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If you don't care to go to the effort to make a button or sticker, then they work equally well as signature lines for your email. If you have a favorite naturist slogan that's not in this list, feel free to send it in.
Enjoy, and please use freely!
The essence of the matter seems to be that neighbors Shirley Davis and Mary Thompson can't stand each other. As it happens Davis' adult daughter prefers not wearing a shirt when mowing the lawn, while Thompson thinks, or at least talks, like a religious fundie. And the dispute escalates from there. Thompson first complained about the topfree lawn mowing in early August, but police explained they couldn't stop it - because it wasn't illegal. So Thompson initiated a petition drive to force the local selectmen to consider the issue. The result is that voters will get to decide in November whether to proceed with making topfree lawn mowing illegal.
Sort of makes you wonder whether some people have any real problems to worry about...
If you want the whole saga to date, you can follow it in stories from the Bangor Daily News:
L. L. Bean's store in Freeport is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Early one morning, 18-year-old Katherine Tyrol stripped and streaked to make a point. Though she'd only recently graduated from high school in Bath, this wasn't just an ordinary adolescent prank, according to Tyrol. "I'm a nudist by philosophy," she explained. "I don't think I'm obscene or perverted. We all have bodies, and it is time to start facing that." As she further explained, "Society says that in order for our bodies to be nude, they have to be perfect. These accepted traditions are what causes eating disorders."
Tyrol eluded pursuers and successfully got to the door and into her car, but a guard took down her license number, which led to a visit from the police. She was charged with "public indecency", but planned to fight it in court.
Unfortunately, few were in the store at the early hour. Though she has no plans for a repeat performance, she does wish she'd done it differently: "If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't run. Running made me feel ashamed. If I did it again, I'd take off all my clothes and just sit there."
For some reason, there's been a lot less news coverage of Tyrol's streak than of the Newport lawn mower, though she did have at least one TV interview.
The project has received local coverage in many of the 50 states that Tunick visited, as well as a short article in a New York Times Sunday magazine in July. (See Usenet articles here and here.)
The purpose of the project was to photograph ordinary people naked in all 50 states, sometimes in fairly public locations. Many of his subjects were relative strangers he'd met and convinced to pose nude. Other pictures involved bathers at the Sandy Hook, NJ, clothing-optional beach, and 1200 nude people at a Phish concert in Maine. (Said to be a record for the largest number of naked people in a single picture.)
On October 6 CNN broadcast a piece about the gallery exhibit. There's also an article at their Web site, which includes a short video. Of course, all the details considered too shocking for American eyes to see were pixilated out.
Here's an interesting story from the viewpoint of one of Tunick's subjects, about what it's like to lie naked in a Greenwich Village street at 6:15 in the morning. It includes an interview with the photographer.
Perhaps it's time for an official Naturist Party.
Excuse me while I barf. Is the news media incapable of dealing with anything without invoking stereotypes?
The subject of the article is the Lupin Naturist Club in Los Gatos, CA. After a barrage of epithets like "nerd", "chipheads", and "geeks" the article does settle down to fair reportage of one of the country's better naturist clubs. There are good quotes from "chipheads" like Rich Pasco (who happens to be Webmaster of Lupin's site) and club owner Glyn Stout.
But is it really necessary to continue our society's long tradition of denigrating intelligent people such as computer professionals? To say nothing of the further implication that one has to be weird to enjoy nude recreation.
The main message of the article, unlike the previous one, is how normal everyone is:
Solair's members are doctors and housewives and teachers and policemen and artists and real estate agents. "We're a cross-section," says Carlson. The folks inside the big wooden gate aren't much different from those outside. They just go through a lot more towels.And nudity itself is normal too:
There is still an Edenesque innocence to Solair, whose members seem to assume that the world's stresses, dangers, and temptations can be shed along with their clothes. Parents let their kids wander about unsupervised. Teenage girls stroll nonchalantly past middle-aged men. "I'm naked," one of them shrugs. "So, what's the big deal?"Solair is in rural Connecticut while Lupin is in the mountains that border Silicon Valley, but they really aren't so different. Both, in fact, were founded about the same time (1937), in the early days of American nudism. Both offer a semi-rustic retreat from frenetic urban life. Both attract the same sort of people.
But you'd never realize this from the very dissimilar slants offered by the two articles in question.
such forms of recreation, participation, activities and practices constitute a clear and present danger to the public peace, health, safety and morals of the State of Arkansas.Evidently, "morals" in the State of Arkansas were in a precarious position indeed. And not only that, but even advocating nudism is illegal:
It shall be unlawfull for any person, club, camp, corporation, partnership, association, or organization to advocate, demonstrate, or promote nudism, or for any person to rent, lease, or otherwise permit his land, premises, or buildings to be used for the purpose of advocating, demonstrating, or promoting nudism.
There isn't a Federal court anywhere in the country (we hope) that wouldn't recognize this law as a First Amendment violation, but mere technicalities like that don't seem to bother Arkansas officials, such as the Governor, who recently brushed off questions about whether he thought the law should be changed.
This 1957 law was the handiwork of an Arkansas radio evangelist named Braxton Sawyer, who made it his special crusade to rid the country of the evil of nudism. He was active elsewhere in the midwest - went around prodding the local authorities to close nudist camps. He had a few successes, but they didn't last, except for this law in his home state.
No one can remember the prohibition on advocating nudism actually being enforced in recent years, and skinny-dippers do enjoy some remote locations, very discreetly. Nevertheless, a general story on nudism that was planned to run in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette turned into an article on the backward state of local law regarding nudism when the facts came to light. Here's a summary of the story.
The Naturist Action Committee has been aware of the situation for some time, and is "quietly working" on it, according to NAC Chairman Bob Morton. A Usenet article by Morton gives more background on how the newspaper story assumed the form that it did. An earlier article gives part of the text of the law and a little more background.
The site lists campus naturist oranizations that exist or are in the process of formation. There are also tips on starting naturist groups and directories of other relevant sites and information sources.
Although naturism in the UK faces many of the same obstacles familiar in North America, it's interesting to see the number of locations where regular naturist swims are held - an interesting feature of naturism in the UK which is rather less common in the U. S. and Canada.
Kenneth Brower, in National Geographic Traveler, September/October 1998, p. 105
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