Kryptonite

Wallace Baine was witness to the woman who walked nude down Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz recently.

In a better world, a story like this would expose us all to the brutal reality of people walking the streets, in clothes or otherwise, who desperately need treatment of one kind or another. But in this world, the story is all about nudity, the overblown taboo that still exerts a weird kind of Kryptonite-like power over most people. We have too many real outrages to deal with in this country to get all flustered about naked people.

I don't know why the woman decided to walk naked down a public street. Perhaps it was a bit of performance art, the result of a dare, or maybe she was just too hot in her clothes. But I doubt that she was "mentally ill" as the writer suggests, but he is correct in pointing out that whenever nudity is involved in anything, it overshadows any other facts in a story. If someone flees a blaze in the all-together, it's not the fire that people want to know about, it's the nudity. People are just fascinated with nudity of any type, and that is because society has made it taboo.

Baine goes on to say:

Still, here's hoping that this incident will not lead to an explosion of nudity downtown.

On one hand he says it's nothing to get "flustered" about, and on the other he fears more such incidents. Baine has fallen victim to his own Kryptonite theory.

They could make nudity legal in all public areas of the United States tomorrow, and only a very small handful of people would go about in the nude. Society is far too heavily invested in clothing for a paradigm shift from textiles to clothes-free to occur overnight.

Most nudists would be more than happy to have some public areas set aside for nude sunbathing and recreation. There is no support for widespread public nudity.

But when it does occur, such as with the Santa Cruz woman, it should be no big deal.

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