Social Nudity and Consent

One of the great paradoxes of nudism is this idea that a nudist is relatively unconcerned about being naked in front of other people, and yet nudists have a tendency to hide their lifestyle, even to the point of practicing it surreptitiously behind tall fences. This practice isn't, in fact, logically inconsistent - nudists don't hide because they're shy, they hide to protect themselves from the antagonistic attitude that textile culture often takes towards nudists, and nudism on the whole.* But you have to admit that it makes for a confusing public image.

*Other nudists before me have said that the fences exist for the benefit of the outside world, not for the benefit of the nudists - they're there to keep textiles comfortable, not because the nudists need them. Of course, the fences do benefit nudists insofar as it protects them, as I said, from attack by outsiders. It's an interesting twist, though, to imagine that the nudist resorts actually represent small pockets of freedom, and it's the rest of the world that's actually being "fenced in" - it's just that the prison occupies a much larger area.

An attitude that I've seen bandied about among nudists is this idea, reinforced by the current social climate of sensitivity and political correctness, that social nudity is an activity that (strangely like sex - given how much nudists try to separate their lifestyle from it) requires consent. This is a bit of an establishment position - "we're nudists, but we don't want to make textiles uncomfortable". Rather than fight for our fundamental right to dress ourselves as we see fit, it endeavors to make nudists as benign and uncontroversial to the status quo as possible.

It's a position that favors majoritarianism over civil liberties, and recognizes that we live in a world where the default agreement is that people will not expose their nudity to others except in carefully controlled situations where everyone has consented to it. What, then, makes the social practice of nudism legitimate is the fact that everyone involved has agreed to be there, with the expectation of being exposed to the nudity of others. Therefore, this practice can only occur in isolated and planned contexts, where "innocent" passersby will not be startled and potentially offended.

Despite its commitment to nonconfrontation, which I generally support in my personal life, I have serious reservations about this attitude, because it capitulates too much to our enemies. I have always been of the opinion that any serious movement needs to move forward on many fronts, and while it's important for nudists to express their ultimate desire to coexist peacefully and NOT cause undue social unrest, it is simultaneously important to stand up for what we believe in - and one of the things we believe in is that no civilized society should criminalize the sight of the unclothed human body. And as long as it continues to do so, it should NOT be permitted to rest comfortably.

So, you have protests like the World Naked Bike Ride, and people like the Naked Rambler who are labeled by some (including nudists) as public agitators, sometimes even called exhibitionists, in order for "pure" nudists to distance themselves (and their perfectly polite, capitulatory activities) from these malcontents. Yet I've always supported these approaches. Establishment nudists want to be allies with their textile enemies, and while I agree that we ultimately want the textiles to support us and not oppose us, I side with the free range nudist activists who believe that only more (and not less) exposure to nudity will ever normalize it.

Social vs. Legal Ramifications of Nudity

As an analogy, in a democracy where homosexuality is despised by the majority, public displays of homosexual affection are a right to be fought for and defended, and not something to be sacrificed to capitulate to the comfort of the majority. So, I believe, it is the same with public displays of nudity. However, there are, at this time, legal ramifications that anyone planning to engage in nudist activism ought to consider. This is why, although I yearn for a society in which nudity is less stigmatized, I am more concerned with the legal than the social ramifications for it.

Yes, it is heartbreaking to think that somebody will not accept you, maybe even refuse to spend time with you, because of what you are most comfortable wearing. But how can we change anyone's minds when we risk not just losing friends and family, but possibly our own freedom for upholding our perceived right to be comfortable in our skin? I can handle confronting people's attitudes about nudity, but what kind of platform do I have to stand on when the thing I am advocating for could be considered a crime, and sometimes a very serious one?

(Because, as sex and nudity are intertwined in the public mindset, so-called "indecent" exposure is often construed as a sex crime - something that is exponentially more severe if there happen to be any minors involved, in spite of the fact that some children engage in recreational nudism with adults both legally and ethically. Considerations vary wildly, depending on context and interpretation).

