The Other Side of Sanity

Wow. I just got finished reading this article by "Devvy", who basically wants the whole sexual revolution of the fifties and sixties rolled back to the Dark Ages.

Millions of mothers in this country condone their daughters walking around at the age of 13 dressed like hookers because they were part of the sexual revolution. Yesterday at PetsMart I was walking behind a mother and her daughter. This girl couldn't have been over 14, but the denim miniskirt she was wearing barely covered the bottom of her rear end. I thought: What is her mother thinking? Do these women ever turn on the news and see the almost weekly snatching of young girls in broad daylight; their raped and murdered bodies found a week later in some ditch or never found at all? Allowing a young girl to wear such promiscuous clothing is like a magnet to the sexual predators roaming the streets of our cities and towns. When my daughter was that age there was no way she was allowed to walk around looking like a working girl.

Devvy is basically blaming women for their own rapes.

Her rant goes on to attack pornography, "Bruno", Playboy, Kinsey, condoms, swimsuits, sexual education, eventually calling for a boycott of anything peddling "filth", and legislation against immorality.

People have spent thousands of years trying to bottle up sexuality. It doesn't work. You want to really protect "the children?" Talk to them about sexuality, teach them about their own bodies, warn them about the downsides of sexual excess. This is a parenting issue, not a case for more government intervention into our private lives.

While Devvy does not attack nudism directly, it's obvious that she supports modestly to the nth degree, calling swimsuits "nothing more than soft porn with the vagina and breasts barely covered." It is this irrational fear of sexuality which is behind the North Carolina attempt to regulate nudist resorts. Never mind the facts, never mind the freedoms entitled to all Americans, just forge ahead with fear-mongering and a self-righteousness to attack people who are doing no harm to anybody. These people are like the Taliban, willing to cover up women in birkas and murder homosexuals in order to further their own religious zealotry.

Devvy sums up with the following Nostradamus-like prediction: "Today's children are tomorrow's society." Yes, Devvy, they are. We believe that children are the future, the child is father to the man, teach your children well, etc. It's always about "the children", but there is only empty rhetoric in these Christianist attacks, using words and phrases like filth, danger, moral breakdown, sexual deviant, sodomite, perverts, predators, repulsive, scarred for life, and exploit, but not one fact or figure to support the argument, no research, no examples. Astoundingly, Devvy calls for legislation to change laws, but does not say which laws, or how they should be changed, or if such changes would be Constitutional.

The Christianists are losing the culture wars. Over the past few decades, gay and lesbian Americans have survived attempts to bar them from meaningful employment, and now same-sex marriage appears to be on the brink of national acceptance. Abortion is still a hot-button issue, but a woman's right to choose should be legally protected for the foreseeable future. About the only issue left with which rouse the rabble is sexuality, and it's perceived "dangers" to children.

When faced with legislation "protecting" children, such as the criminalization of teen sexting, age restrictions at nudist resorts, keeping sex offenders from living within a half-mile of a school, ordinances against public nudity, the closing of clothing-optional beaches, or the over-regulation of strip clubs, politicians will always err on the side of caution.

Beware this latest salvo in the culture wars.

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• How Should We Teach Our Kids about SEX? (time.com)
• When the Cellphone Teaches Sex Education (nytimes.com)

Teaching Her Children Well

Short but sweet, an essay by Jennifer Matten shows how the human body can and should be part of a family's experience.

In this all-female household, there are no locks on bathroom or bedroom doors. The three of us wander around in various states of undress. I brush my teeth in the buff while my younger daughter, who is 5, sits behind me on the toilet, singing to my rear end. My elder daughter, 8, sticks her head into the shower to ask me about the various “yuck” factors of puberty, about the feminist and anthropological ramifications of shaving my legs, about the real low-down on babies finding their way into their mommies’ bellies.

I tell my girls that what they are seeing when they see me is a real woman. I show them where their little fists and heels pressed against the skin of my belly when they were inside me. I explain nipples, birthmarks, sex. I shake my booty. They shake theirs. We are absurd. We are lovely.

