Over in Garfield County, Colorado – on the western edge of the state, apparently the Sheriff’s office is having a problem with men who enjoy hiking the many trails in the area, sans clothing.
There are no reports of lewd behaviour, no reports of attempted rapes or violence, simply someone out enjoying nature without benefit of clothing.
Believe it or not, there is actually a website for people who enjoy doing this sort of thing. It’s evidently quite popular in Vermont, although I would think they have a fairly short season for such a thing.
Apparently, nude hiking is also quite popular in many of the wilderness areas in Colorado. I enjoy hiking, and have hiked some, but between my bad back and a gimpy leg, hiking in some of the wilder, steeper areas is something I’m mostly unable to do.
I suppose I’d enjoy hiking naked. Being “one with nature” and all that jazz. And, generally speaking, with possibly the exception of the Garfield County Sheriff, most people here in Colorado wouldn’t blink much if you passed by them on a wilderness trail, sans clothing, as long as you weren’t being rude about it.
There is also the World Naked Bike Ride organization who organizes naked bike rides around the world in protest of various things. I’ve seen pictures of some of them, and they appear to be pretty harmless. You get a pretty good idea from looking at these pictures that most people really do look better with clothes on. Apparently I missed the last one to be held here in Denver in August of 2011. I’ll have to keep an eye open for the next one.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, it is perfectly legal to wander around the city of San Francisco without clothing. Apparently, some of the regular citizens who do so got upset by a recent proposal by one of the city supervisors to ban nudity in restaurants, and require nude people to use a towel or some other protection before sitting on public benches.
While I am pretty sure I wouldn’t wander San Francisco without any clothes on, even if it is legal, I’m also pretty sure that I could hike naked if we were in the wilderness, and I’ve always thought that swimming with clothes on never made much sense, so a trip to the nude beach would probably be OK too.
I’m still not so sure why everyone gets so upset at the sight of a naked person though, as long as the person isn’t being lewd.
Objections to most behaviors, good or bad, go back to religious fears concerning the human body. Those same religious convictions are based usually on the assumption that human beings have evil intentions and are incapable of controlling themselves. Clothing is ingrained into western culture, and our fear of freedom from it is a true terror for many. At least women don’t have to wear corsets and stays anymore…but at one time, even the sight of a female ankle was scandalous. In warmer climates, people are less edgy about nudity, maybe for purely practical reasons, and I think that views of nudity are still evolving toward less clothing, not more.