Learning From the Old Ways

My people are known as the Lenni Lenape, which translates as the True People. This is how we thought of ourselves, since back then we knew of no one else and even after our People met other tribes along the east coast of what later became the North American Continent; even those tribes recognized the greater wisdom of our People and considered our name as accurate.

Part of what we always handed down from one generation to the next was to always be kind to all creatures. No matter what animal you confronted, even if your intent was to take that one back to make it a meal for your family, it was best to be kind to it beforehand. In other words, do not kill something out of cruelty, only necessity, for one who kills from cruelty deserves nothing less in return.

Something else that was passed along to each new generation, and this was not something that had to be told, for it was passed on through simply living, was to live as one was born, that is as simply and pure as the day each of us emerged from our mother's womb - naked - or nude if you prefer. We remained this way at all times, unless weather dictated otherwise, or necessity, such as entering brambles and bushes in search of prey when hunting. No one cares to have thorns scratch deep marks along the skin, drawing blood and possibly producing sickness if the thorns were poisonous, so animal hides often were adorned at such times.

But nudity was the accepted way of life and that is because clothing is a choice, while nude is simply being. There is no choice in nudity for nudity simply IS! Therefore if we were to draw upon the wisdom of our ancestors and live as they before the Europeans came to this land we would certainly cast off the constraints of wearing clothing, other than when weather or work demands we wear something, and live our lives as did the People, my People, the Lenni Lenape, free and open, caring not that everyone sees one another, for there is no shame in being who each of us is, as we are born being. Shame comes only through the deceit planted within our minds from childhood, from those who desire to enslave us and bring us under subjection to man's laws, thereby forcing us to live by man's fabricated laws, wearing fabricated skins, when we would all be much happier living by natural laws, living in our own skins alone.

I wear only my own skin as much as I am able, for this honors my ancestors and the Spirit we worship. The Sacred Breath lives within us and breathes through us when we live as we are born - free and pure. This is why I live this way, placing man's skins over my skin only when forced to do so in order to interact within man's society and not be arrested by man's laws.

With the most recent unrest in our society resulting in such great violence as it has, perhaps it would be better if society were to look back to these old ways and consider what they have to offer. Views on who our neighbors are, whether we are to live peacefully with those around us or seek to kill them simply for being different would vanish along with the outer garments that portray these differences if we sought after the old ways. Certainly it is clear that harboring prejudices against others of the same species as ourselves can never be good for any of us.

I myself am light-skinned, and like so many of this mixed-racial culture, my heritage is comprised of several ethnic backgrounds, but the one I identify most with is that of my Lenni Lenape ancestors. Why? Because they more than anyone seem to hold the answers to the discord that seeks to devour us. Still, I do not prefer that you look upon me and see me as “Native American,” or “European American,” or the portion that is in there from my paternal grandmother’s side that would make me “African American,” but that you see me as I prefer to be, a Naturist American. It is this more than anything that exemplifies my true inner being, that which displays who I am from the inside-out so that all may see the true me.

If you desire to live more simply, to be free of many mental illnesses, depression, anxiety, uncertainty, hatred, bigotry, and so many more illnesses of the mind that are brought on by modern society, try living in this manner, free and pure, without such constraints. Live as the Lenni Lenape before Europeans invaded this land and see how free your mind becomes. Put aside the outer skins and allow your natural skin to absorb the sunshine as necessary, to breathe in the Sacred Breath as our bodies were intended. Cleanse your bodies as you cleanse your minds and find that the world is not as you perhaps once perceived it, but far less conflicting as you see others in their natural state even as are you.

Solidarity in Nudity Will WIN!

I found an email from the attorney I had emailed last week, telling me he would not be taking my case against the City of Tumwater, because he was not a big law firm and he felt this was a case that would take too long and cost a lot of money to pursue. So I did a search for larger law firms and began calling them on the phone for faster results. I spoke to several and was turned down. I finally spoke to one attorney who said most of the attorneys at his firm were on vacation at this time, but in a couple of weeks they would be back and he would write this up and present it at their meeting. He couldn't guarantee anything, but if they thought there was a chance of them getting a settlement out of it as well as a win for me with the lewd act laws I want to have changed so they could recoup their expenses they might take it. He'll call and let me know.

Another attorney who was very old and experienced said he didn't think it would happen, but gave me a lot of valuable information. At one point while speaking with him he said it wasn't like this was a God-given right under the Constitution, and I said, "But it is. It's the very first God-given right, God created us all nude and continues to do so today, so that was obviously His intention for the human race and it IS His God-given right for us." He still didn't think it would work, but he wished me well with it. I told him I would keep fighting this until the day I died.

Here is something that same attorney told me to look up:

Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, Suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

42 U.S.C. § 1983 (emphasis added).

Section 1983 was enacted on April 20, 1871 as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and is also known as the "Ku Klux Klan Act" because one of its primary purposes was to provide a civil remedy against the abuses that were being committed in the southern states, especially by the Ku Klux Klan. While the existing law protected all citizens in theory, its protection in practice was unavailable to some because those persons charged with the enforcement of the laws were unable or unwilling to do so. The Act was intended to provide a private remedy for such violations of federal law, and has subsequently been interpreted to create a species of tort liability.

In reading this, it's saying that anyone of authority, in my case the Tumwater City Council, who acts under the color of law while exercising their authority and violates the rights of any US citizen, are therefore liable to that injured person. So in passing laws that prevent me from being ME/nude publicly, which they do not have the right to do, I have the right to sue them and reap financially as well have these laws rescinded. I just need to find a lawyer with balls enough to take it on.

One other item of interest from America’s not too distant past that may have an impact upon our gaining independence from these overly restrictive laws that prevent us from being publicly nude is Roe v Wade. That’s right. The 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade, wherein the Supreme Court applied the core constitutional principle of privacy and liberty to a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy may well be the same principle of liberty needed for us as Naturist Americans to push through to Congress the fact that just as women were given the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, up to and including having an abortion, if they so desire, so also we, in establishing our core being as the first and primary God-given right to all mankind, since it is clear that every person who has ever been born upon this planet, regardless of race, religion, or nation of origin, has been born completely nude, thus establishing this God-given right, have the right to our own bodies, including being able to live our lives completely nude, if that is our desire, for whatever reason, whether from a sincerely and deeply held religious conviction, as some of us, such as I, may have, or simply from an inner feeling we hold within that has nothing to do with religion. It is our body and the government, neither city, county, state, nor even federal, have any say over how we should dress ourselves or not dress ourselves. How we appear in public is not a crime, otherwise anyone of any distinctive difference, be it tattoos, deformities, or the color of their skin, may be subjectively discriminated against by any particular local township that seeks to overthrow the Civil Rights Act and regress to pre-1964 prejudicial bigotry.

If ALL of us do the same as I am doing and search for civil rights lawyers in our own respective areas at the same time, then we have multiple suits ongoing consecutively. These will ALL need to proceed to the Supreme Court in order to win and that means the Supreme Court will see all these cases being brought and will realize by the sheer force of numbers of suits that this is something REAL, people! This has to be a concerted effort on our part. We ALL have to do this, not just ME! Who else here has the balls to call up lawyers and tell them what I have, that you are a Naturist American seeking to change the laws so you can finally find peace in yourself by being able to go outside and simply be able to work in your yard, check your mail, walk along the streets of your neighborhood, go shopping, do all the everyday things everyone else does, but do them nude, because this is the normal and original intent of human beings and this is what has been within your heart, your soul, your BEING since the moment of your BIRTH! You have to sell this to an attorney, make them feel and hear it in your voice that THIS is who you ARE! You are not some weekend nudist looking to get nekkid at a club with others, but you are a person who HATES wearing clothes, because they make your skin crawl, they make you feel as though you are violating the core principle of your BEING just by covering your skin in order to go outside. Find an attorney to take your case and push it to the Supreme Court! We can DO THIS, but we have to have SOLIDARITY across the board! Without numbers we cannot succeed. With numbers we cannot be stopped!

We ARE our nude bodies and we MUST be FREE to live in our NATURAL STATE of BEING!

I Get to be Nude

Today I started reading a novel about a young woman who is a student at a college in California. She is a sophomore who was caught cheating on a paper she had turned in, having simply copied the paper someone else had written and made a few changes to it, but been caught. I won’t go into all the details of what happened, but she was suspended for the rest of the semester and lost her scholarships. Something that was important to her. But all of that isn’t the purpose for what I’m writing about. What happened next is.

In order to continue with college for that semester this girl is given an opportunity that is unique to say the least. She has to participate in a research study one of the female professors is conducting, something which requires this student to finish up the semester, two more months, going about her daily routine of classes, all completely nude. At no time during that two month period is she ever to wear a single item of clothing. Not a stitch. Nada. If she does the contract is null and void and she is back where she started on her suspension.

To say the least the girl is terrified, but she agrees. Hey, what would you do? Tell your parents you cheated and got kicked out of school or spend 60 days walking around campus in the buff? It isn’t easy, but she agrees to the terms and heads off to her first class, bare butt nekkid and scared stiff. But something happens within her thought process during that first day, and this is the reason why I am writing this today, because she finally got her thinking screwed around to where she decided she isn’t being forced to be nude, she gets to be nude. Think about that for a minute and consider the clarity of thinking that must take as well as the beauty of that thought. I get to be nude. I am going to walk through the doors of this building to the outside world where everyone can see me and I GET to be NUDE! Wow, that is an amazing bit of clarity.

I read that piece of thought in that book, of course it wasn’t stated the way I just wrote it, but the meaning was there just the same, and I sat there thinking that over. I envied that girl. Oh how terribly I envied that girl, even though it was only fiction. To consider the rare and wondrous gift she had been handed and she was not even aware of it. There are hundreds of thousands of nudists in America alone who would give nearly anything to be handed a gift that precious, to be told, “From this moment forward, for the rest of your life you may go anywhere you please, no matter where it is, anywhere in the world, completely as nude as the day you were born, and no one will stop you. You will not be arrested, you will not be turned away, you will simply be treated like anyone and everyone around you who is wearing clothing.” Period. These nudists, like me, would die happy if they could be the receiver of such a gift as that.

In one of the nudists groups on Facebook the other day someone asked the question, “If you went somewhere nude and found you were the only person there who was nude, would you stay there?” My response was, “If I knew it was legal and all right for me to be there nude, sure. Why not?” Exactly as with the girl in this story who was the only one walking around campus nude, if I had the opportunity to leave my house and go anywhere and everywhere I wanted nude, even if I was the ONLY nude person everywhere I went, I would still be nude. Why? Because nude is who I am, who every one of us is. Clothing is a disguise each person chooses to put on each day. I choose simply to be me. That is all I ever want to be. Just me.

If anyone knows how I can achieve this gift that this girl in this book was given, please let me know. I will embrace that gift greedily and never release it to my dying day. Why? Because I GET to be nude. I GET to always be ME.

Let’s all take that thought to heart if and when we get the chance and remember how special a thing it really is when it comes to us.

NATURIST AMERICANS UNDER ATTACK

Ever since this world began someone has been trying to better himself by enslaving others. Search all throughout history and you will see this sad story played out time after time after time. Here in America we thought we had finally eradicated slavery when the North and South went to war one American against another over enslaving “colored people,” as they were called back in the 1860s and are now called by the term “African Americans,” because their ancestors derived mostly from the continent of Africa. And yet we found that the same bigotry against these same people persisted in a slightly lesser form of discrimination throughout many states of the Union that caused people of the African descent to be treated as less than second-class citizens until leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. rose up to put a stop to it and brought into being the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s.

The truth is, however, that bigotry is far from being eradicated in the United States of America, as can easily be discovered by perusing the municipal codes of nearly any city within these United States to see which minority is currently being targeted by the so-called “laws” governing the cities within which we live. This minority, the one that has existed far longer than any other within history, began at the beginning of history with the advent of the first human being and transcends racial and gender lines. Whether you believe in the story of Creation as told within the pages of the Bible or you believe that humanity evolved from a single celled organism that somehow managed to replicate itself and grow and change until millions and billions of years later what we have now as human beings appeared on the scene to dominate all other species on this planet, either way this species known as Homo Sapiens is each born completely nude and remains that way throughout each individual’s life until after death when the carcass naturally rots and disintegrates into its final molecules. It is this minority, the one that embodies this most natural of existence, this primal state of being that we all are born into, that is being targeted by lawmakers and governing bodies today.

Without provocation, for this group, these Naturist Americans, as they are known, since they eschew the values, the essence of living as they were intended from birth, as proven by the fact of their birth, have certainly done nothing to provoke the laws that have been made to prohibit their most natural way of life, cities, counties, and even many states across the USA have enacted laws under such titles as “Lewd Acts,” or “Indecent Exposure,” and yet there is nothing “lewd” or “indecent” about simple nudity or the human body in its natural nude form, and yet these law makers continue to enact laws that make criminals out of these most innocent of all people. For the simple act of walking outside to check one’s mail or dispose of the garbage a Naturist American can be arrested if someone views the male penis or the female nipple. Never mind the fact that as recently as February 22, 2017, it was reported that U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled in a case involving discrimination concerning women not being able to go topless in Fort Collins, Colorado due to a law stating such, while men are perfectly able to do so under the law, that women now have the same equality to be topless anyplace men are if they so choose. This is now the law in Fort Collins, CO and it needs to be the law in every city.

However we cannot stop at simply freeing the nipple. As noble a cause as that is – and I applaud those who fight for this equality among our sisters that is long overdue – we must fight even harder for our equality in being publicly nude with our entire bodies, for that is the ultimate equality of the body for all of us, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else you might choose with which to label yourself. As a Naturist American being free to live your life as you were born is the first and foremost, the most singularly most vitally important aspect of equality that we must all fight for and insist upon from the governing bodies that make and uphold the laws under which we live our daily lives. From the city councils to the county councils to each individual state legislature all the way to the United States Congress, we must push this agenda until we have the ear of every politician involved who can affect such change.

We who are Naturist Americans have been silent long enough and we see where it has gotten us! Like sheep being led to the slaughter we have been penned up awaiting our turn to be sheered and slaughtered. Will you sit quietly until it is your turn or will you stand up and make your voice heard? End this onslaught of discrimination. Speak to your city councils about the laws in YOUR city. Tell them what is wrong and ask them to change the laws so that simple public nudity is no longer a crime. Stop the outrage against Naturist Americans! Stop the discrimination against YOU! Every day these laws remain on the books in YOUR city is another day your city deliberately laughs in YOUR face and tells you that YOU are not worthy of being a valid citizen of the city they have been elected to serve. Are you going to stand for that? That is baseless bigotry and it is against the law. It is a violation of YOUR Constitutional and Civil Rights. The 1^st Amendment guarantees you the right to make your voice heard. The 14^th Amendment guarantees the right of equality to every citizen of the United States. Where is YOUR equality when you cannot walk down the street of your neighborhood the same as everyone else in the manner in which you were born, the manner in which you have the right to exist by right of natural birth? If you get arrested for simply existing, then those laws are in violation of your right to equality and your right to freedom of expression of your equality.

The first step is to research the laws in your city and know what it is your city enslaves you with. Find out what they are using to discriminate against you with. Go to the city council meeting. Tell them how much this means to you and how much it offends you and why it offends you. Tell them how to change this law. Ask them to change this law so it no longer discriminates against Naturist Americans like you. Thank them for listening and then leave it in their hands. Then return at the next meeting and ask them if they have acted on your request to change those laws. Keep fighting until these laws are changed! We must keep placing these laws before the law makers until they have no choice but to do as we ask or be taken to court as was this law in Fort Collins! We cannot back down! If we pause for even a minute the enemy will sense our weakness and we will lose! Push the fight! Keep moving forward! Push even harder until these laws have ALL been eradicated!

American Naturists are under attack. You are under attack. I am under attack. Every one of us is under attack and our bodies are being forced to be hidden beneath coverings we do not want over them. Let the enemy know we will take them to court if they do not change these laws.

Fight and never give up.

