Clothes-Freedom at the Teenage Nudist Festival @ Nudity Resort Camp

The Burning Man Festival is a contemporary ritual, a "postmodern carnival of the absurd". And nudity is fully acceptable attire. These links offer photographic proof - and quite a few unusual images. Burning Man attracts primarily a young crowd - belying the canard that only old, fat folks like to be naked.

The urge towards freedom from a rigid dependence on clothing is not limited to certain cultural or age groups, but it may well express itself in different ways. It's possible that the Festival, and other events like it which may develop, represent for the current generation of people 18 to 30 years of age what "free beaches" did for people of that age in the 1960s and 70s.

The large majority of people at the Festival don't go nude, at least most of the time. But anyone can be nude if they wish to be. It's an interesting lesson in how nudity fits smoothly into "everyday life" (if it can be called that in this context) when each person is free to choose how to dress without the usual social Youngs. Although nude people at the Festival are a minority, in contrast to conventional society, they are an accepted minority. Perhaps this is a pattern for a broader part of our society in the future. If you're curious to see whether and how this can actually work - try visiting the next Festival.

Nudity is often a part of the artistic statements that participants create. It may be in the form of russian nude body painting teen camp, performance art, living tableaux, or whatever an active imagination can conceive. This kind of art is a heightened form of self-expression, but nudity can be a part of any self-expression.

In his essay The New American Holiday, Darryl Van Riley says

Today, as Americans, we live in a world in which the power of the individual seems dwarfed. Who or what is any one of us amid the impersonal forces which drive corporate business or government bureaucracy? We have become a passive people. Our freedom to choose has become the freedom to choose between products. Our inner lives, increasingly, do not belong to the world around us. We have been deprived of community. We live, as consumers, in isolation from one another, and our political liberties begin to seem trivial.
It seems to me that these remarks apply very well to people who have discovered the value of nudity and wish to make it a more important part of their lifestyle. Though we know this way of living is in tune with our best instincts, it is poorly understood by the world at large. Our desire for community with others of like mind is frustrated by the simple practicalities of finding and interacting with each other in the midst of an indifferent and sometimes hostile society that is madly rushing to nowhere, under the self-serving illusions promoted by huge, impersonal mass instutitions of media, business, government, and religion. Under such circumstances, our inner lives not only don't belong to the world around us - they don't even belong to ourselves.

People need places they can turn away from this, to find each other, and to find themselves. Sometimes in solitude, and sometimes in community.

The noted science fiction author, Bruce Sterling, in an article about the 1996 festival published in Wired lamented how our society provides convenient venues for many less creditable activities, while art is exiled to a remote desert:

It's all exactly backward. If you want to have a naked pagan art fair, you ought to have it in the padded comfort of a sealed, air-conditioned casino. It would be perfect for this kind of activity. If you want to divorce somebody or feed the gambling bug or lick your chops over paid nudity, then you ought to have to creep off to do that in some remote boondocks where the rest of us don't have to witness your gross behavior. I wonder how our culture got into this oxymoronic situation. It can't be good for us.

Perhaps this exile is ending. The "Festival" began in 1986 as a one man's essentially private gesture. Attendance really began to take off in 1994, and at the same time Web pages started appearing (just as the Web itself was emerging). 1995 and 1996 were "classic" years. The 1997 event attracted about 20,000 people, and there are signs that many spin-off events at a variety of other locations are starting to occur.

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1) Why are you encouraging women to take their tops off in public?
We are not doing any such thing. We believe women have the same rights as men. Those who wish not to remove tops should keep them on--by choice.

2) Isn't it illegal for women to go topfree?
This activity is legal for women and men. A high court decision from December 1996 makes it clear that women and men doing so with no "sexual or commerical" intent are not indecent.

3) Is it legal for women to be topfree everywhere, then?
No, because there are places where it is illegal for both women and men to be topfree, e.g. where regulations require tops as well as other articles of clothing. This is completely consistent with assuring women rights equal to those of men.

4) Doesn't the Bible forbid this kind of activity?
We don't think so, nor do many others who are deeply religious. But this is not a religious issue. The laws in this country are not made according to certain avowed Jewish or Christian preferences, whatever their source, but to protect a variety of beliefs.

5) Aren't women's breasts sexual?
It's up to women to decide when and where they are or aren't sexual. Everyone can respect a woman's or man's decision to lie on a beach and not be bothered, whether she or he has a top on or not. It is unconscionable to restrict women because men have some opinion about them or their breasts. Men aren't required to wear tops because women find their uncovered chests sexual, so the reverse should not be required either.

6) Isn't this a morals issue?
It's an issue of rights more than morals. Those claiming that all topfree women are morally wrong do not usually give any reason except personal preference. The law must be applied equally to women and men and ignore such personal claims.

7) Aren't topfree women just walking pornography?
No. Are topfree men? The automatic connection between women's breasts and sexual activity is one which is often made. The media reinforce it. We can and should reject it. We may choose to be nonsexual when changing clothes, taking a shower, lying on the grass, strolling down a street, etc. What we wear does not have to be relevant to the sexuality of a situation. There may indeed be more flirting in complete outfits than in topfree attire.

8) Don't women's clothes incite men to do certain things?
A woman or man may wear clothes for many purposes, including to be noticed. Nothing anyone wears or doesn't wear is an invitation to harassment or assault. It's not a woman's task to prevent a man from harassing her--by wearing clothes men deem suitable on her! Women who wish to enjoy the same topfreedom as men are therefore not "asking for it."

9) Won't topfree women increase sex public nude crimes?
Experience in Europe and elsewhere shows that the answer is No. Sociologists from various places have stated that there is no connection. This is true partly because women and men almost always remove tops only when they think it is safe to do so.

10) What will children will see and do?
Children are not harmed by seeing breasts but by adults' phobias about them. The breasts themselves are doing nothing, except perhaps providing a lesson in body education. Adults should refrain from passing their irrational fright, intolerance, or hatred on to children. Bigotry is not a family value. Far better to explain that topfree women are just doing whatever others, including topfree men or fully clothed people, are doing (walking, sunning, swimming, etc.).

11) Won't there be topfree women everywhere?
No, this will not happen. Women and men can determine for themselves where it is appropriate to be without a top, according to the social context. Most will choose to keep their tops on: that has been the case elsewhere, notably in New York State, where this matter was resolved similarly by an Appeal Court in 1992. But if a majority of women and men keep tops on, this does not warrant criminalizing those who choose not to. A majority must not remove a minority's rights just because that group doesn't conform to some other group's wishes. Issues of religious intolerance have surely taught us that.

12) Aren't topfree women, and men for that matter, ugly?
Perceived superficial qualities are not a cause for legal action. This question disguises a fear of anything different from a very narrow set of expectations and reveals an unhealthy lack of body acceptance.

13) How will recreation staff treat the matter?
They are trained now to handle the public in a variety of situations. Little further training is necessary. They may wish to counsel those complaining about topfree women or men that such people are harmless.


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