Public nudity has sometimes been used to attract more attention to a public protest, a tactic used by the Doukhobors in the early 20th century, and later (particularly from the 1960s onwards) used more widely. Modern slogans include "Disrobe for disarmament", "Nudes, not nukes!", "Naked For Peace", "Less Gas More Ass!" and "I'd rather go naked than wear fur!".
Cultural and legal acceptance of public nudity varies regionally. For nudity in public areas, there are in many countries areas such as nude beaches, officially designated or tolerated. People who unexpectedly encounter nudity in a public place outside these areas tend to be taken by surprise. Some opponents claim that it is indecent exposure when nudity occurs in lewd (or otherwise sexualized) contexts. In particular, opponents sometimes protest that it is inappropriate for children to encounter public nudity.
Even where the general public is fairly tolerant of public nudity, it is still notorious enough to be used as a deliberate, often successful means to attract publicity, either by those in traditional social nudity circles (such as naturists and nudists) promoting their way of life or by others for various purposes, such as commercial nudity in advertising or staging nude events as a forum for a usually unrelated messages, such as various nude biker tours (such as World Naked Bike Ride) demonstrating for different causes or celebrities revealing their natural state by removing a fur coat to support a campaign against fur sales.
Another common distinction, also considered by censoring authorities, is that gratuitous nudity is perceived as more offensive than the same degree of physical exposure in a functional context, where the action could not conveniently be performed dressed, either in reality or in a fictitious scene in art. The intent can also be invoked: whether the nudity is meant to affect observers; e.g., streaking can be considered unacceptably provocative, nude sun tanning viewed mildly as rather inoffensive.
At a Lollapalooza appearance in 1993 in Philadelphia, rather than perform their music, members of the band Rage Against the Machine stood onstage naked with duct-tape on their mouths and the letters "PMRC" painted on their chests for 15 minutes in protest against censorship by the Parents Music Resource Center.
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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights group, is best known for its highly visible, often controversial campaigns. (See below.) The Lettuce Ladies, young women dressed in bikinis which appear to be made of lettuce, gather in city centers to hand out leaflets about veganism. Every year the Running of the Nudes campaign sees PETA activists run naked through Pamplona, Spain in a parody of the annual Running of the Bulls tradition.[1] Supermodels such as Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell have posed naked on billboards with the slogan "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" emblazoned across their chests.[2]
Several groups and individuals have used nudity in anti-war demonstrations. Some groups include: Breasts Not Bombs and Artists for Peace/Artists Against War, which later became the Work Less Party of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The latter is known for its Naked Bike Rides which Conrad Schmidt later evolved into World Naked Bike Ride.
Groups also started to use nudity to protest the Iraq War. Groups using their bodies to form words and symbols to convey their message included Baring Witness, US-based/founded by Donna Sheehan, which inspired other groups on all seven continents to stage similar events, including Bare Witness, based in the UK.
World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) is an international clothing-optional bike ride in which participants plan, meet and ride together en masse on human-powered transport (the vast majority on bicycles, and fewer on skateboards, rollerblades, roller skates) to "protest oil dependency and celebrate the power and individuality of our bodies".[1] This represents one of the few events that combines elements that could be described as pro nudity and pro cycling (as well as environmental).
Many of the political rides have their roots from Critical Mass and are often described or categorized as a form of political protest, street theatre, party-on-wheels, streaking, public nudity and clothing-optional recreation and thus attracts a wide-range of participants. Since 1996 Critical Tits has been hosting a "raucous topless bicycle joyride" on Friday afternoon at the annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada.
Manifestación Ciclonudista Mundial has had rides predating WNBR (since 2001) in Spain and has since spread to other Spanish and Italian speaking countries in Europe.
Not all people who engage in public nudity see themselves as nudists or naturists or belong to traditional naturist or nudist organizations. Several activists, such as Vincent Bethell, claim that associations with naturism or nudism are unnecessary. Others will point out that many people who participate in events such as clothing-optional bike rides or visit clothing-optional beaches do so casually and without association or formal affiliation to groups or movements. Activist Daniel Johnson believes that labels and affiliations overly complicate a relatively simple phenomenon, alienate others from a fear of over-commitment or undesirable stereotypes, and thus get in the way of integrating nudity into everyday life.
The Freedom to be Yourself campaign (TFTBY) or (FTBY) was founded in 1998 by Vincent Bethell. The group, according to Vincent Bethell is about "the right to be naked in public". Supporters of the TFTBY organized several grassroots naked protests in public in London; there have also been protests in Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, Coventry, and some in the United States.
Terri Sue Webb is an activist living in Bend, Oregon, who was one of few activists in the United States active in The Freedom to be Yourself (TFTBY) or (FTBY) campaign. She has been imprisoned and released multiple times for public nudity. On several occasions she has remained fully nude while incarcerated, often resulting in a much longer jail sentence. There has been quite a bit of media coverage of her activities. Daniel Johnson went nude with her in public on two occasions in 2001 and 2002.