Contact us at: LegalizeBodyFreedom@comcast.net

View our video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b56xQBkZ70

Sign our petition to Legalize Body Freedom at: https://tinyurl.com/yajam8l5

Changing Hate Laws

Last night I attended the City Council meeting in Tumwater, Washington, which is the city (small town, rather) where I live. My purpose was to speak to them and let them know that as a nudist and representative of Legalize Body Freedom I was not pleased with the wording in the Lewd Act law in the municipal codes governing their city, which means also governing me. I won't go into everything I said, because I'm going to publish the entirety of my speech here for everyone to read. What I am going to do is state that as I read my speech the City Council members were not pleased with what I was saying. I won't speculate as to why they didn't seem to be pleased with my words. I'll allow you to draw your own conclusions once you've read my speech. I will say that the mayor interrupted me before I could finish, obviously not wanting to hear the rest of what I had to say. After all, the truth hurts, and he didn't seem to be the type who wanted to hear about people who want the liberty to "run around naked" within the limits of his city and want him to give them approval to do so. Anyway, what follows is my speech:

My name is Jacob Drake.

I am a resident of Tumwater and have been for many years, and I represent an organization called Legalize Body Freedom.

I have come to you tonight to discuss an issue with portions of the Tumwater city code, specifically:

Chapter 9.06
OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC MORALS

9.06.020 Lewd act.

Every person who intentionally performs any lewd act in a public place or at a place and under circumstances where such act could be observed by any member of the public when such act does or is likely to cause reasonable affront and alarm is guilty of a misdemeanor.

9.06.010 Definitions.

For the purpose of this chapter:

A.    “Lewd act” means public:

1.    Exposure of any portion of the human anus or genitals,

2.    Exposure of the female breast lower than the upper edge of the areola; or

3.    Touching, the male or female genitals or female breast, whether clothed or naked;

9.06.030 Limitations.

B.    Whether or not the conduct is obscene shall be judged by consideration of the following factors:

Whether the average person, applying the contemporary community standards, would find:

1.    That the activity appeals to a prurient interest in sex; and

2.    The conduct depicts or describes in a patently offensive way conduct as defined in TMC 9.06.010(A); and

3.    The conduct taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

We have no quarrel with the rest of the codes in these sections, only those portions I quoted, for they make illegal simple nudity and the simple touching of the human body in an innocent manner, something we all do every day. Every man in here, were he to reach down and adjust himself, even clothed, while in public, could be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor, but the point is that we are seeking to legalize public nudity and these laws stand in the way. We would have to admit that in most cities the “community standards” might be against public nudity, although much has changed over the years in most American communities, so that could be questioned. That word “prurient,” however, poses a problem for the lawmakers, because it means:

1 Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful.

2  Arousing or appealing to sexual desire.

3  Curious, especially inappropriately so.

If you were to see me nude out on the street I can guarantee you would not have any desire toward me and certainly not one that was “itching,” or filled you with a “lascivious anxiety or propensity.” And you most certainly would not find within you any lust toward me. Trust me on this. Likewise you would not be aroused by any part of me and not find me appealing. No matter whether you are a woman attracted to men or a man attracted to men, you would not have any sexual desire toward me.

But this isn’t about me or how society might perceive me, it’s about many more people than just me, it’s about millions more people than just me.

I am part of a worldwide movement seeking to right a wrong that has perpetrated itself for far too long. We are those who recognize that the offensive bigotry in anti-body hate speech and law needs to be challenged wherever it is found. Declaring that any human being is inherently "obscene," “lewd,” or "indecent," or similar hate words by a legislative body is very offensive anti-human hate speech. No human of any kind has ever been harmed by seeing another member of his or her own species nude. There are millions of nudists and naturists in America alone and a great percentage of us are no longer content to keep our nudity locked away in our homes, our clubs and resorts, or our beaches. We are forced by the aforementioned hate speech laws to cover ourselves whenever we leave our homes to go shopping, go to restaurants, go to the movies, get gas in our cars, do any of the typical daily tasks that every other American does throughout their lives, which forces us to violate the very core of our beings, that which fills us and gives us our greatest meaning, because we have no other choice. The unfounded bigotry of one part of this nation is forcing itself upon another the same as it did before the Civil Rights Act gave equality to all Americans of African descent and it needs to stop.

You might ask why it is we have only now decided to come out into the open and make our statement, declare that we demand to be free and equal alongside everyone else when nudism has existed within America for some time and certainly people have been born nude for as long as they have existed. There is a season for everything. The 60s were the season for Equality for black people. The 90s were the season for Equality for homosexuals. Now is the time for Equality for Nudists. We have polled our members and decided that we have had enough. It is time to stop the hate! It is time to change these laws! It is time to FREE our bodies and allow US the same rights as all other Americans, to move about in public freely being ourselves without fear of censure, condemnation, and certainly without fear of being arrested.

A question was asked of our membership, “Where is the one place you would love to go naked?” Of course many replied they wanted the freedom to go anywhere and everywhere, but we received a diversity of responses. I would like to read you a few of them, just to show you how intimate they are and how real the desires of these people are to be free of the constraints of clothing and the laws that keep them locked up in ways others can never understand:

My yard

The beach

I would like to just be able to walk the streets of our neighborhood naked any time I wanted.

At a huge water park with lots of amazing slides.

Outside my own home (We got this one a lot)

I would love to be nude everywhere I want to be without being judged or arrested.

And my personal favorite: I want to stand before Congress and address the nation.

Where would I like to be naked if I could? I would like to take my garbage out. Check my mail. Mow my lawn. Walk my neighborhood. Lie in my yard in the sunshine. Work in my garden, all without fear that someone will call the cops and have me arrested, and why? Just because I am someone who was born understanding that the skin we were born in is the best and only presentation of ourselves we will ever need and that covering it stifles me and makes me not merely uncomfortable, but chokes me to the point that I want to claw my eyes out. This is not some mental illness; it’s simply a perfect understanding of who we were meant to be, who we were born as, an inherent refusal to give in to society’s perversion that demands we succumb to peer pressure and cover what is natural, simply because, “everyone else does it”. It is accepting oneself as one is without the need to dress up and pretend to be someone else.

Human beings are non-toxic, non-harmful, GMO free, and 100% natural. We are all beautiful creatures, the most beautiful species on earth. We simply want to live as we are within our communities, where all the members, all the neighbors, come together and work together in peace, welcoming each other as they are, not as who they might want them to be.

The fundamental justification for any law or regulation that takes away or limits freedom has to be based on some compelling harm to other people. Many appeals courts have said that laws cannot stand without a compelling public interest to justify taking away the freedom from other people. Since no harm is caused to anyone, ever, from seeing another human being nude, there is no valid basis for such laws. I urge you to change these laws freely in order to see justice done. If you do not, then I and those with me will be forced to take our case to the courts. We have already contacted the ACLU, who said that what I am doing tonight is the first step in the correct process. It need go no further than this if you do the right thing and simply change the laws in Tumwater as I have suggested.

Thank you.

Legalize Body Freedom Movement

LegalizeBodyFreedom@comcast.net

Oh, and here is how the State of Oregon words their public indecency law:

A person commits the crime of public indecency if while in, or in view of, a public place the person performs:

(a)  An act of sexual intercourse;

(b)  An act of deviate sexual intercourse; or

(c)  An act of exposing the genitals of the person with the intent of arousing the sexual desire of the person or another person.

That ends my speech. I cannot say everyone on the City Council felt the same as did the mayor, since no one else made their contempt as open as did he, but neither did anyone stop him from cutting me short and certainly no one asked me any questions when I finished. I'm certain this council will not be taking a vote to see if any of them want to do as I suggested and change this outdated, hate-filled, bigoted law designed to deprive a specialized group of their Constitutional and Civil rights, so it will be my job to visit their meeting at least once more and ask them point-blank if they have done so and let them know I intend on taking further steps if they do not want to do the decent thing and change this law on their own.

I suppose an online petition might be the next step. I know others have tried online petitions for legalizing public nudity, but that was a general petition, not one for a specifically localized city. I guess it's worth a try, and so I will get one started and see what happens. I only ask that each and every one of you who reads this blog not only sign the petition, but pass it along and ask others to do the same. If we can get the hate law of one city changed, we can do the same thing and get the hate laws of other cities changed, and perhaps one day each of us will find ourselves living in cities where we are free to walk the streets nude without being arrested or targeted by the hate mongering city officials.

Since writing the above I began the following petition. PLEASE sign it and pass it on to others who will sign and pass it on. TOGETHER we can repeal the hate laws and gain the BODY FREEDOM we deserve! https://www.change.org/p/legalize-body-freedom

As an extra bonus, below are the most recent two additions to my Nekkid Niki cartoons. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed drawing and writing them:

Now Enlisting Soldiers

As you know I’ve been writing a lot lately about Legalizing Body Acceptance and that’s because as a card carrying naturist, literally, since I belong to both TNS and AANR, I have felt the majority of my adult life that my life would be so much worse off if I had to wear clothes all the time. Fortunately I don’t, but I know so many people who do, yet feel the same as do I. I empathize with them greatly, and that’s why I am such a strong activist and advocate for Body Freedom.

This coming Tuesday evening I will be attending the first of several city council meetings in an attempt to convince these city councils to change the laws currently on their books concerning “lewd conduct” or “indecent exposure,” whichever each city has chosen to label such actions as appearing in public nude, as well as several other things, that, quite frankly I agree should be illegal. But merely appearing in public should not. This is because simply being nude is not an action, it is a state of BEING. That’s right. Each and every human being on this planet was born nude and so every second of every day ever since each of us has been alive we exist in a state of being as the nude person that we are. If we choose to make a decision to wear articles of clothing, then we choose to cover up our nude bodies, but underneath those clothes we still exist as that nude person we have always been ever since the day we were born. That person came into existence from the moment we exited the womb and will not cease to exist as a vibrant, living NUDE being until the very last breath exits our lungs and the last bit of energy vacates our brain cells. Until then we ARE that same nude being that slid so gloriously from between our mother’s legs (unless you were born C-section, but still…), and if we walk outside of our homes and go out into the cities and towns where we live as our natural state of being we are simply BEING who we were BORN to BE.

Nothing else.

There is no criminal intent.

There is no lewd conduct.

There is no indecent exposure.

Can a tree be indecent because its bark and leaves are bare and open for all to see?

Can a dolphin, as it leaps up from the ocean be enacting lewd conduct as it spins about, attempting to thrill the audience applauding its actions?

Then why is it that a human being who simply walks down the street of his or her neighborhood, or steps out of a vehicle at a gas station to fill the tank, or walks into a grocery store to purchase food, is viewed as lewd or indecent? Why is it that someone will call the police and have that person arrested and that in some states a conviction for that “crime” will result in being labeled as a sexual deviant for the rest of that person’s life, just the same as if he or she was a rapist or child molester?

These are the reasons why these laws must be struck down. Why they have to be deleted from the books, so that law abiding citizens who would never think about breaking any laws are not labeled as criminals, not branded as sex offenders, having their reputations and lives ruined simply because they followed their innermost natural desire to be who they were born to be.

We need soldiers, people. We need fighters who will take this cause to city council meetings just the same as I am doing, and if nothing else, print out this blog and read it out loud at those meetings. Make those council members realize that these people are not criminals. They are not sex offenders. All they are is people who are being true to themselves and nothing else. In this world we praise people for all kinds of things, but when we see someone like these who are being the most true to themselves that any person ever could be we throw them in jail and slap a label on them that stigmatizes them in the most horrible fashion for the rest of their lives.

