I happened upon a video article in the online version of The Guardian newspaper today and was just astounded by the prudishness of it. For a long time, I’ve been telling people that we are living in a new era of puritanism, a sort of 50s in the Noughties. Now I know I got it right. Our times will surely be looked back on with amusement by future generations.
The reality is that we are all born naked and that we all have much the same bodies with similar bits and pieces attached so why are we all so afraid of nakedness?
Paul MacInnes’ video story in the Guardian concerns the de-designation of a naturist beach by Waveney District Council. MacInnes talks seriously with several of the naturists on the beach about the planned closure before his inevitable de-robing which provides enough amusement to secure a viewing audience.
As three young boys growing up at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, my two brothers and I often ran around naked. In our own garden we would play in a large paddling pool with friends and I remember several visits to a naturist beach near Brighton with my parents. One would have thought that since those days attitudes about nakedness in society would have further mellowed but nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only has this sort of freedom all but disappeared but I seriously worry about some of the few treasured family photographs I have of myself, my brothers and friends. I have visions of the proverbial “knock on the door” one day by State officials and I am always hesitant to show these half dozen or so photos to people; skipping through them quickly whenever my family photos are brought out. How sad is that?
There are many who will say that covering up is purely a question of aesthetics and that nakedness accentuates our differences but I suspect that this is not the true reason for our prudishness. In the traditional religious faith of Britain nakedness is viewed as synonymous with “original sin”. Even Adam and Eve, the originators of this lie, are always depicted with strategically placed fig leaves.
A further reason perhaps for the prudometer having swung back the other way is perhaps the predominance of another even more prudish faith than Christianity; namely Islam. How can anyone be seen to be running around naked in a land where some women cover themselves with bell tents to preserve their modesty? In the 60s and 70s only a few vicars and a dying breed of Mary Whitehouse types were there to offend. The majority enjoyed the new freedoms that came with the culural revolution. That has now changed and there are both many more people who might be offended and a greater hesitancy in society to do anything that might offend anyone at all. It seems as though causing offence has suddenly become a major crime. Whatever happened to the right to offend and the right to be offended? I was taught that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me”. Yet this principle has been up-ended today. Now it is a case of “sticks and stones will get me locked up for a few hours but using the wrong words will get me life”.
The Guardian video is amusing and well worth a watch, if only to see a couple of local fossils bringing sexuality and “deviance” into the argument by comparing the impulse that naturists have to shed their clothing and walk around freely with perversion. One man who is interviewed even talks of “gay men jumping out of the bushes” and at another point in the video, when Mr. MacInnes is undressing behind a large screen to cover his “naughty bits” from the camera, he even says “It’s like page three”. Hillarious stuff.
See:
“The end of naturism”
(Guardian 15.08.09)
Filed under: Neo-puritanism, News, Corton, Naturism, Waveney Council
Recent Comments