Proposition number 14: It is not a violation of Community Standards for a child to be nude at a public beach.

Summary: { No winner. A win by one vote is not statistically significant when applied to the Community as a whole.}

[Note: the number of ‘eligible males’ plus ‘eligible females’ do not necessarily add up to the ‘all eligible voters’ because one voter did not specify their gender. They are an eligible voter because they indicated they were over the age of 18 and a resident of Alberta, therefore they are included in the ‘all eligible voters’ category, but not in the gender breakdown.]

Details:

Graph P14A

Graph P14B

Graph P14C

[Note: the above graph is eligible and non-eligible voters but four voters who wrote “pre-pubescent” instead of a numbered age are not included.]

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Graph P14D

[Note: The above graph is eligible voters only.]

Graph P14E                 [Note: the above graph is eligible voters only.]

Graph P14F

[Note: the above graph is eligible voters broken down by those who voted ‘for’ or ‘against’ the proposition and only graphs those voters who, concurrently, voted and added their definition of the word ‘child’ on the voting ballot.]

for Graph P14F:

P14 ‘for’:        average age = 4.0, median age =  3,n=9;

P14 ‘against’   average age = 9.4, median age = 9.5, n=22;

Other data associated with Proposition 14:

            Voters were given the opportunity to define ‘child’ in terms of stage of development. Four voters wrote; “pre-pubescent”. and these four votes are assigned the age of 9 and are included in the ‘against P14’ category. The age of 9 was assigned because 9 is the most conservative and widely accepted estimate of the average beginning age of puberty.

Calculation of Margin of Error:

Results:

            For a child being nude on a beach:      37 votes

            No Rule:                                              20 votes

            Against a child being nude:                 36 votes

Comparing the ‘for’ and ‘against’ votes:

For: 37 votes±11.5%=37 votes ±4.26 votes = a range of 32.7 to 41.3

Against: 36 votes ±11.5%=36 votes ±4.14 votes = a range of 31.9 to 40.1

            Because the two ranges overlap, the difference between the two numbers are not statistically significant.

Discussion of Results for Proposition Number 14: nude child:

Results:

            Agreement: 37

            No Rule: 20

            Disagreement: 36

            Calculation of margin of error ranges for the 95% confidence level:

            Agreement:       37±10.2% = 37±3.8 = a range of 33.2 to 40.8

            No Rule:           20±10.2% = 20±2.0 = a range of 18.0 to 22.0

            Disagreement:  36±10.2% = 36±3.7 = a range of 32.3 to 39.7

            Because the agreement range and disagreement range overlap, the resulting vote cannot be considered statistically significant at the generally accepted 95% (i.e. 19 times out of 20) confidence level when applied to the Community as a whole.

          In the graph P14A for the series: ‘all voters’, the number of votes for ‘strongly agree’ (17 votes) was much more than for ‘strongly disagree’ (10 votes) whereas, the number of votes for ‘agree’ (20 votes) was less than the number of votes for ‘disagree’ (26) votes. This suggests that, in terms of strength of feeling, those who in favour of children being nude at the beach had stronger feelings about their choice than those who were not in favour.

            Voters were allowed a space on the voting ballot to define ‘child’, either in terms of an age or in terms of a stage of development. The results, in terms of an age, are presented in graphs P14C to P14F. In these graphs, we can imagine two bell curves; one which  has a median of a 4 year-old-child, and a second bell curve with a median of approximately an 10-year-old-child. The same two apparent bell shapes appear on the graphs P14D and P14E which also show results broken down by gender. Graph P14D shows results for eligible voters who are below the age of thirty. Graph P14E shows results for eligible voters who are thirty years of age or older.

            Graph P14F shows two series: In Purple are the number of votes by voters who were ‘for’ the proposition. In other words, they voted ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ indicating that they were in favour of nude children at the beach. In this data series, there were nine votes with a median 3 years old and an average of 4.0 years old.

            The other data series shown in Graph P14F, in turquoise, are eligible voters who voted  ‘against’ the proposition. In other words, they voted ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’, indicating they were not in favour of nude children at the beach. There were twenty-two votes in this data series ranging from a one-year-old-child to an eighteen-year-old-child. The average is 9.4 years old and the median is 9.5-year-old-child.

            Some of the voters were against even small children being nude at the beach as seen by their defining ‘child’ as one-year-old. Note that in the child age span below five, there are approximately equal votes ‘for’ and .’against’ so this proposition, overall, is very much in dispute.

            From the data in graph P14F and its following data, we can conclude that the people who are in favour of small children being nude at the beach, on average, define ‘child’ as being four years old. The people who were not in favour of a child being nude at the beach, defined ‘child’ over a broad range, with an average age of 9.4 and the median age of 9.5.

             In general terms, it is apparent, from graph P14F, that those who voted against the proposition were talking about an older child than those voters who voted ‘for’ the proposition. This conclusion from the data in graph P14F cannot, though, be said to be statistically significant when speaking about the Community as a whole because of the small number of data points in the sample: (n=9 and n=22 respectively).