Are there child molesters or rapists who like to go about naked on the streets? Quite possibly so, it’s hard to tell. There are sexual deviants in every culture and in every place you can imagine. The thing about these deviants is, however, that they always give themselves away. Always. The problem with their – well – problem, is that it is so strong within them that they can never keep it hidden for very long before they say or do something that makes it known to those around them, and so before long others begin to realize there is something wrong about these people. And they get weeded out. Just as their type should.

But as for the rest, those who are merely being true to who they are and BEING nude, they deserve to be applauded the most above all others. They truly know what it is to be true to oneself. “What’s the old saying? “To thine own self be true”. So why do we then punish people for doing so?

We are not asking anyone to take a bullet or sword in the chest. All we ask is that you confront your city or county councils and ask them to change the laws on lewd conduct and indecent exposure. Leave in all the rest, but remove the parts that make criminals out of those simply appearing nude in public. That’s all we ask.

And as a reward ahead of time, enjoy these first four cartoons of a new comic strip about a family of nudists that moves to a newly formed clothing optional community, something I have termed C.O.F.F.E.E. Communities, C.O.F.F.E.E. standing for Clothing Optional Freedom Friendly Equality Environments. Yeah, it might be a bit of a squeeze, but I like coffee and had to figure out something to fit as an acronym, all right? Anyway, I hope you enjoy Nekkid Niki and his family and friends as much as I have in drawing and writing them, and as I draw more I’ll include them here in my new blog posts:

Remember you can write to me for more information on how to enlist and what to do at:
LegalizeBodyFreedom@comcast.net

Next Gen Naturists

I read a blog article earlier that discussed the difference between nudism of the past and what it will be in the future and I have to admit I agree with it. Only thing is the article didn’t take it far enough. By that I mean that the article talked about how younger people will see nudism as a means of being able to perform certain sports nude, ie, the current trend toward nude bike rides, 5K runs nude, and of course the ever-present and age-old custom of skinny dipping nude, which never goes out of style. But my version not only takes nudity a step or two farther down the road, it takes a huge leap along the road.

Envision if you will a society wherein clothed people work, shop, dine out, partake of various sporting events, theater as well as theatre venues, go hiking along popular trails, visit well known tourist attractions, even take vacations to places such as Disneyland and Disney World, all alongside people who are not clothed. Sound extreme or like some sort of whacked out fantasy? Not if you’ve been following this blog it doesn’t. There are a few of us who are working hard toward changing the laws in not only our local cities, but across the nation, in order to prevent people who appear in public nude from being charged with indecent exposure or lewdness. There is certainly nothing lewd or indecent about the nude human body and unless a person does something that explicitly causes another to infer lewdness or indecency be equated with their being nude there should be no reason to arrest these people and in fact, should be no reason to even take a second look at them.

In this scenario a police officer assuming lewd or indecent intent from a nude person walking along the street is the same as assuming criminal intent from a black man driving down certain streets in high class neighborhoods in the middle of the night. That’s racial profiling and it’s illegal. The current law on the books assumes a nude person is lewd and indecent simply by the fact of being nude, and yet that person has committed no act to justify such an assumption. That’s the same as racial profiling and should be just as wrong and illegal.

This is not an easy subject to decide, and in order to do so I suggest we first look at what the Supreme Court ruled years back when making their decision on pornographic material, such as books, magazines, and movies, in order to decide what would and would not be allowed to be produced and sold to the public. The Supreme Court finally decided on a set of three criteria which must be met for a work to be legitimately subject to state regulation:

1.    whether the average person, applying contemporary "community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

2.    whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law (the syllabus of the case mentions only sexual conduct, but excretory functions are explicitly mentioned on page 25 of the majority opinion); and

3.    whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

All right, let’s take a look at these points and then see if they can be applied to public nudity, shall we?

First, we would have to admit that in most cities the “community standards” would be against public nudity, however, that word “prurient” poses a problem for the lawmakers, because it means:

1  Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful.

2  Arousing or appealing to sexual desire.

3  Curious, especially inappropriately so.

If you were to see me nude out on the street I can guarantee you would not have any desire toward me and certainly not one that was “itching,” or filled you with a “lascivious anxiety or propensity.” And you most certainly would not find any lust toward me. Trust me on this. Likewise you would not be aroused by any part of me and not find me appealing. No matter whether you are a woman attracted to men or a man attracted to men, you would not have any sexual desire toward me. I am 61 years of age and overweight. Although I am in the process of losing weight and doing well with it, I yet have a bit to go and am far from the lean, well-muscled youth I was many years ago. And I guarantee that if you were to catch sight of my “male member,” that appendage that marks me as being of the male gender, you would not be aroused, since I have no qualms about stating that I have what is commonly known as a micro-penis. It is so small as to be nearly non-existent. It hasn’t always been this way, but it is now and that’s the way it is. Since the law in my city says a male cannot expose his reproductive organs I’m not even certain if a case could be made against me even were I to be arrested completely nude, since my reproductive organ is not always all that noticeable. So no, there is nothing there to cause arousal in anyone, male or female. As to the “curious” portion, well, if someone were to see me and become curious I would lay odds that it would be the type of curiosity that would be more of “What that heck is that guy doing out here naked?” than it would be “Oh, I wonder what it would be like to have sex with him?” So again, no, this does not apply to seeing me nude.