Indeed they are.

Monkeying Around

Sue Redfearn, writing in The Huffington Post, says, "You might want to sit and think a minute before taking your kid to see gorillas and the like."

Her reason? Gorillas poop and eat it, they play with their genitals, and have copious sex with each other.

Sounds like a typical American teenager. The only difference is that teens don't eat their own poop, but eating at Sonic qualifies as an equivalent.

Poor Sue got all flustered because the poop eating was witnessed by her 3 year-old who then needed an explanation, and it got even worse when a teenage boy jockeyed for a better position in order to take a photo of the hungry ape.

This incident took place at the Washington Zoo, and coincidentally the same thing happened in the same place some years ago when I took my daughter to the zoo. A young gorilla pooped, grabbed it from his anus, and proceeded to eat it like a twinkie.

To this day we still laugh about it.

Another time two elephants were going at it at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio. I still have that photo.

Both times I didn't have to explain because my daughter already understood how bodies function.

Sue admits, "maybe I don't get out much." That's an understatement. Sue apparently does not watch NatGeo, Animal Planet or Discovery on television, where animals do all sorts of interesting things, like eating each other, and feeding other dead creatures to their young. Or maybe Sue does watch these shows with her daughter and finds it easier to explain cannibalism and murder in the animal kingdom than it is to talk about sex and excrement.

Anyone out there that has or had children knows that kids love a good poop or fart joke. There's really nothing funnier than just saying the words, they will roll around laughing for hours.

Not at Sue's house, though. At Sue's house, such things are "virtual car wrecks", with animals behaving like "drunk rugby players".

To her credit, Sue took this as a learning moment and asked the Ape House curator why the gorillas eat their own poo. It turns out that they do it for perfectly natural reasons, like being too lazy to seek out fresh food, or to recycle all the vegetable matter that did not digest completely the first time through. The curator also said, "It's rather amusing to me to watch visitors react. There are parents who use it as an educational opportunity, and then parents who move their child quickly away."

As with the bodily functions of apes, the way human bodies work can be easily explained without getting all red in the face. It's really sad that people cannot handle the sight of natural animal activity, and imagine how difficult it is for them to talk to their own children about the way their own bodies work.

Children are curious about everything, and if parents are too uptight to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and honest manner, kids are going to seek out their own answers, which can lead to disinformation.

In our textile society, kids become teens become adults, and throughout the entire growing process they constantly wonder what other people look like under their clothes. Be honest now, it's a natural thing. In nudism and naturism, that barrier is broken immediately, the curiosity is fulfilled, and body parts become very unimportant.

The reason kids laugh at gorillas eating poo or having sex is because they are encountering something completely foreign to them. Kids will also laugh if they see someone else naked because it's something they rarely or never encounter. I grew up attending nude swims at the YMCA, and seeing my friends without clothing was completely ordinary. No laughing, no pointing, no joking, no big deal.

By making nudity taboo, we have made monkeys out of ourselves. Try explaining that to your kids.

The Daily Newds 4/9/09

• An article claims that many Gujarati people from India are losing their inhibitions on nudist beaches in South Africa, and Australia.

  "If you are not sure if you are sufficiently uninhibited, you should stick to 'clothing optional' beaches," (Deval) Surti said. "It is difficult for an Indian to accept and feel relaxed in the primitive atmosphere of nudist beaches. I am an open-minded person, but when I went to Point Impossible in Australia, I had to use all my willpower to let my guard down. Once you are comfortable with the 'no clothes' idea, it is great fun!"

• Lachlan Mackintosh ponders getting naked for winter sports.
• A Nova Scotia politician has apologized to candidate Lenore Zann for circulating a photo of her bare-breasted in a scene from the TV series "The L Word". There was a time when the woman would be the one forced to apologize, so society is making a little progress on this issue.
• A Swedish student and his friend were charged with public nudity for going without clothing in a Singapore restaurant district a few months ago.
• A study published in the Journal of School Health reports that teens are engaging in sexual intercourse as early as age 12.
  

