewd
    I can tell you things about Peter Pan
    Or the Wizard of Oz
    There’s a dirty old man”
    …Tom Lehrer, Smut

  10. Adjoran
    August 20th, 2011 @ 7:46 am

    Surely this girl had a parent or agent or other supervision at the shoot who should have stepped in to stop the shot.

    It is true she has posed provocatively in the past, but not in this way.  Someone needed to be the adult and exercise some judgment, and they failed.

    Once someone and/or their guardian or agent has signed a release, though, the image becomes the property of the buyer.

  11. How I Pimped My Teenaged Daughter « That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    August 20th, 2011 @ 8:30 am

    […] Teen Model’s Parents File $28 Million Lawsuit Over ‘Salacious’ Crotch Photo. […]

  12. E. W. Childers
    August 20th, 2011 @ 1:49 pm

    I would think this would pretty much end her underage modeling career.  Who would hire someone who turns around and sues for $28M?

  13. Roxeanne de Luca
    August 20th, 2011 @ 3:17 pm

    That’s the real kick in the head: These “provocative” and
    “salacious” images aren’t being produced as pornography, but rather
    are being used in fashion ads targeted at women consumers — and those consumers don’t seem to mind.

    This woman staunchly refuses to buy the aforesaid fashion or beauty magazines, trashing clothing, or anything from stores that do this.  Ann Taylor, the Wall Street Journal, etc., get my business, not Cosmo, Abercrombie, etc.

  14. Teen Model's Parents File $28 Million Lawsuit Over 'Salacious … « Teen Blog !!
    August 20th, 2011 @ 3:35 pm

    […] original post here: Teen Model's Parents File $28 Million Lawsuit Over 'Salacious … ???????? […]

  15. Julie
    August 21st, 2011 @ 2:11 am

    According to the article  not only did the agent not sign a release, the agent specifically said no to that photo.

  16. dustbury.com » In the fall, if at all
    August 21st, 2011 @ 9:47 pm

    […] 18 until February. (If you must, you can see it here.) This isn’t quite as creepy as, say, the situation with that 15-year-old girl who posed semi-salaciously for Urban Outfitters, but it’s still somewhat disturbing: I have no problems with teenagers looking cute, even […]

  17. Collectivecolors
    August 23rd, 2011 @ 3:44 pm

    To all the people saying “she’s too young, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, it’s unhealthy”. She, probably knew exactly what she was doing, but didn’t expect the photographer to take it from that angle. And, because of this she has SHOT to the top of the modeling food chain. Especially at such a young age. I think it helped her career. But when, you do modeling (even at 15) you have to recognize other than the interns your at the bottom. Your going to be treated like crap, and your going to have to have thick skin. If she’s still modeling I honestly don’t think it hurt her that much. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt her at all, but I think her parents are being more sensitive to it then she is.