Plan B Forum

Are there any substantive answers to the real questions about public nudity laws?

Set aside such diversions as restaurants and produce markets. After all, one cannot enter a restaurant or a supermarket barefoot, but that has not prompted us to make it illegal for one to walk down the street barefoot or to lie in one's front yard barefoot.

So blowing off the irrelevant distractions, where are the answers to the core questions:

(1) Why should it be illegal for me to lie on my own front lawn, in full view of passersby, naked?

(2) Why should it be illegal for me to walk down the street -- not urinating, not defecating, not "dribbling," just walking -- naked?

(3) Why should it be perfectly legal for me to walk down the street with my nipples exposed but be illegal for a woman to do the very same thing?

Does anyone have substantive answers to those questions?

One question Andrew.

When you speak of "irrelevant distractions", are you referring to opinions that differ from yours?

Oh man, sometimes I'm so good I scare myself...

I'm guessing "2" will probably be a screed where His Highness declares his absolute correctness about the virtues of public nudity....

Not quite Jim... The infinity thread was posted first which makes this one number three.

Andrew old bean, it'll help us keep track if you'd be so kind as to stick to the numbering system you started with.

Ta muchly.

Not quite Jim... The infinity thread was posted first which makes this one number three.

Oh bugger....

Andrew D wrote: (1) Why should it be illegal for me to lie on my own front lawn, in full view of passersby, naked?

(2) Why should it be illegal for me to walk down the street -- not urinating, not defecating, not "dribbling," just walking -- naked?

Try it sometime and you'll get your answer.

Andrew D wrote:(3) Why should it be perfectly legal for me to walk down the street with my nipples exposed but be illegal for a woman to do the very same thing??

It wouldn't be illegal for a woman to expose her nipples in public in a perfect world. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world. Maybe if you were to get a proposition on the California ballot we could all witness a substantive debate on the subject.

Andrew D wrote:"...

So blowing off the irrelevant distractions, where are the answers to the core questions:

(1) Why should it be illegal for me to lie on my own front lawn, in full view of passersby, naked?

(2) Why should it be illegal for me to walk down the street -- not urinating, not defecating, not "dribbling," just walking -- naked?

...

Does anyone have substantive answers to those questions?

Just do the experiment.

yrs,
rubato

Andrew D wrote:"...

(3) Why should it be perfectly legal for me to walk down the street with my nipples exposed but be illegal for a woman to do the very same thing?

... " ?

It's not illegal here for a woman to walk down the street with her nipples exposed.

yrs,
rubato

It's called "civilization."

And there is almost total unanimity across global cultures that certain body parts and certain biological functions ought not to be on public view. Sanctions for transgressions range from public disdain and ridicule to ritual execution.

One might note that neither is it "permissible" to copulate in front of your children, even though it is a normal, natural, and one might even generalize and say, enjoyable function.

But for those who believe that there is no reason to accept the collective judgement of the entire civilized human race over the past, say 10,000 years, these social sanctions remain a puzzle.

I'm with rube on this one: Go for it. What's the worst that could happen?

for those who believe that there is no reason to accept the collective judgement of the entire civilized human race over the past, say 10,000 years, these social sanctions remain a puzzle.

That would appear to be the crux of the matter...

Apparently it is "puzzling" to some (.000001 percent of the population to be generous) that 99.99999% of the population understands quite easily that having a civil society should not include folks going about starkers and waving their butt holes and naughty bits freely in the public square....

The vast majority of folks, regardless of their political views, are able to grasp this self-evidently logical concept quite readily...intuitively, in fact...

But apparently there is a tiny (infinitesimal in fact) group of odd ducks for whom understanding something so basic is completely elusive....

Folks who, try as they might, will repeatedly fail "Bleeding Obvious, 101"...

Why not join a nudist colony?

Sean wrote:One question Andrew.

When you speak of "irrelevant distractions", are you referring to opinions that differ from yours?

No. I refer to matters not pertinent to the central issue.

Special circumstances -- produce markets, restaurants, etc. -- may require special rules. But adverting to them as a way of avoiding the central issue makes them irrelevant distractions.

My front yard is not a produce market. It is not a restaurant. My basking naked in the sun in my front yard does not pose the issues posed by nakedness in produce markets and restaurants.

