The Daily Newds

• Risky Business: Organizers of Chicago's fourth annual World Naked Bike Ride warn participants that even naked butts might be risky in making riders subject to arrest.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: A 40th anniversary production of the musical "Hair" is missing the famous nude scene.

  "The nude scene was not in the original script. It was something that happened during rehearsals in New York and they left it in," (director Jim) Dunn explains. "It's not necessary to the play, and we're not doing it. I can't imagine anything more disconcerting than a bunch of naked bodies in the midday sun."

• Just Go Skinny Dipping: Macy's is introducing women's swimwear that is custom fitted through the use of a body scanner. a one-piece suit will set you back $195.
• Think About Aunt Matilda: A San Mateo columnist advises what to do if you come across a nude beachgoer.

  Bring a newspaper to shield your eyes if you chance upon a naked body sprawled out on the sand before you. Turn to the obituaries to take your mind off the situation.

• You Want to Take a Dingy?: Roz Savage is about to attempt to row across the Pacific Ocean - naked.

  Going au naturel not only reduces the chance of a rash on her most delicate body parts, but can be less dangerous than wearing clothes. “Trying to pull down your shorts to urinate while heeding the nautical rule of three points of contact — meaning my feet and one hand are touching the deck — is really difficult,” says Savage, who deliberately drinks less on her later rowing shifts to reduce the need for in-the-dark visits to the bedpan.

• Contested Waters: Jeff Wiltse has written a social history of swimming pools in America. Dick Cavett has a review in the New York Times.

  Among the first public pools in America to offer mixed-gender swimming — though blacks were excluded — was the Fairgrounds Pool in St. Louis, which opened in 1913. Because the pool had a sandy beach, Wiltse writes, “city officials applied the social standard of the seashore to it.” Men and women swam together. This “sexually charged public space,” as Wiltse describes it, set off moral panic. Would seeing more of the other sex’s body than was customary cause people to lose control? Later, I recall, someone even came up with a crackpot theory that men and women’s swimming in the same water could result in pregnancy. The theory held that spermatozoa — presumably with navigation skills rivaling those of Captain Bligh — might just find their way home, as it were.

• Maturity Test: A Chicago news anchor has a heart-to-heart talk with his 9 year-old son before venturing out onto a Mexican beach with topfree sunbathers.

  That's when I realized he wasn't facing a maturity test at all. I was. Despite my declarations of adulthood and respect for women and all that, was I still so enamored by what the top of a bikini hides that I was willing to drag my son into finding what he obviously had little interest in looking for?
  
  I decided no. We played in the pool instead.

• Sled Naked: Andy Buroker has many memories of his climb of Mt. McKinley.

  One sunny day, several British climbers – perhaps tired of all the layers of clothing the cold requires – went sledding. At 14,000 feet. Naked. “It was just a riot,” Buroker said, describing the scene as something out of “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” The clothes-free sled-riders descended into camp at 14,000 feet off an adjacent slope, like the Grinch into Whoville, to the cheers of fellow climbers.

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