Flashback

About 40 years ago, I lived near a YMCA and my friends and I would go to the pool on a weekly basis. Since it was only for men and boys, everybody swam naked. No matter how hard I try and think back on those days, I cannot remember one time whan any one of us was ashamed, or modest, or even aware that being nude was unusual at all. Society certainly has changed, public nudity ouside of a very few select places in the United States will get you arrested.

Swimming at the YMCA was a time of youthful joy. We would walk in, show our membership cards, throw our clothes in a locker and jump in the pool. No towels, no trouble, no cares, no bathing suits. We would just drip day and get back into our clothes a bit on the damp side, at worst smelling of chlorine but certainly not corrupted or even remotely harmed by the sight of each others penises and buttocks.

Today, in order to swim naked, one has to travel to a designated nude beach or join a "nudist club". How utterly twisted is that? Has society really sunk to such a point that the mere sight of an unclothed human body is a cause for alarm and legalities? It's perfectly acceptable to have nudity in movies, nudity in the home, nudity in magazines, nudity on cable television, etc., but a one second flash of Janet Jackson's breast is suddenly the end of civilization and we are all going to Hell.

No wonder that there is a growing nudist movement, a push for body acceptance and topfree equality. Millions of people are beginning to realize that the century old invention of the swimsuit was a stupid idea, that people are not meant to swim with wet garments sticking to their skin, or to sunbathe with strategically placed straps of fabric to cover nipples and genitals.

What is American society afraid of? Why have we become so hung up on the basic parts of the human body, parts that are shared by all of humankind? We all know what's under the bathing suits, yet we are not allowed to see.

Take off all of your clothes RIGHT NOW, get naked and stay naked, and once you do it you will find that clothes to not "make" the person, they merely cover up the true self.