Taken in this manner I would have to say that these three criteria do not at all apply when seeing me completely nude, therefore my being nude in public would not fit the Supreme Court’s test for deciding if something is obscene. Since obscenity is not covered by the First Amendment, if in this case my nudity is not obscene, then my nude body in full public view must be taken in accordance to the Supreme Court’s decision on obscenity and that since “the work, in this case my body, taken as a whole, does not appeal to prurient interest, and since the work does not depict nor describe in any offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, specifically defined by state law, and that the work, taken as a whole, does indeed hold at the very least, political, if not literary, artistic, and scientific value, then the judgement must be that my body is not lewd nor obscene and therefore is perfectly capable of being viewed in public along with that of any body that is clothed.

Now, the argument could be that other bodies might not be viewed in the same manner as mine and certainly I would have to agree. There are many bodies that were I to see them out on the street nude would evoke in me great prurient interest, desire, arousal, and so much more, however, they still would not meet the third criteria, which would be to depict any sexual conduct or excretory function and therefore lacking in that detail alone they would not meet the criteria. Besides, how pathetic would it be if we as a people were to discriminate against someone not for that person’s actions, but for our own actions, for how that person makes us feel when we see him or her? Is it fair to someone else to be judged because we cannot control how we feel inside when we catch a glimpse of that person’s nude body? Of course not. Another person cannot be held liable for how someone else responds to them and that is exactly the point of overturning these laws that currently are on the books against public nudity. These laws are in place not because there is anything wrong with actual nudity in public, but because of how it makes others feel when they view certain people nude in public. If it were not for the sexual reaction caused within the bodies of those viewing the nudity there would be no need to place laws on the books against such a thing. Public nudity is a victimless crime. It is based upon the arousal or revulsion experienced within someone upon witnessing the nakedness of another. It is a mental reaction that takes place and the person who is nude is not responsible. It is completely the responsibility of the person doing the viewing in how they respond to the nudity, whether they enjoy it or abhor it, the same as it would be if that same person caught sight of a newborn baby being pushed along in a carriage by its mother. Some, if not most, people would love the sight of the baby, while perhaps a few people might grow angry or even saddened by the same sight. It is always something from that person’s past, something within their memory that triggers the response and causes whatever reaction they have, and so it is with seeing a nude person in public. It is not a matter of right or wrong, it is a matter of how each person reacts to the sight of a nude person and so it is obvious that such laws do not belong in our society and must be repealed.

Having done this, repealed all laws against simple public nudity and replaced them with laws that more correctly deal with indecency that speaks to actual actions, not a state-of-being, we can move forward in our society to textilers living side-by-side with naturists, those who wear no clothing, or perhaps, to be more correct, those who are clothing optional, for it is obvious that even the most hardcore naturist, of which I consider myself to be, who dismisses the very thought of ever wearing any type of clothing, would of necessity put something on of some nature if the temperature and weather such as torrential rain, hail or snow dictated such. The human body can only endure so much abuse from inclement weather before going into a hypothermic state and shutting down. So it would be safer to assume that this world I envision would be one where textilers, those who would never be caught without clothing on would live side-by-side with clothing optionists who would spend the greatest portion of their time butt bare nekkid and therefore the Next Gen Naturists I envision would likewise be those who would be nude all the time, unless of course nature dictated otherwise.

My suggestion, if you feel this is the direction our society should indeed go, is that you write an email to each and every one of your state senators, it could be the same email, just write it and send it out to all of them at the same time, and then send it out again to all of the congressmen in your state, and to your state governor, your city mayor, the various council members of your city, anyone and everyone who have any control over the laws in your city, county, state, and this nation. We need to get laws repealed. We need to get action going. If we who love being nude do nothing, then nothing gets done. The only people who will ever do anything are us. So let’s get moving, shall we?

If you haven’t already done so, open a Twitter account. Then follow Bare Naked Nudist (that’s me) and retweet all of my tweets that carry the #NudePride and #BodyFreedom hashtags. You can also use those same hashtags and make your own tweets, but please, be nice and polite in whatever you write. We want change, but we don’t want to piss people off and make them turn a deaf ear to our cause. Doing that gets us nowhere. I follow the advice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr who cautioned protesting peacefully, not violently. We will win this war against our bodies and we will do it peacefully.

Stop the HATE! Free our BODIES! Legalize Social NUDITY NOW!

I See Nude People - Everywhere!

How hard are you willing to work for something you believe in?

No. Allow me to rephrase that.

If you believe in something with everything that is in you, as if it is the utmost imperative, that upon which the entirety of the universe hinges, will you give your all, fight with everything that is in you, no matter the cost, though it might mean your job, your reputation, your standing in your community, that everyone you meet will look at you and shake their head in scorn, see you as the worst reprobate they have ever met, go out of their way to avoid speaking with you, tell everyone they know not to speak with you and that no one who is decent should ever even have anything to do with you, that you are, in fact, the most vile scumbag on the planet and should be locked away, far away, from all decent human beings so as not to infect the rest of humanity, lest you somehow manage to infect all others with whatever it is that you have?

Regardless of how everyone else might treat you as a consequence of your actions due to your beliefs, if you personally believe in your cause strongly enough to brave all that may be exacted upon you, you owe it not only to yourself, but also to your cause to see it through, regardless of the outcome. There are few throughout history who have been willing to pay this price and of those, most have indeed paid the price with all that they had.

The framers of the Constitution of the United States of America believed so strongly in attaining independence from Great Britain that they pledged their wealth and their lands in order to see it through, and most of them paid with that very price and more.

Those who wanted to see slavery outlawed in America were willing to sacrifice their lives, wealth, and property, and again, many, if not most of them lost everything as the War Between the States waged on for far too many years, brother fighting against brother as the blood of Americans was spilt upon American soil for the right to see all Americans free, not only white Americans.

