nudies blog

We’ve barely scratched the surface of 2010 and already it’s shaping up to be The Year for Very Public Displays of Nudity. There’s Foxtel’s ”top-rating” How to Look Good Naked, the runaway success of all-female nudity in the British stage play Trinity, and animal rights group Peta’s latest nude ad campaign featuring a former porn star.

Of course, what would an Aussie summer of cricket be without a streaker getting halfway to the pitch (this time at the WACA) before being tackled … err, judiciously apprehended?

And yet how is it that the old ”bathers versus birthday suit” argument still manages to end up getting our Speedos in a knot?

In Sydney last week a councillor’s failed effort to remove Lady Bay Beach from the city’s list of nude bathing areas led him to vow to continue his effort to make the beach more ”child friendly”.

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Books:

How to Look Good Naked ~ Gok Wan		#641745 in Books
How to Look Good Naked…Can Change Your Life ~ Charmaine Yabsley		#1080374 in Books
Carson’s Parisian shopping spree: we recently sent the indomitable TV star of How to Look Good Naked on a shopping bender in Paris. His notes from the … (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine) ~ Carson Kressley

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In Queensland there’s been a brouhaha about a ”no-holes-barred” Queensland resort, run by self-described ”rudie nudies” Tony and Lenore Fox. Not only did the pair send other, more modest groups of nudists into a tizzy last month, they managed to drive a wedge through one of modern civilisation’s most enduring pastimes.

Nudism (also more benignly known as naturism) traces its origins to 1800s in Germany, when being naked under a summer sun was prescribed as a cure-all for illnesses largely caused by an early industrial age. According to disciples, modern nudist resorts work because there are rules and a basic code of conduct. As there must be when they cater mainly to families and couples who simply want to be able to walk (or skip, frolic or whatever the heck nudists do all day) unencumbered in a supportive environment.

Could it be that our undying fascination with public nudity reveals less about people who take off their clothes as a lifestyle choice and more about those of us who don’t? Certainly, more than we care to admit.

Last month, Age writer Denise Gadd admitted she had mixed feelings about reports of Melbourne’s Sandringham Beach being considered as a clothes-optional beach. Not, she writes, because of fears the beach would be overrun by nudists, but because of ”the people who might be attracted to the area for the wrong reasons”.

Try this on for size next time you’re out. Throw the word nudism into a conversation and see how long it takes before the sniggers and innuendo reach a crescendo – the loudest could well come from those likely to be first in line to strip off in front of the lens of contemporary nude photographer Spencer Tunick when he arrives in Australia next month. (Naked States ~ Spencer Tunick)

This is about more than exposure. It’s about our ambivalence.

We may rally against body scanners at airports, arguing that they cross the lines of decency, but tht didn’t stop almost 70,000 volunteers converging at Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide airports to test the full-body security scanners during recent trials.

It wasn’t for nothing that ”curiosity” was the main reason cited by those who took part. Sure, the ever-present threat of terrorism has made us more security conscious than ever. But we’ve been body conscious – intensely, indefatigably so – since the day dot.

The human body is something to be admired and sometimes abhorred. But it is rarely ignored, a point made patent by the sorry episode involving the hapless Macquarie stockbroker caught viewing near-naked images of lingerie model Miranda Kerr on his work computer.

Commenting on the affair, Sydney academic Cordelia Fine wrote: ”These kinds of sexually provocative images of women are so ubiquitous that it’s completely understandable that many are left thinking, ‘What’s the big deal?’ ”

The big deal is coming clean about our intentions, accepting that the media only feed us what they think we want, and understanding that when we gorge on the headlines, we swallow an underlying social assumption that equates nakedness with a kind of perversion.

The discussion needs to move beyond tut-tutting about other people’s lifestyle choices. Surely we should be analysing our own responses rather than engaging in knee-jerk reactions that equate nudity with titillation.

Jen Vuk is a freelance writer. 

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