  In the study, (Dr. Christine) Markham and colleagues defined sexual intercourse as vaginal, oral or anal sex. According to their research, by age 12, 12 percent of students had already engaged in vaginal sex, 7.9 percent in oral sex, 6.5 percent in anal sex and 4 percent in all three types of intercourse.
  
  The study found one-third of sexually active students reported engaging in vaginal or anal sex without a condom within the past three months, and one-fourth had four or more partners. The more experienced students in all three types of intercourse were more likely to be male and African-American.
  
  "We need to develop prevention programs that address the needs of students who are not yet sexually active in order to promote skills and attitudes to help them wait until they are older to have sex," Markham said. "And we need to provide skills and knowledge related to condoms and contraception for youth who are already sexually active."

• Sex educator Jay Friedman says that he resorted to looking at photos of naked natives in National Geographic when he was a teen because school sex-ed classes were so inadequate.
  

  European society and American society differently inform young people about sex. Freidman said Northern Europeans especially have lower teen pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and lower sexual assault rates because Europeans are more frank about sexuality.
  
  He said that while the east and west coast seemed to be open-minded, he found more close-minded and conservative views of sex in the Midwest, where his words were the most controversial.
  
  The resistance to the truth may partly have stemmed from his belief that “politics has everything to do with sex.” Friedman slammed political issues, such as abstinence-only programs that he thinks are “damaging for young people and society” and “cripples them with sexual ignorance.”

• The Arizona State University online news source has a positive article on naturism, interviewing a student named "Roy".

  “It's the enjoyment of not having to have clothes on — it's sort of an opinion about the necessity of clothes more than anything else,” he says. “I don’t think of it as a lifestyle, I think of it as a clothing style.” Roy says in fact going without clothes can be better in many situations. “If it’s 20 degrees outside, then go put on a jacket,” he says, “but if the day’s really nice, then why [wear clothes] if you're indoors, or especially with swimming.”

• NJ.com is on the record for leaving the legal system out of teen sexting incidents.

  Technology has moved at the speed of light, outpacing what lawmakers most likely envisioned would occur under our laws. We need to reconsider how to approach these issues productively before infringing on the liberties of children and jeopardizing them beyond their own bad judgment.

The Daily Newds 4/2/09

• In order to circumvent the right to freedom of expression, Texas lawmakers approved an admissions fee tax on all sexually oriented businesses. The state plans on taking 10% of the gross receipts. Organized crime and government have now become one and the same.
• A judge in Virginia has dismissed child pornography charges against a school official who had an "inappropriate" photo of a student on his cell phone, which was sent to him by another student. It was ruled that the photo was not sexually explicit and did not meet the definition of child pornography.
• Police in Wisconsin are recommending juvenile disorderly conduct charges against four 15 year-old kids for sharing a nude photo of a student. How this constitutes "disorderly conduct" beats me.
• "Show us your best bits" is some sort of ad campaign which encourages people to strip naked on stage. NSFW video here. [via AdRANTS]
• The question of the day is "if Germans want to be nudists, why did they invent trousers?"
• The powers that be at McDonald's are all in a titter over a Swedish strip club which has ripped off the famous golden arches on their sign.
• Apparently not an April Fools story (but don't bet the farm on it), students at Bellevue Community College near Seattle are fighting for their rights to hold their nudist club meetings on campus.

  Repeatedly told to put clothes on, the recently chartered Nudist Club has been asked not to hold meetings in public locations on campus. Denied what they call the basic right to adorn themselves with whatever they wish or wish not to, the club’s members have appealed to the student government for help, asking for construction of a club Garden on campus for the specific use of their protected engagements...The Nudists formed out of an anthropology class here at school. According to Freddy Smoteson, anthropology student and founder of the group, his Anthropology instructor, who prefers to remain nameless, did a week long segment about the role of nudity in human culture...Feeling inspired, Smoteson and several of his fellow classmates decided those born nude should stay nude. They formed a “group for people who are enthusiastic and ego less about nudity”.

• Nude male models were brought into an English school as part of a sex education class.

  “I learned more from this than from my previous sex education classes,” said student Tom Harvey, 16. “It was really interesting the way they taught us about everything. It was practical and made it more understandable.”

• The Palm Beach Post has an editorial denouncing the criminal prosecutions of teenagers who engage in sexting, but a columnist for the Times Record News in Wichita says "With parents, councilors (sic) and clergy seemingly unable to convince teens that emulating porn stars is a bad idea, maybe sheriff’s deputies with arrest warrants can."
• A University of Texas student throws herself into the world of social nudism.

  I had been worried leading up to the event that I’d arrive to find some massive middle-aged orgy, or that I wouldn’t be able to stop looking at all the penises on display. But no orgies (at least in front of me) and I only sometimes glance at the penises, a little. The ceviche and empanadas are divine, and the atmosphere is relaxed, friendly and respectful.

• The mayor of Auckland is powerless to stop the Boobs on Bikes parade.

  "In a perfect world we wouldn’t have Boobs on Bikes in Queen St, but we don’t live in a perfect world," he says. "I’m very aware that in these post-Christian times, in this slack and ill-disciplined society, holding up a bylaw around what is decent and what is not will be very difficult."

• Here's a guide to Melbourne's best nude beaches.
• The Village Players in Oak Park, Illinois, are giving the full monty treatment to a production of "Driving Miss Daisy".

  The Pulitzer Prize-winning play involves the relationship between an elderly Jewish woman in Atlanta and her African-American chauffeur. Occhipinti explained, "By the last scene Miss Daisy is 97 years old and Hoke, her driver, is 85. What could better express the common humanity of these two lovely characters than seeing them in the buff?"

• AMC TV has a list of sex in movies which challenged the ratings.

How to Discuss Body Image

Yes, finally, an advice columnist gets it right in counseling a mother about how to talk to her 9 year-old daughter about body image.

Engage your daughter in dialogue about what she doesn't like about her body. Stand in front of a mirror with her, both of you naked, and look at your bodies. Be honest and tell her what you like and don't like about your body. Chances are you are a bit self-conscious about something...Body image in young girls is threatened every day by the pictures we see in the media of what is beautiful. Too many of our daughters suffer from low self-esteem, in part because they don't recognize their own beauty.We need to see the unique beauty in the people around us, especially our children.

Perfect.

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

The Daily Newds 10/16/07

• A total of five sexually-oriented businesses are being planned for Fort Worth, and even though residents are upset at the prospect, city officials say that there is nothing they can legally do to prevent them from opening. [star-telegram.com]
• A 17 year-old girl found the unrealistic body images inside a mall store so upsetting that she couldn't wait to leave. [pittsburghlive.com]
• The Barbican Gallery in London has a gallery show called "Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now" which challenges the viewer to walk the fine line between art and pornography. [huliq.com]
• Norwegian teachers and psychologists believe that children should be allowed to express themselves sexually, within certain social boundaries. In America, we would arrest them all as sexual criminals. [aftenposten.no]
• A petition drive in Ohio to put an overreaching strip club law on the ballot has failed, so it is now illegal to shake hands with an exotic dancer. [zanesvilletimesrecorder.com]
• Dutch authorities are in the process of screening off a nudist beach so passengers on a temporary ferry are shielded from the view of naked bodies. [expatica.com]
• Vanessa Hudgens apparently made a good career move by posing for that naked photo that everyone has now seen at least ten times. [transworldnews.com]
• The nipple police are on the move in Daytona Beach. [msnbc.msn.com]
• YouPorn is doing major damage to the adult entertainment industry. [portfolio.com]
  
  Tags: nudism, naturism, nudist, nudists, naturist, naturists, nudity, nudes, bare, au naturel, nude, naked