Friday, May 30, 2014

The Continuing War on Nudity

"In keeping with a family-friendly environment, the Park does not allow clothing which is too revealing of one's body..."

How is a nudist supposed to react to this statement? Nudist resorts are notorious for being family-friendly environments, and yet within such environments, everybody's body is completely revealed. It's true that many nudists would argue that certain styles of clothing are more inappropriate and indecent, and sexually suggestive, than complete nudity. But if revealing one's body is not intrinsically family-unfriendly, then how can I swallow a policy which restricts the revealing of one's body on the grounds that doing so violates the family-friendly atmosphere?

You have to be a hypocrite - you're forced to be - to exist as a nudist in this textile society. It really bothers me, though. If the majority of the population is not mature or enlightened enough to live the lifestyle I want to lead, then I don't want to share my everyday life with them, following their "least common denominator" rules. I'd love to run off and live exclusively on a nudist resort, but it could get expensive, it kind of restricts your mobility, and it'd be hard to make a living without leaving the grounds and braving the textile world. Plus, as enlightened as nudists are, they're maybe not quite enlightened enough to deal with the allowance of photography, except under the strictest of conditions, and that's one of my major sticking points with the modern nudist lifestyle.

Also, while I'm impressed that the "Park" seems to have a very progressive policy re: breastfeeding - "we will never demand that a breastfeeding mother must relocate, nor do we discourage a mother from breastfeeding wherever she has a right to be" - I'm concerned about the implications of allowing breastfeeding but not topfreedom. Is the female breast an indecent organ or not? Is it only decent when a babe is suckling on it? But how come? Frankly, I think a baby sucking on its mother's teat has a greater potential to offend someone than a female breast simply being there, in an uncovered state. I understand that there's this whole social movement to give mothers the freedom to breastfeed in public, but you could say the same thing about topfreedom. Why does one matter and the other doesn't? Or, the better question to ask is, if we can tolerate the sight of breasts during feeding, on what grounds do we possibly have to stand to insist that non-feeding breasts are otherwise indecent and offensive? I seriously don't get the logic there...

Dear god, we have such incredibly fucked up attitudes towards the human body in this country.

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