A Definite Social Evil

Ask anyone who opposes public nudity why they don't want to see naked people and they will say that it's "immoral", or "indecent", "offensive" or "disrespectful", and invariably they will say that it's not proper in front of children.

But ask them to explain the harm that nudity does to people, and they will have no answer, because there is nothing inherently dangerous about a naked human being.

An Ohio court recently ruled that government has the authority to protect "societal norms". Does that mean if I walk down the street on my hands, that the government has the right to tell me to walk on my feet just like everyone else? Most people in the United States believe in an almighty being and belong to some sort of organized religion, so does the government then have the right to enforce this "norm" and force me to subscribe to a faith? The examples of where government has no right to enforce "societal norms" are almost infinite.

Nobody is going to argue that just about every society on the planet Earth has clothing as a norm, and nobody is going to argue that generally every person on the planet has a body underneath the clothes. Having a body is a societal norm, but exposing that body in public is not considered part of everyday life. Just because something is a societal norm does not mean that the opposite of that norm is either illegal or dangerous.

A government cannot possibly defend and protect all societal norms, especially given the fact that virtually everything we say and do is rooted in some sort of tradition or habit, and also because attitudes change, new traditions emerge, and old habits die out.

It seems to me that our government has absolutely no Constitutional right to interfere with people who wish to merely swim against the current, unless such action poses a specific and immediate threat to society. The problem we have today is that there is a lot of feigned moral outrage from a minority that has exerted pressure on politicians and law enforcement officers to overreact to certain instances where societal norms are challenged.

In Britain, police sent out a force to follow, hinder, harass and even arrest a group of 15 naturists who hiked along part of the rugged coastline without clothes.

The walk's organiser had advised Dorset police of our plans principally so that, should any member of the public ring them to report the unusual sight of several walkers naked between rucksack and socks, then the boys in blue could reassure them that it was known about and broke no law. Unfortunately the police took the view that the public would be so distressed by us that they mounted Operation Thistle to chaperone the walk (boys and girls now in yellow) with vehicles and changes of shift along the route. Officers videoed us, ordered us to don clothes on a whim, approached passers-by to solicit "complaints" and even arrested one of us for not obeying an order to dress.

In Britain, as in America, officers have the right to arrest anyone simply for being disorderly or creating a disturbance, even if the person is not breaking any laws. There is a specific prejudice against naked people, no doubt rooted deeply in religious dogma beaten into our heads for centuries teaching us that since Adam and Eve were ashamed in the eyes of God, so should we all be. This irrational "fear" of nudity, both in seeing and being seen in such a state, has reached epic proportions, to the point that we are making nudity a criminal enterprise, and anyone shedding their clothes is viewed as a deviant, or even as a sex offender.

It does seem that this prejudice on the part of the authorities is limited to those that are most easily intimidated, such as the topfree woman in Ohio, or the group of hikers in the UK. Larger events, such as the Spencer Tunick installations, or The World Naked Bike Ride, not only are tolerated, but they receive support from law enforcement. At some point society has to stop being selective and recognize the fact that if a certain freedom is OK for some, it must be OK for all.

I'll let Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, the former home secretary, have the last word: "If you want to stop people doing something which they enjoy doing, which they believe is within their liberty of action, then you've got to have an overwhelming social case. If you're going to stop them, you shouldn't do it out of prejudice or out of habit, but only because you can show that a definite social evil results."

"A definite social evil" should be the criterion for determining whether or not an action of a government or any of its agents is justified in enforcing "societal norms". Somewhere along the way we as a society have become blinded to what is and what is not a true "evil" when it comes to human behavior. If we truly believe, as a people, that the human body in and of itself is something evil, then we are truly lost, completely out of touch with our own humanity. We have become afraid of ourselves.

Tags: nudism, naturism, nudist, nudists, naturist, naturists, nudity, nudes, bare, au naturel, nude, naked