            The whole question of child nudity remains an area of disagreement. Because proposition 11 allows a ‘baby’ to be nude at a public beach and this was decreed by a large majority, and proposition 16 disallows a nude adult (age 18) at a  public beach which was also decreed by a large majority; we could make the general statement that as a child’s age increases from 2 to 18, the level of disapproval from eligible voters also increases. Age two is absolutely ok, but age 18 is absolutely not ok. Using this line of reasoning, it appears as if an age of 4 will probably be ok and an age greater than 10 will probably not be ok, thus, despite the small number of data points, they may give us good guidance despite not being statistically significant.

             It is also noted that four voters wrote “pre-pubescent” or “puberty” indicating the appropriate stage of development, which defines when a child may be nude.

            Wikipedia defines Puberty thus: “Although there is a wide range of normal ages, on average, girls begin the process of puberty about 1-2 years earlier than boys (with average ages of 9 to 14 for girls and 10 to 17 for boys)...”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty)

            Puberty is a multi-stage process and the first stage is initial breast development – commonly called the development of breast-buds. The second stage is development of pubic hair, and the final stage is the onset of menstruation. I assume that the voters mean the development of ‘breast buds’ when they indicated ‘puberty’ and not the later two stages. The fact that three voters chose a 10 year old, and four voters chose a 12 year old child as the maximum age of being nude on a public beach is in line with the idea that the upper limit ought to be the age of first development of breast-buds.

            These ages correspond quite closely with the large peaks in graph P14F at the ages of 10 and 12.

             It appears, then, as if the voters who voted against child nudes on the beach had ‘puberty’ in mind as the cutoff stage, after which, nudity would not be allowed.

A second method of attacking this subject is to compare win ratios.

            The percentage of the win goes from 58% in favour of a nude baby to 63% opposed to a nude adult. At some age between 2 and 18, the vote will be a dead tie. For the nude 9-year-old boy, the win-loss numbers are close, and would indicate that there might be a tie for an eight-year-old boy. This approach, then, would indicate that the upper limit, for our current Community Standards, for a nude boy on the beach is eight years old. I would define ‘upper limit’ as the point where there is a tie between the number of voters ‘for’ or ‘against’ a child of the defined age to be nude on an undesignated public beach.

            It is a general feature in this study that the Community Standards regarding males are more severe than for females. For example, proposition eight forbids males from wearing thongs, but proposition seven, allows a ‘person of a certain age’ (which includes females), to wear a thong by the smallest of majorities – even if that majority is not statistically significant for the Community as a whole, it is a majority for the 107 voters none the less. Again, in propositions five and six, the votes were twice as large against male pubic hair than against female pubic hair. Thirdly, in proposition two, man-boobs had a larger majority (75.5%) than proposition fifteen, forbidding topless women (53%) plus, on the hot-button list, topless man-boobs out-scored topless women 51% to 19%.

            We would expect, therefore, that female children would be allowed to be nude at the beach to an age slightly older than for boys. If the upper limit for boys being nude at the beach is eight years old, then it is reasonable to suggest that the upper limit for a female child to be nude at a public beach would be nine or ten years old. This line of reasoning arrives at an age for females which is in line with the first appearance of ‘breast buds.’

            So, from two different lines of reasoning, we arrive at an upper limit for socially acceptable child nudity on an undesignated beach under our current Community Standards as: 8 years old for a boy, and 9 or 10 years old for a girl (or the first appearance of breast-buds, which ever comes first).

            In practical terms, this discussion could guide any authority who were creating a ‘designated area’ on a public beach for those members of the public who wished to practice more liberal values. The authorities might be wise to set a lower limit for child nudity on the more conservative area of the beach, for example, five years old, and a higher age for the more liberal area of the beach, for example: 10 or ‘first sign of breast buds’, which ever comes sooner.

Historically and Presently:

            Seeing that Alberta has such a strong  English Social Value System, it is not surprising that the voters allowed child nudity on a undesignated public beach. It was not uncommon for children to be nude on English beaches during Victorian times, even though old landscape paintings depicting this behaviour have, over the last few decades, been absent from public display by the public art galleries.

Presently:

            I witness that there are children who are nude on the beach of Sylvan Lake Provincial Park over the last few years that I have been visiting the beach (2008 and before) and I would estimate their ages to be up to eight years old.  I have observed that such children are never bothered by anyone. In 2008, I observed one girl I would estimate to have been eight years old, changing into her bathing suit. She was taking her sweet time and was bottomless for probably four minutes. Everyone on the beach just smiled and ignored her. No one said anything to her or bothered her and no one stared. They were practicing the English Social Virtue of Tolerance. Seeing people treat her with such respect made me feel so proud to be an Albertan.

            Considering our past Social history and my present observations, an authority setting an age of five for the conservative area and a maximum age of child nudity of 10 or ‘first sign of breast buds’ for the more liberal area, would, in fact, be a very conservative course of action.

Voters Comments Section:

Community Standards Vote 2008

Ifs/ands/buts/comments on the following proposition: 14. It is not a violation of  Community Standards for a child to be nude at a public beach. Define ‘child’ in the above question: ___________.

[Comments are typed as the various authors wrote them with no correction of spelling or editing.  Editors notes are placed within square brackets.]

[legend: M=male, F=female, number is age, X=not specified.]

-end of proposition 14-

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