Vincent Bethell made legal history[3][4] in January 2001 by being the first defendant to stand trial naked in a UK court. The trial was at Southwark Crown Court London. Vincent was naked throughout this court case, furthermore he was found unanimously not guilty.[5][6] Stephen Gough, also known as "Steve Gough" and "the naked rambler", is an activist from Eastleigh, Hampshire, famous for walking the length of Great Britain from Land's End to John o' Groats in 2003–2004 and again in 2005-2006 (that year accompanied by his girlfriend Melanie Roberts), with nothing on except boots, socks, rucksack and sometimes a hat. He has been arrested several times and put in prison in the course of his rambles. In his last walk he was only arrested twice in England, and released almost immediately, but due to the different legal system and laws in Scotland, he was arrested many more times after crossing the border and spent time in HMP Edinburgh, then moved to HMP Barlinnie Glasgow in June 2008.[7]
Richard Collins has been cycling naked through his home town of Cambridge, England for some time. He has been organizing several protests on the TFTBY Stop Segregation discussion group (no longer in existence). Richard has been arrested numerous times and released, although he was convicted of an offence under section 5, Public Order Act 1986, in Bournemouth, England, on 13 June after his nude cycling attracted complaints approximately 12-months earlier. Richard says: "My outings are NOT protests as such but 'activities'. Simply me having fun! And exercising my right to nude freedom!"
In Liberia, the end of the Second Liberian Civil War came about as a result of Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace threatening to strip their clothes[9] in a protest.
In Ukraine the protest group FEMEN (founded in 2008) regularly stages topless protests against sex tourists, international marriage agencies, sexism and other social ills.[10][11][12][13] These protest got worldwide press coverage.[12][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] The group comprises some 20 topless activists and 300 fully clothed members.[20][21] FEMEN justifies its provocative methods stating "This is the only way to be heard in this country. If we staged simple protests with banners, then our claims would not have been noticed".[22] FEMEN receives small financial backing by individuals.[21][23][24]
Robbert Broekstra (now deceased) was involved in a group called "Friends of Nature". The would often go for naked excursions on public lands, sometimes in urban areas, often taking pictures. He was also involved in INIC (International Naturist Information Center). He authored the book Robbert Broekstra's Nude World (1997) and his group appeared in "Naked Travels 1", by Charles MacFarland.
There is a group led by Avril X called UrbaNudismo that has led several casual nudity excursions in high visibility public urban environments in Brazil as well as some Western European countries.[25]
APNEL is the French Naked Activities Group.[26]
Naktiv.net is a generic Naked Activities site [27]
In 1969, in Denmark, 300 individuals participated in a massive naked "wade-in" at a Danish beach. The event helped push forward dramatic reformation in public policy. It is now possible and allowed to be naked at any public beach in Denmark with only two major exceptions: Holmsland Klit and Hennestrand. The remaining 4,700 kilometers of Danish coast are clothing-optional.
Although exposure of women's breasts is considered perfectly acceptable in some western countries in appropriate settings, such as while suntanning, in the United States of America exposure of female nipples is still considered criminal by many states and not usually allowed in public (see Public indecency). Public breastfeeding, since the exposure it involves is functional, may be looked upon more mildly, but still it is sometimes considered problematic. Courts in some US jurisdictions where legal challenges have arisen, and other North American jurisdictions like Ontario have legalized the exposure of women's nipples, but not on equal protection grounds (see United States Constitution/Amendment Fourteen). Those grounds are the basis of the movement of "topfree equality," which promotes equal rights for women to have no clothing above the waist; the term "topfree" rather than "topless" is used to avoid the latter term's sexual connotations.
The Topfree Equal Rights Association (TERA)[29] is a Canadian organization for helping women who have legal troubles exercising their rights to go 'topfree' where men are able to. Their Web site states that they serve both Canada and the United States.
The organization also aims to inform and educate the public about topfreedom. They campaign to change laws against topfreedom which exist in most North American jurisdictions, which laws they see as sex discrimination and inhibiting to breastfeeding.
In November, 2011, a transgender woman from Morristown Tennessee was arrested and jailed for 21 days by Tennessee police for indecent exposure after removing her top in the parking lot of her local DMV after they refused to alter the gender designation on her driver’s license from male to female, despite the fact that the US federal government Social Security office aleady had[30]. As it is legal for a man to go topless in public and since the Tennessee Department of Public Safety refused to recognise her as female[31], Ms Jones decided to protest her treatment by going topless, stating "if I was a male, I had the right to, when I stepped out the door, take off my shirt... It's not right for the state to ask me to be both male and female. A choice needs to be made. They cannot hold me to both standards[32].
In late June 2010, a woman in Ontario bared her breasts to stop ATV noise.[33]