As such, it is not only a question of whether the people in my life accept my practice of nudism, but the extent to which I can even practice it solitarily. I must be concerned about who can see through my windows, or into my backyard. I must submit to the dress codes of my neighbors on my own property if there is any chance of being seen by them - I cannot do yard work, for example, in my front yard, without covering up. I cannot roll my trash can to the curb, or even step outside my front door to grab my mail from the mail box on my porch, in my preferred state of dress.

God forbid someone should come for a visit unannounced, and I should answer the door naked, for even if I were willing to cover up upon consideration of the sensibilities of my guests, the very sight of my naked body, however brief, is enough to constitute "exposure" of a potentially criminal nature. It's almost like we're censoring knowledge of human anatomy, despite the fact that everybody has unrestricted access to the sight of their own bodies, and there is nothing about the opposite sex's genitals that require one be kept ignorant up to and even beyond the age of eighteen.

The Devil's Advocate

It's human nature to argue a position, and ignore or minimize the concerns of one's opponents. Both sides do this, and it's counterproductive to coming to a compromise. I have no desire to follow that strategy. I want to address and ideally assuage the concerns of those who would disagree with me, so that we may eventually come to some kind of agreement, otherwise it's just two people shouting at each other, and one of them gets to have their way (decided arbitrarily) while the other one suffers, instead of making everyone happy to at least some measure.

So what liabilities, if any, would there be if we decriminalized the exposure of one's genitals to another without their consent? What (I can hear the voices shouting in my head) would stop a random pervert from, for example, answering the door naked (on Halloween, say) for a sexual thrill? What would stop other perverts from masturbating in public parks? I might argue how much harm this would actually do in an enlightened, sex-positive society, but putting that aside, we could certainly maintain the criminality of public sex acts.

Yet, unless caught out with some proof (which becomes easier in this age of mobile phones with cameras), what would stop these perverts from claiming in their defense that they were merely practicing nudism? Even now it's hard to differentiate in cases of indecent exposure whether or not there was any sexual intent, to any but those directly involved (and sometimes even them also). My understanding is that we criminalize nudity partly because it's easier to determine whether or not somebody was exposed than it is to determine whether there was any sexual intent.

But is it just to restrict an individual's basic liberties in order to curtail potentially criminal behavior? I suppose it really comes down to a question of principles versus pragmatism. I would rather uphold the right of an individual to be free to dress as he pleases, even if it means overlooking a few minor sexual offenses, than to promote an overly controlled society in which people can perhaps feel safer at the cost of their liberties. But I guess that makes me a monster, especially in the current climate, where there is little that is considered more serious a concern than sexual impropriety.

I honestly don't want to make it sound like my vision of sex-positivity relies on insensitivity, but there is an element of consent culture that is inherently sex-negative, which is the idea that sex (used as a vague term that encompasses a wide variety of activities) is something so odious that it requires consent in the first place. I am not saying that it does not, in its traditional form - particularly, socio-sexual contacts, which involve multiple people in sexual contact with one another, which absolutely requires the consent of all involved. But the notion that the very idea, the thought of sex can be traumatic to some, that we have to restrict its expression to such an extent...

I'm not denying that this may be the case for some, even many. And as women speak out about how tough it is to be the subject and object of so much sexual attention, it saddens me. I want to work toward a solution, but toward a sex-positive solution. Which is to say, not one in which sex is stamped out so that the only people who ever experience it are people who are definitely going to have a positive experience with it (a pretty twisted notion of sex-positivity, if you ask me), but one in which we can all behave in such a way that sex is not such an odious subject, and that it can coexist peacefully with the other aspects of our humanity.

I ask, why is sex so traumatic to so many? Why is it so horrible to imagine walking in on somebody having sex or even masturbating alone? I'm not unsympathetic to those who experience this discomfort, but I view this discomfort as a disease to be remedied, not a condition that ought to be considered normal, such that we redesign society around it, along with our attitudes towards sex, which is now seen not as being this amazing miracle of pleasure and creation and physical beauty, but this traumatic and ugly thing that must always be kept behind closed doors, and anyone who takes too much pleasure in it ought to be viewed with suspicion.