Will men running around half-naked in snow attract as much attention as women riding bikes half-naked in sunshine? The jury is still out... [China Daily/Agencies]

 

Riding around stark naked? Sounds interesting – even sexy... But it's just another interesting and possibly effective form of attracting attention – whether to oneself, or to a cause.

Naked exposure is practiced by individuals or groups in various ways, throughout the Western world – particularly in colder climates where being totally naked outside the home for any period of time is a seasonal rarity. It also happens in some developing countries – but again, rare occurrences, mostly influenced by similar events elsewhere.

In the USA, the most ardent supporters of Nature adopt stances most others would consider extreme – like demanding that no tree ever be cut, no animal ever be killed and no fertilizer ever be used to grow any food for humans – or animals.

Riding naked in public is, therefore, simply anther rare manifestation of unusual, if not extreme ways, to make a point. Everywhere, however, being stark naked in public is an offense under the law. It is illegal.

In some places, persons are allowed to expose their private parts on privately-owned beaches or in other controlled environments. In others, it's allowed on condition that children will be prohibited from viewing. In many places too, it's not unusual to see a spectator run stark naked across a playing field – and end up being arrested on national TV.

The recent media attention given to a plan by a group of Chinese students to ride naked did attract some public attention – even though more to the riders than to their cause. Their protest lost half its intended potential after the planners changed plans and asked that the riders be half-clad. But they perhaps drew no less attraction than the men – in China and elsewhere – who run dressed as Santa Claus every Christmas, wearing nothing but their false beards, running shoes and skimpy underwear.

Like everywhere else, there will be more discussion about whether the naked riders or runners were right or wrong to ride or run naked, than about the causes they may have wanted to highlight.

The discussion about nakedness will sometimes be a stark naked disagreement between those who see nakedness as a naked insult and those who see opponents of nudism as being nakedly ignorant.

If men ride naked, there's no guarantee they will attract more of the interest of the opposite sex than vice versa. Similarly, there will be women who will see posing naked for photographs as being simply abominable (pornography), never to be tolerated, far less encouraged. But there will also be men – and women – who will see a nude photo as a work of art.

Men who criticize public exposure by women as being "nasty" will be reminded that its men who most frequent public places (bars, night clubs, etc) where naked women offer "strip tease" performances. But while the two positions will not converge, there's a vast difference between appearing naked in public (for whatever cause) and dancing naked to entertain for economic reasons.

At various international levels and fora, such persons (men and women) who offer bodily pleasure for a price are legally described as "sex workers" – and their "right to work" is also heavily defended.

The problems usually begin when individuals or minority groups adopting, proposing and agitating positions of change that are unpopular or capable of dividing a society are seen as imposing their minority views on the majority, especially as proponents of radical change always want that change to come faster than the rest of the society may be willing to receive or accept.

The nature and form of sex has changed considerably over time, as has the nature of sexual relationships between consenting individuals, across historical gender boundaries.

This is a completely new time.

Me? There are things I'll do, but there are also things I definitely won't. I won't seek sexual pleasure in a public place. But if there's a story at a "strip tease" bar that interests me enough, you bet – inquiring mind that I am, I'll pay and enter, observe – and write.

We live in a quickly changing world in which the values some of us grew up with either are or have been erased, eroded or challenged. But just as I will defend my right to maintain my personal stance on anything, so will I not seek to impose it on anyone else – or to erode or erase an individual's right to choose how to live today, within the law.

And that's the naked truth!

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.h5a3.com/opinion/node_7107878.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn