BBC Upholds Full-Frontal Male Nudity on Television

The BBC Trust has ruled invalid a complaint about a television show "My Penis and Everyone Else's".

The complainant claimed that the broadcast of male genitalia was "inappropriate" as it could have been seen by children and that a display of penises and the time spent showing them was "gratuitous" and "excessive".

But the trust said that while the programme had contained "what some of the audience would have considered challenging material, there was a clear editorial purpose for it" and that "adequate" steps had been taken to flag the content beforehand.

When Does Public Nakedness Become a Crime?

After a man stood nude on a Trafalgar Square pedestal, the BBC asks when disrobing in public becomes a crime.

Andrew Welch of British Naturism says the issue all comes down to a person's intention.

"For obvious reasons we've had to look at this issue with our lawyers," he says.

"Causing upset is definitely not what naturism is about, our challenge is a cultural one. The law is fine, we just need to change people's attitude to the naked body."

The Super Sunday Newds 2/1/09

• Police in Billerica, Massachusetts, are investigating a 14 year-old girl who was caught sending a nude photo of herself while in her middle school class. In Cleveland, a court-ordered survey shows that the vast majority of kids are not aware that such expressions of their own sexuality are illegal.
• "Best Undressed" is a new documentary on the Miss Nude Australia pageant.

  In a modern society of sexual equality, this competition seems out of place, sexist and sleazy. But in recent years the competition has flourished with a constant flow of young and beautiful girls, keen to compete for the prize of Miss Nude Australia. In the era of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, seeking fame even for being naked increasingly appears normal. They enter the Pageant with all the seriousness of a fully clothed Miss Universe Title.

• A columnist recalls the "Buff Bowl" at Lake Como Nudist Resort.

  While the cheerleaders wore wispy little sashes of their team colors, the most of the players wore only sneakers and those little belts of contrasting colors with streamers attached by Velcro.
  
  That prompted the greatest quote I've heard in my sportswriting career, as a quarterback covered the basics of Buff Bowl flag football.
  
  "The only rule we have," he said, "is if you grab something and it doesn't come off in three seconds, let go."

• Trinity College in Dublin has launched an investigation into students who ran naked in the annual "Gumball Challenge" fundraising event.

  The challenge moved into the public realm as students were dared to “get naked in a phonebooth”, “get kicked out of a hotel”, “strip on any form of public transport” and “drop an open condom onto a bar”. The phonebooth outside Topshop at the top of Grafton Street saw at least five people baring all.

• A new series called "Naked" on BBC Three gives a group of five professionals "a series of challenges designed to help them get rid of inner demons and help their self-esteem at work and at home. It culminates in a dramatic naked stunt in which we find out who has gained the confidence to literally bare all.". Unfortunately online video for this series is available in the UK only.
• Are Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy nudists?
• From LA Weekly:

  Naked Creatures , curated by Ian MacKinnon, features solo and group performances of dance, music and video, where queer artists take it off and "rejoice" in the naked human body. After all, the promoters tell us,
  "underneath everything, we are all naked creatures."

• Portrait artist Dorian Vallejo is accepting commissions for "intimate life portraits" which are a "perfect Valentine's Day gift."
• Morrissey and his band have posed nude for the inside sleeve of their new single.
• A New Zealand woman took a photo of her nude toddler at the beach and entered the image into an online snapshot competition, where it as rejected because it "could be construed on the Internet as being pornographic.". Despite that insane logic, the photo won another competition sponsored by a local newspaper.

  “If I want to put my child’s back view up for view that's my business,” said Nicci...“It was something totally, totally innocent, they were wanting photos that were iconic, and what more iconic than children playing on a beach,” she said.

• A hike to Deep Creek Hot Springs in Upland, California, is scheduled for February 28.

  PLEASE NOTE: you should not sign up for this trip if nudity bothers you. There may/likely will be nude people in and around hot springs. You are welcome to bring your swimsuit or not.

• The Pawnbroker is recognized as "the first mainstream, critically acclaimed film that featured a topless scene."
• Minsky's burlesque house in New York is open again in the form of a new Broadway musical, with music by Charles Strouse.

  "In the mid-'20s, you were allowed to have nudity onstage as long as you didn't move," recounted (Bob) Martin over a pastrami sandwich at Katz's Deli on Houston Street, just a few blocks from the site of the National Winter Garden (now a Whole Foods). "There was one actress at Minsky's, Mademoiselle Fifi, who shook her breasts, and that caused a raid."

• Authorities in Appenzell Innerrhoden, a Swiss canton, have passed a law to fine freehikers.

  Melchior Looser, the canton’s law and police minister, said: “Ultimately, in the summer lots of kids stay in our mountains.”

• The director of the Tennessee Technology Center has resigned after he sent nude photos on a state computer.
• An Australian exchange student found life a little different in Finland.

  "Finnish people love to get personal behind close doors, Amy explained. “They love saunas… naked saunas. Talking to strangers is unacceptable. Shaking hands is not on. But jumping in a sauna full of people with no clothes on is totally normal.”

• A dance production in Cleveland entitled "Nearly Nude: Deconstructing Beauty" deals with women and body image - the media's bombardment of impossible shapes and sizes, as well as "what we do to ourselves."
• Actress Ginnifer Goodwin has strict no-nudity clauses in her contracts.

  The Walk The Line star, who plays one of a polygamist's three wives in hit U.S. show Big Love, insists fans will never see her strip for a role, and only lovers and her doctor will see her naked.
  
  And just in case co-stars and directors get carried away in steamy scenes, she has a back-up plan to keep everything covered up.
  
  She tells Los Angeles magazine, "I write things in Magic Marker all over my body - 'No way, Jose,' (and), 'Bill, stop looking at my boobs.'"

• American Idol contestant Melinda Camille told judges that she loves to dance naked in her room.
• An article in the Johns Hopkins Newsletter advises not to fear nudity, but to embrace it.

  But what if we were comfortable enough that we could deal? What if seeing one's privies was commonplace? Firstly, big dicks and voluptuous breasts would no longer be as large a deal as they are body parts. Following this, skill comes into frame. One's abilities in the sack are just as important to attraction as one's appearance, but the more comfortable we are with nudity, the more our intellect catches up to the emotional reality of this. In business terms, transparency increases competition, and competition increases the possibility that you are just as desirable as the next supplier.

• All six members of the cast of Hangin' Out are nude throughout the production.
• Richard Mason, president of government affairs for South Florida Free Beaches and the Florida Naturist Association, spoke to Broward County's Legislative Delegation and told them that nude beaches are good for Florida's economy.
• Wonkette fears that the White House is becoming a "nudist colony" under the new informal President.
• Kathleen Rooney is on tour promoting her book "Live Nude Girl" about her experience as a nude artists' model.

  I really liked it," she said. "I found it sort of addicting. I wouldn't say it was a compulsion, but I haven't done it for a year or more and I'm kind of longing for it."
  
  But what's the appeal?
  
  "Well, it's twofold: The first is, 'Holy cow, I'm naked in front of people. What a thrill!' It is exciting, but that's not the main reason. I felt I was making connections to people, and as a writer, that's really important to me. With some of the artists I met, I felt like I was really making a contribution. There is a kind of partnership between an artist and a model that's really different."

• The nude cruise industry is growing at a rapid pace.

  "People are hungry for a connection for something that is real and our cruises provide that," said Craig Stevens, creator of Source Events, a travel company based in Miami. Smith is not only surviving, his business is thriving. He is taking advantage of the 400 million dollar a year nude recreation industry. Source Events, which began booking gay cruises, is now expanding their horizons. "Women that want to create women's cruises, other people that want to do youth cruises," said Smith.

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

Bottoms Up

Trinny and Susannah pose nude for a life drawing class and have their posteriors cast in bronze for a television show to help people "love their behinds".

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

Exploring Naturism's Early Days

On the BBC television show "The Diets That Time Forgot", participants exploring health fads of the WWI era are suddenly confronted with early naturism, and some find the trip back in time too much for modern modesty standards. Hat tip to NaturistMusings.

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

The Weekend Newds 2/1/08

• The 16th annual African-American art exhibit in Morristown, New Jersey, is still a censored show.

  Two pieces featuring full frontal nudity were voluntarily withdrawn..."We edited the works to make sure this is a family-friendly show," said Vicki Craig, a teacher in the Morris School District. But mixing art and government always has a volatile potential, said artists. [nj.com]

• Journalist Dawn Porter is taking off her clothes for a BBC television show.

  In the first programme, Dawn Gets Naked, she explores the intricacies and phobias of female body image by hosting a naked flashmob in central London, going to a life-drawing class, visiting a burlesque show and finding out what it's like to be airbrushed. [tvscoop.tv]

• Participants on "Make Me a Supermodel" find out what it takes first-hand to be a nude art model. [blog.meevee.com]
• What's up with all these lawsuits over police strip-searches? Here's another one. [wltx.com]
• "Dear Prudence" advises a husband with a wife who won't sleep naked with him to "Drop the discussion and let it go". [slate.com]
• In Berlin, lingerie models are wearing so little they might as well be nude. [metro.co.uk]
• The Sex Workers Art Show is becoming an annual event at the College of William and Mary.

  (Organizer Mea) Geizhals says bringing it to the college is a not to glorify sex and explains, "It's not an erotic show. There's nudity in the show and there are parts that are raunchy, but it's all for a very specific purpose." [wavy.com]

• Lily Allen's brother Alfie showed off his newly trimmed pubic hair in his "Equus" debut. [holymoly.co.uk]
• Philadelphia area college students are planning a semi-nude run so people can take off their clothes and donate them to charity. [thetriangle.org]
• A New Zealand man wonders if enthusiasm for breastfeeding has gone too far.

  After a quick exam and quiz on nutrition, the doctor got down to business. He had my wife unbutton her shirt and instructed her how to use her forefinger and thumb to "express" a dollop of milk onto his finger.
  
  And then he licked it. "Sweet," he said. Whereupon he extended a finger to me. I declined. [stuff.co.nz]

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

My Penis and I

In "Sleeper", when faced with the prospect of cranial surgery, Woody Allen exclaimed, "My brain! It's my second favorite organ!"

Apparently there are many males who do not consider their penis to be their favorite organ. Filmmaker Lawrence Barraclough has tacked the issue of penis size in his BBC documentary "My Penis and I", and his follow-up "My Penis and Everyone Else's". Barraclough also invites anonymous males to upload photos of their own members as part of his "Snap Your Chap" project, which includes the web site, a gallery exhibit, and a forthcoming book.

It's only a clothed society that can spawn something so odd as an art project in order to educate people about their own bodies. Certainly I applaud the the filmmaker's attempt to force the taboo issue into the fore, but at the same time I am dismayed that the human race has gotten so out of touch with itself that it no longer knows what a normal body looks like.

One night at a nude swim I took a look around the room and realized what a wonderful thing it was that people were able to shed their clothes so easily and unashamedly, given all the baggage we carry in our minds about nudity. We all need to see more of each other naked, whether it's at the gym, at the pool, at the beach, or at home, so this unhealthy mystique that we have imposed upon us about the human body can be dispelled.

So whether you "snap your chap", or spend a day at home in the nude, or take the plunge into social nudism, you will be taking a big step in the direction of normalizing your own body, and the bodies of others. Getting naked is getting real.

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