'Mamas, Don't Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be Downloads'

Some very helpful advice for mothers and daughters from John Hawkins, telling the "sad, sad story" of Jesse Logan, who committed suicide at 18, after her high-school (ex-)boyfriend humiliated her by making public the nude photos of herself she had sent him.

Keep in mind that Hawkins is no prude. Every day, his Conservative Grapevine aggregrator features not only a selection of political news and commentary, but also a couple of links to cheesecake photos of lovely starlets in bikinis. This was the subject of a debate among conservative bloggers in which I framed the question, "Is Babe-Blogging a Sin?"

My conclusion was that it is not, and the joys of babe-blogging were enshrined as the popular Rule 5 of "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog." However, if you disagree, please don't click over to John's site. (BTW, John, you've got a broken link on the Denise Richards bikini pics at CelebSlam.) Having been an artist since youth, my aesthetic enjoyment of beauty has at times been a snare and a stumbling block to me.

There is a line between flirty and trashy, between alluring and indecent. At times, I'm not very good at figuring out where that line is, but am deeply thankful that digital media didn't exist in 1978, when I was 18 and -- believe it or not -- even less responsible than I am now.

(Thanks to Frequent Commenter Smitty, from whom I outrageously stole this one.)