And that is, of course, exactly why people bring up produce markets and restaurants rather than attempting to justify the criminalization of my lying naked in my front yard:

When people don't have an answer, they change the question.

Lord Jim wrote:Oh man, sometimes I'm so good cunningly dishonest I scare myself and all those around me ...

Little Jimmy made a clever preemptive strike. He realized that he had said nothing of substance on the issue, so he built himself a way out.

Clever.

Cunning.

Dishonest.

Typical.

But the truth of the matter remains that he has said nothing of substance on the issue.

Which, given his history, must come as a surprise to no one.

Okay. So where we are, substantively speaking, is this:

People should be prohibited from going naked, because some people don't like other people's going naked.

That's it.

Let's just be sure to understand the fundamental nature of that proposition.

"You can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't like it."

"But you do things which I don't like."

"So what? We're us, and you're you. We have the power, and you don't. We win."

How many of us are actually comfortable with that method of determining the rules which govern our society?

Andrew D wrote:Okay. So where we are, substantively speaking, is this:

People should be prohibited from going naked, because some people don't like other people's going naked.

That's it.

Let's just be sure to understand the fundamental nature of that proposition.

"You can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't like it."

"But you do things which I don't like."

"So what? We're us, and you're you. We have the power, and you don't. We win."

How many of us are actually comfortable with that method of determining the rules which govern our society?

Uh, isn't that sort of how democracy works?

Now, we have invented some structural protections against the tyranny of the majority when it comes to what we view as fundamental rights. But other self-expression may be subject to "community standards" (e.g., obscenity). At bottom, you are correct: you are prohibited from public nudity because of an aesthetic standard, not a utilitarian one, and there is nothing more to it than "we like it this way, not your way." Does it infringe on your indvudual liberty? Of course. But you wouldn't be permitted to go to court in a Speedo, either. Conversely, you wouldn't be expected to wear clothing at a nude beach. Aesthetics are purely situational.

On behalf of everyone else, to those who feel a compulsion to parade around in the all together in the public square, I have a suggestion:

The Supreme Court has determined that you have a constitutional right to privacy...

USE IT!

Sue U wrote:Uh, isn't that sort of how democracy works?

Yes.

Which is why democracy is dangerous.

Which is why the US is, quite deliberately, not a democracy.

Nudity is a relatively trivial example. But many examples are not trivial.

Slavery was tolerated for a long time, because most people were content to tolerate it. And the "arguments" (such as they are) underlying the prohibition of nudity could be, and were, as easily employed to underly the acceptance of slavery.

"Deporting" communists to a country they'd never set foot in. "Separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites.

Majoritarians should have the intestinal fortitude to acknowledge that they are basing their claims on the same rationale that has supported everything from race-based slavery to burning heretics at the stake. They know it. They're just too cowardly to admit it.

Soooo I'm a slave cause you can't run around nekkid.

Talk about obfuscation...

Andrew D wrote:

Sean wrote:One question Andrew.

When you speak of "irrelevant distractions", are you referring to opinions that differ from yours?

No. I refer to matters not pertinent to the central issue.

Special circumstances -- produce markets, restaurants, etc. -- may require special rules. But adverting to them as a way of avoiding the central issue makes them irrelevant distractions.

My front yard is not a produce market. It is not a restaurant. My basking naked in the sun in my front yard does not pose the issues posed by nakedness in produce markets and restaurants.

And that is, of course, exactly why people bring up produce markets and restaurants rather than attempting to justify the criminalization of my lying naked in my front yard:

When people don't have an answer, they change the question.

Actually Andrew, in the OP you made specific reference to walking down the street so this was never just about your back yard. So tell me, what if you were doing your nudey walk and suddenly got a bit peckish? Do you have a handy bag with some clothes which you can pop on before you enter the restaurant?

Andrew D wrote:Okay. So where we are, substantively speaking, is this:

People should be prohibited from going naked, because some people don't like other people's going naked.

That's it.

Try "because the overwhelmingly vast majority of people don't like other people's going naked".
You're trying to make it sound like a small group of people (a MOTU if you will) are controlling society on this subject.

In another thread, and correct me if I'm wrong. I believe you described this as a "weird phobia" that some people have. Wouldn't it make sense that, as you are in the tiny minority, you might be the one with the 'weird' outlook on this?

You're like the tuba player in the marching band who believes that he is the only one marching in step.