Throughout history, not only in America, but in many nations across Europe, Africa, Asia, and other places, people have given their lives to see their dreams made into reality, but again, here in America, Martin Luther King Jr. even delivered his famous speech entitled, “I Have a Dream,” wherein he delineated how he envisioned a world where, in using the vernacular of 1963, Negros and whites would be able to sit down together, eat together, and do all things together, as Americans, free from the hatred of skin color.

I too have a dream that is similar to the dream of Dr. King, only instead of looking at the color of people’s skin and discriminating against one another on account of skin color, my dream consists of being able to cease all discrimination based upon whether someone’s skin is covered or not. That’s right, my dream is that one day all across America, from California to Maine, from Florida to Washington, and everywhere in between, all people will be able to live together in spite of whether they are clothed or bereft of all covering. It is a certainty that every single person who has ever been born upon this Earth has been born completely nude, and yet to a one, if you walk outside as an adult, walk down the street to the grocery store or the bowling alley or the movie theater or one of any number of stores or shops or any other kind of business that might exist without a stitch of clothing covering any part of your body someone will call the police and you will be arrested for indecent exposure at the very least.

And yet I defy anyone to tell me exactly what it is that is indecent about a nude human body. We don’t decry dogs or cats or birds or any other type of creature as being indecent simply because it doesn’t have anything covering its natural form, so why is it that the human form is considered that way when its natural skin, that with which it is born, is not artificially covered with cloth or leather or plastic or something else? What is it about the human body that demands it be considered “indecent” when it is viewed in its nude and natural state?

Most people have a difficult time coming up with any answer to this question, and I consider that as being because deep down they know there is no answer, that humans are not meant to cover their bodies, unless it be for warmth and comfort. Some people, of course, will say it is for matters of “decency,” but have a difficult time explaining exactly what that means. Certainly when they try to go to the Bible, what most consider the final answer to this question, as do I, they still have a difficult time finding verses of Scripture to fit their argument, but I can find quite a few to back up the argument for living life nude, especially right from the beginning in the book of Genesis.

But this article isn’t about the Bible and what it says. This article is about what you might believe and what I believe in nudism and fighting for it.

Had Martin Luther King Jr. and others not fought for equality for Negros, or as we commonly say today, Black people or African Americans, these same Americans would not enjoy the equality they do today. It is because of this fact that Nudists need to wake up, stand up, show up, and speak up, in order to gain that same equality, for Nudists are in the same position today as the Negro was in 1963. Were Nudists to walk into any establishment without clothing they would be treated at least as badly if not worse than the Negro was in 1963. They would be beaten, cussed at, abused, arrested, and all for being nothing more than who they were born to be, and hated for being so.

There is an irrational fear at seeing a naked human being and clothed people tend to lash out when they see one, especially if they see one in a place where they don’t expect to see one. Certainly if you go into the YMCA or another fitness club and walk into the locker room you would expect to see some form of nudity while people are changing from street clothes to workout clothes as well as taking showers after working out, but if you were to see someone walk into your favorite restaurant and sit down at the table next to you completely nude you might find your brain going into overload trying to understand why that person wasn’t wearing any clothes and what he thought he was doing coming into a restaurant and sitting down amongst everyone else that way? Some people would undoubtedly attack that nude person while others might only call 911 and report the presence of a lunatic without clothes.

I am here to tell you there is not only nothing wrong with being nude it is actually the most normal thing there could possibly be. The actual problem is with those who insist upon covering their perfectly natural skin with clothing in order to hide it from everyone else. Certainly I can understand the need to cover one’s body when the weather gets very cold and dictates doing something to keep warm when going outside to do whatever needs to be done while out and about, but once back inside the confines of your own home or even when inside your place of work, or even when inside whatever establishment you have traveled to in order to shop for a while before heading home again, if it’s to be long enough to warrant removing your clothes, why not strip down in order to be more comfortable? Would you refrain from so doing simply because others objected or might get angry with you, even if it was perfectly legal for you to so do?

This brings us back to the question that began this article or at least a modified version of it – how hard are you willing to work, how much are you willing to give, at what point will you throw in the towel and give up when attempting to reach the goal you previously set before you? If it seems just too hard and it seems as though others might get too angry, if you don’t think you can stand up under the pressure of being screamed at, cussed at, possibly having someone throw something at you or hit you and all because you showed up at a peaceful protest (at least it’s peaceful on the side that you are on) stripped down to nothing other than perhaps a jockstrap or something similarly revealing, yet still able to keep you from being arrested, simply to prove that there is nothing wrong with the natural human body, where will you draw the line? If you are not willing to “go the distance,” which is a line drawn from foot races where it is necessary to keep running until each person crosses the finish line, even though they might have come in dead last, then perhaps you need to reconsider your reasons for what you are doing. Me? I got into this over 25 years ago and committed myself to seeing it through to the end. I want to walk down the street without a stitch of clothing on and know that I am perfectly legal everywhere I go. I want to eat in any restaurant I choose and not be thrown out because of the sign that says “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service,” because the law says I can’t be turned away for not being clothed. I want to do my grocery shopping or put gas in my car or any number of things I do now, but do it all as nude as the day I was born and know I worked hard to gain this equality, not just for me, but for everyone all over who feels the same way and all those who have yet to be born who might choose to forgo wearing clothes because it feels so much better to feel the sun on their skin and the breeze as it gently wafts its way along. I want to be nude just because I can, because being nude is what I love being best, because that’s just who I am.

I see nude people and I see them everywhere, every place, doing all kinds of things all the time, and it’s the most amazingly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I hope one day I see it for real and I hope it never ends.

Read Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech.