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!