I Love San Francisco

I found this photo on the web last night while doing an image search. It made me smile. I love the casualness of it. Just in case I ever forget, we are truly blessed here in San Francisco; it is Paradise!

This past weekend was SantaCon in San Francisco, so of course the Nudist Santas were out as well. It was a beautiful day, the sun shone creating just the right amount of skin temperature warming to be out naked in the 60 degree weather. Everyone seemed to enjoy us and have a good time except for the usual batch of negative nellies, the funniest one coming from a women shopper who stopped to take our photo with her iPhone and then yelled at us, "You are not as pretty as you think you are"!

Today is my last class before my week of finals. It was an interesting semester, exploring US history during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era as well as German Literature from 1900 to 1920. Many parallels between my two classes and what is happening today such as the questioning of enlightenment thought and the supremacy of the rights of the individual over the good of society, the meaning of language and truth, the regulation of business as well as the regulation of morals.

After the break, I will be on to Graduate School.

Post Folsom Fair

In and Out and Back in Disguise.

Leaving the house early for school today so I could grab some lunch, I decided to get dressed as the weather seemed a little threatening. I realized I had a message on my phone from my buddy NakedKevin, so I called him. Of course I asked him if he was "in disguise." He replied that he was not and we made arrangements to meet. He inspired me to remove my disguise and continue my journey naked. One man exclaimed "Right on brother." Two women, one pushing the other in a wheelchair, saw me and started laughing and hollowing hysterically. One man asked me if this was go nude day. I replied, "Yes, it was." He said, "Going around like that is a good way to get yourself killed." I'm not sure if that was advice, a warning, or a threat. I failed to meet up with NakedKevin, but I did get to meet this lovely man named Will from Santa Rosa.

When I returned from school the weather had definitely changed. It was now much cooler and windy and felt like it could rain at any moment. I ran my remaining errands in disguise and then I spotted this on the light pole next to the Plaza where the nudists have been lounging.

Things are looking up.

Why is it?

Why is it when the clothing compulsive wish to comment on a nudist's appearance, they always do so within hearing range but only after they have passed by the nudist?

This old guy, after he had passed me by, asked, "Why is it always the ugly ones?"

The San Francisco Nudity Wars

Debra Suanders blames public nudity in San Francisco on "political correctness" and "some judge" who decided police can't decide what is offensive except for outright lewd acts. So Ms. Saunders is using buzzwords like "political correctness" and "judges deciding" (read activist judges). Sounds like the language of the far right to me.

My response to Ms. Saunders: Nudity only becomes inappropriate when you are taught that it is. There is nothing indecent or inappropriate with the human body. It does not hurt anyone. It is, after all, what makes us human. If people are so disturbed by the nudity of others, I suggest they examine their own body issues. Indecency, obscenity, and inappropriateness rests in your mind, not in my body.

Media attack

Walking naked down Castro Street I was just attacked by four television reporters with cameras who would not take no for an answer. I did not wish to speak with them, but they surrounded me with their cameras and mics as I attempted to make my way down the street. Three dear friends came to my aid. I did end up grabbing channel five's camera after he wouldn't get it out of my face. He told me I was committing a felony and he would have me arrested. Not a good scene!
Apparently they wanted my reaction to a proposed ordinance to ban nudity in SF. Anyone hear anything about this?

Naked and Alive

I saw my friend Naked Kevin, who was in disguise, today and he snapped this lovely portrait for me with his new camera. It was a great day for being out and about naked, feeling the breeze and mist and then later the warmth of the sun on my bare skin. It makes me feel so human, so alive!

How can we deal with the media?

Stanley Roberts interviewed some fellow nudists and me yesterday. It wasn't until he was almost finished that he revealed who he was, and what his "news" segment was called, "People Behaving Badly." Of course, with a name like, "People Behaving Badly," I suspected he would not be unbiased in his coverage, but I did think he would at least include some of our side of the story. None of the footage he shot of us nudists speaking about why we were doing this or our ideas of body freedom and body acceptance made it into the report. The only nudist he included speaking was of course the bigoted jerk yelling at him. If it bleeds, it leads. It is also unfortunate that he must end with the bigoted comment, and his agreement to it, that only certain people should be seen nude

.

Summer's Closing Thoughts

In this summer-break's last week before the beginning of the fall school semester, the weather has become nudist unfriendly -- cool and overcast. So I will take this opportunity to post some photos from happier, sunnier days of this past summer. I am happy to report that I spent a great deal of time out and about, naked, on the streets of my neighborhood this past summer. I am also happy to say that, for the most part, people seem to have gotten over their initial shock of seeing us nudists on the street. Sure, I still get the occasional negative comment, but I am also getting more and more positive comments or, best of all, no reaction at all as though public nudity is perfectly normal, which it should be. I am also happy to report that my beliefs about the rightness of what I am doing, my right to be naked in public, the idea that I am doing nothing wrong or shameful or obscene (yes, learned western cultural values are hard to overcome) has become stronger and stronger within me.

This coming semester I will be taking one class, United States history from 1877 until 1916 and one seminar, Crisis and Conflict in Germany - 1900. This will be my final semester as an undergrad, I will be graduating next spring with a BA in history. I am looking forward to the fall and new learning experiences.

Two police responses to public nakedness.

Every Sunday after work I walk to my boyfriend’s house, usually naked. I walk past Lime, a club frequented by young hipster types. Always there are large crowds of drunk kids on the sidewalk, resulting in lots of hooting and hollering as I walk by. That does not bother me. Sometimes though, they are so drunk one can barely manage to walk through the crowd. Many people in the neighborhood have complained about the noise, the inability to use the sidewalk, the lack of respect for the neighbors. This past Sunday, while walking by, I was slapped on the ass by a young woman. She was there with a young man who was so drunk he could not enunciate one clear word, was unable to even stand erect. Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against drinking and partying, and I certainly was not hurt. It just felt like an invasion of my personal space, an assault on my person just because I was naked. I spoke to the doorman, who responded that these were not his customers and he therefore had no control over them. Right! I got the same response from the manager. I had had enough, so when I reached my boyfriend’s house I called the police and filled a complaint. Two officers arrived about twenty minutes later. Yes, by now I had dressed. I spoke with them, explained what had happened. They told me they knew the place, had experience with the management from numerous other complaints, aways found the management compliant, and would have a word with them again. They were very sympathetic. I then disclosed that I was naked when this happened, just so they would have the full story. The officer then told me, "That doesn't matter at all. You were still assaulted." I considered that a major victory and an affirmation of our right to be socially naked in public in San Francisco!

That following Friday I was on my way to do some grocery shopping when I ran into my good friend Richard. We stopped on the corner to chat for a few minutes. He cautioned me that there were police officers a few feet down the street, as, once again, I was naked. I replied that I had spotted them as well, but was sure they would not bother me as I was not doing anything wrong. Minutes later we were approached by two officers. It is interesting the way the police work. One stands slightly back, arms folded, observant and silent. The other engages. He told me of the “tons” of complaints they receive in the neighborhood about “you naked guys.” He apprised me of the fact that if someone were to complain about me, and they were willing to sign a complaint, then they would be forced to arrest me. I enquired if they had received a specific complaint about me at this time, to which the officer replied that they had not, that this was just a “friendly little chat.” I asked the officer if he was aware that I was, in fact, breaking no laws? He responded that yes he was aware of that fact, at which time the two policemen choose to walk away.

I find it difficult to believe that the police fail to see the disconnect in the logic of there thinking. Yes, I can understand that they must respond to complaints, but how can they expect to initiate an arrest when they know that what is happening is not illegal? What would I be charged with? It has been suggested the police would charge nudists with creating a public nuisance if a complainant was willing to sign a complaint. If the officer’s very own statement that I was not in fact, doing anything illegal were true, I am not sure how this public nuisance arrest would even apply. The positive outcome of this were the two separate individuals who came up to us after the police had departed, first a man, and then a woman, both saying they had been watching the police speaking to us and wanting to know if they had hassled us and if I was all right. It is nice to know that there still exists support for freedom of expression in the Castro neighborhood.

Just push the button and leave the rest to us.

I just acquired a Kodak Cartridge Hawk-eye No. 2 Model A. These cameras were marketed from 1924 to 1925. I have loaded it with a roll of 120 black & white film and took it out for the first time today. I shot three exposures so far. I cannot wait to see what sort of photos I will get with it!

San Francisco WNBR 2011

photo: Greg Pennington

SF Pride Finally "Work Safe"

So being Tame and Settled Down, i.e., less leather daddies and disco divas, more real police instead of "Village People Fetishists," is being "Grown-Up" according to the SF Chronicle! "So tame, in fact, one would think it had finally settled down and gotten married!"
How revolting! How assimilationist! How Heterocentric/Homophobic!

The wind engine display at the Columbian Exposition

Photo from The Chicago World's Fair of 1893

SF WNBR 2011 City Hall

San Francisco World Naked Bike Ride

Saturday, June 11, 2011

the first sight to great me.

dueling photographers

Happy Birthday Judy Garland! June 10, 1922 - June 22, 1969.

Happy Birthday Allen Ginsberg!

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for

I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache

self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went

into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families

shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the

avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what

were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,

poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery

boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the

pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans

following you, and followed in my imagination by the store

detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our

solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen

delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in

an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the

supermarket and feel absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The

trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be

lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love

past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,

what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and

you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat

disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955

The Whitest Kids U' Know - Pledge of Allegiance

I went to the Bay 2 Breakers and . . .

. . . I found Jesus!

My history research has taken me to United States antebellum reform movements. Emerging from the religious ferment of the second great awakening, many believed they could bring about the millennium by returning their bodies to prelapsarian purity. They thought this would be accomplished through the strict control of diet, sexuality, and dress. A few suggested clothing was a necessary evil; only one called for complete nudity -- Samuel Bower.

I thought of those reformers and Mr. Bower today when I met Jesus in the park, as well as how the public naked body comes to signify a tension between a civilization we wish to reject and a savagery we fear, artistic culture and lasciviousness. It is this very ambiguity our Western culture has assigned to nakedness which makes it such a slippery, dangerous category. For Samuel Bower, however, nakedness was simply perfect.

Naked buds!

Naked Kevin and Nudewoody. Naked Kevin is amazing! He goes everywhere naked, even has a naked job, which means he walks out of his front door naked, walks to work naked, works naked, and then walks back home naked!

Naked Errands and a Confrontation

I just got home from running some naked errands in my neighborhood. As I was unlocking my front door a very young man in dirty painter's work clothing came running up behind me asking me why I did this everyday? Rather then allowing me to answer he went on to say, "I know this is San Francisco, and you do this because you are waiting for someone to attack you. Then you can crucify them." I said, rather taken aback, that was not why I was doing this. "Okay, then why are you doing it?", he asked. Before I could answer he told me that I should at least respect little children, that a lot of his friends have little children and they told him they are very upset with me walking past them and they don't believe their children should have to be exposed to something harmful like that." I told him it only was harmful to little children because their parents teach them it is harmful. "Alright, alright" he responded, "I thought you would say something like that. But why do you have to do it." I said I thought it was obvious that he wasn't really interested in hearing why I did it, because every time I tried to explain to him he interrupted me with a monologue of his own as to his preconceived notions as to why I was doing it, at which point he allowed me to tell him my reasons: that our bodies are natural, not shameful, that body-shame is taught and is nothing but self-hatred, they our bodies do not always equal the sexual, that on a nice day like today it feels good, that our bodies are beautiful and do not hurt anyone. "I bet you wouldn't do this in the Mission," was his response as he walked away, still visibly angry.

Looks-ism from the sex positive crowd.

Scot Brogan in the BAR writes a wonderful piece about the loss of sexual freedom to assimilation and self-policing, reminding us that what we might judge as inappropriate, someone else might judge as perfectly fine. Then he pulls out that tired ass old complaint that the guys who walk down the street naked are "Usually not anyone you want to see naked." Come on Scott, you can't have it both ways!

Ran into a buddy @ the bus stop

and he snapped me me with his phone.

Harvey Milk Plaza, San Francisco, CA

Naked in the Street Today.

Walking through the Castro today I couldn't help but notice that most of my homeless friends have disappeared. It could be the weather, but given the strong police presence in the past several days, I doubt it. Walking down Castro Street in my usual attire, the single homeless man I saw, who was shirtless, asked me about my nakedness, saying he wished he could be naked. I explained it was not illegal. He asked about indecent exposure. I told him of the California Supreme Court ruling which stated that mere nudity is not indecent. He told me to keep standing up for my rights. Further up the street, yelled at me from a passing SUV, "Put on some pants, you're fucking gross!"

On the public naked body

It is one thing to be outside somewhere and decide to get naked. You can see what is going on around you. It is quite something else to just walk out your front door naked and walk down the street!

Your opinions please - what if urban public nudity were legal?

I found this excellent post by Brian Kraemer online and thought it was much too good not to repost:

From the universe's point of view, public nudity is already legal and has always

been so, in all places and at all times. Every human being has always been free

to be, to simply be. Any attempts by other human beings to take away this

freedom are null, void, invalid, meaningless. They are an offense to the

creature and to the source from whence came the creature.

A brave creature will resist the offender and insist upon his universal gift of

being. He will do this not only for himself but for others, that we might all

enjoy our being. It would take few brave souls to accomplish this because we

know it to be true. One does not teach a baby to nurse and one does not teach a

creature to live in his skin.

From the universe's point of view, some words do not exist (nude, naked,

unclothed, disrobed, unclad, unattired, garmentless) for these words have no

meaning in the natural state. There is only natural. Upon observation, we see

these words are lies. They misrepresent because they treat the hiding state as

the natural one. They falsely assert that first came the state of being clothed

and then judge others as unclothed. They falsely assert that first came the

state of being robed and then judge others to be disrobed. They falsely assert

that first came the state of being attired and then judge others as being

unattired. This distinction is not just a clever playing with words. This

distinction has us imprisoned first in our thinking and then in our lives. While

claiming to be free, we have been born in a prison state of mandatory hiding

with which we have agreed to confine ourselves.

Consider the word tan. If you were to see a man, richly colored brown above and

below his genitals, but palely white in his midsection with stark demarcation

lines from having been forced to hide behind a cloth, would you consider his

natural color to be the palely white or the rich brown? If you answered the

palely white, you are a prisoner to your own thinking. While most people will

consider his palely white genitals to be natural and would likely compliment him

on his pleasant tan, they are wrong. They have believed a lie. The man's natural

color is richly brown. The only unnatural part of this man is his palely white

genitals that have been denied their natural experience of the sun.

Stephen Gough has chosen to live free and thus, because of frightened human

beings, must spend his life in prison. He is a brave one for whom emotional and

spiritual freedom matters more than physical freedom.

In nature, a creature might hide its body to avoid a predator, but not to avoid

shame or embarrassment. If words must be created, then let us create some

unnatural words for unnatural states. Let us create hiding words, words that

might describe an infinite number of ways human creatures alone hide themselves:

clothes, garments, attire, costumes, apparel, vestments, uniforms, outfits,

raiment. If we must hide, then let us hide behind trees or bushes until danger

passes, but let us not live as if we were dead while we are yet alive.

Truth matters because the source of this universe intended that we might live

lives of fullness and meaning and satisfaction and pleasure and wholeness. We

have an obligation not only to ourselves and to others, but also to our source

to receive the gifts with which we have been entrusted. Henry David Thoreau

wrote, "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." Have we considered

that our disappointments in life, our longings for meaning and purpose, might be

a matter of our own refusal to receive fully what life has given?

And what is standing in our way, but fear of our fellow human beings? What shall

it be?

20 April 2011

Samuel Bower in Perfect Nudity: Antebellum Health Reform and the Self

Subscribers to the Water-Cure Journal would have found an article in the November 1850 edition advising them of the healthful benefits of sunlight. The Water-Cure Journal was a monthly journal devoted to hydropathy, or the water cure, a means of preventing and curing disease by the use of water, or on occasion other natural remedies. By 1850 the periodical had a circulation of 10,000. The article, entitled “New Views on Health” written by Samuel Bower of Iowa, stated that full health could only be achieved by placing oneself within natural conditions. The sun, Bower expounded, was the chief cause of all living things, therefore, people should allow the air and sun to be in contact at all times with their entire bodies. In other words, Bower was advocating people should live naked. In Bower’s words, “Why does civilized man put on, at all seasons, over that natural garb which the all-provident Creator has given him [sic], clothing? . . . Not to preserve health, certainly. These practices minister to disease.”

Espousing living naked seems a radical supposition to many today. It is difficult to imagine that idea having had much merit in 1850, and many historians have described Samuel Bower as either a nudist or “queer.” But other health reformers of the Antebellum period were speaking of the healthful benefits of nudity, although their arguments were always moderated by the dictates of climate and social norms; none would prove as insistently radical as Samuel Bower. The movement which was named nudism in 1929 has achieved a world-wide following today of millions of people, flowering from a Free Body Culture movement which had its genesis in late nineteenth-century German health-reform and perfectionism which expressed similar ideals and motivations as those put forth by Bower. Samuel Bower was not a curiosity espousing “nudism” in the wilderness of antebellum health-reform, but rather the strongest voice among a few reformers who were making a connection between the concept of the body, our relationship to it, and our relationship to the biosphere we inhabit, pre-figuring concepts and ideas which would take root some fifty years later in Germany, achieve full fruition in Interwar Germany, and continue worldwide to this day.

Respect and Admiration

I am always fascinated by the amount of respect and admiration I am shown by our homeless citizens when I am out and about naked.

Naked in the City

Today was sunny, warm and humid, so off came the clothes! Happy to say, nothing but affirmative responses! My good friend,the Naked Satyr, followed me for a while with his camera. One friend thanked me for beingout and and about naked, one friend said what a nice day it was, and one friend told me he loved my attire! SWEET!

Walking around the 'hood today

Walking around the 'hood today, one woman asked to take my photo. While doing so, another overweight and sloppy looking woman sitting nearby kept repeating loudly, "Why do you want a picture of THAT?" I was told by a man that I had a pretty dick. One guy said as he walked past me, "I'm glad I haven't eaten yet." One man wearing a Democrats for Scott Wiener t-shirt just shook his head negatively. A loud voice started laughing hysterically from a car, then shouted, "Put some clothes on!".

Health Reform, Two Centuries Views.

‎"the air bath, as Dr.Franklin calls it, is exceedingly salutary to every one in health, and almost to every invalid. If the whole skin may be considered a breathing organ, then it should not only be kept clean, but for its own health and vigor, and the health and vigor of the whole system, it should be permitted to receive the full ...and free embrace of the pure air -- in short, all the physiological and physcological properties, powers and interests of the human constitution would be better sustained, as a permanent fact, from generation to generation, by entire nudity, than by the use of any kind of clothing. Strictly speaking, therefore, all clothing is in itself considered, in some measure, an evil."

Sylvester Graham. "Bathing, Air, and Clothing," from Graham's Science of Human Life. Water Cure Journal; 1 Jun. 1847; 3, 11.

Naked After Work

It was lovely being naked after work today. I walked down to Harvey Milk Library, picked up a book asnd then walked home through the Castro naked. Going up 18th Street, two blocks from my house, a police officer in a cruiser stopped me and asked me if the police have talked with me before. I responded that they had. He asked me what they told me. I told him what their usual line is, about getting a complaint, and that they know it is not illegal but if the person wants to sign a complaint, blah, blah. He said, that is right. He indicated that a women flagged him over to complain about me and said she would be willing to sign a complaint. He then asked me were I lived. I indicated right up the street. He said he would go talk to her. I asked him if he was planning on explaining to her that what I was doing was not illegal. He said that yes he would. He left and I continued my walk home, naked.

A New Book.

Sex Among the Rabble: An Intimate History of Gender & Power in the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730-1830, by Clare A. Lyons. I am very excited to begin reading this book which I learned about in the graduate history class I have the pleasure of attending.

On being naked.

Today one person told me it was certainly a great day to be naked, one person told me he was glad to see me out and about, one person called me an asshole, one person told me he certainly hoped we could be persuaded to stop doing this because it just wasn't right, and a black man told me it was only my white male entitlement which allowed me to go around naked.

More to follow . . .

It's February!

It must be Spring!

Public Nudity and the Irksome C. W. Nevius

Walking home from school today, naked, after reading C.W.Nevius' one-sided, inflammatory column in today's Chronicle I passed two little old women on Castro Street. One whispered to the other in a very serious tone, "See, that's what I've been telling you about." Other than that, all of the comments and looks I received were very positive, smiles, nods, one gentleman stopped me to ask if I was taking my responsibility as a tourist attraction seriously. He told me believed everyone enjoyed the nudity. I know I certainly enjoy the nudity, and I enjoy the freedom I have in San Francisco which allows me to enjoy the nudity in spite of some bigots.

Body hatred is a bigotry, we are not born hating our bodies but rather are taught to hate them. Nudity has never caused anyone any harm that I am aware of. When I am naked, I can feel the sun and the breeze on my skin. All of my senses are heightened and I feel closer to nature as there is less that separates me from the nature around me. My animality is exposed, along with my body. I am more equal to nature, rather than removed from it, or above it. I can understand how THAT is a scary and threatening concept for some.

It threatens the status quo, the belief that we are individuals looking out only for ourselves and everything else is put here for our use. That is the paradigm which is getting us in so much trouble: rapid use of global resources, the betting on others losing their homes in the mortgage markets or not being able to afford food in the commodities market, causing untold suffering for millions just so a few of us might profit.

Clothing compulsion is more harmful, I believe, than public nudity. To always hide who we are and seperate ourselves from nature and each other with clothing, no matter what the situation or weather, seems very harmful to me. I believe we would be much better off as a society and a world if we could all experiance casual nudity from time to time. If you have the oppurtunity, and haven't tried it, I would urge you to take a step and work on overcoming some of your fears. You just might like it.

Spiegel TV - the naked freedom - the movie in full length

Spiegel TV - die nackte Freiheit - der Film in voller Länge from Alex Nackt on Vimeo.

After School Nudity in the Castro.

So I came out of MUNI at Harvey Milk Plaza after my first day of classes. I stopped by the benches to remove my clothing, as the weather was mighty fine. Once my clothing was off and I was preparing to walk home, I heard a mans voice loudly proclaim, "You forgot your clothes." Looking up, I saw a man in a black business suit staring at me. "I replied, "No, I did not." "Well, thanks for gracing us with your presence," he responded, staring at me. I said, "You are welcome," as he headed down into the MUNI station.

I had the sense, from the inflection in his voice while making his statements, that his commentary was not all that approving but I am not really sure. I do know I received a few disapproving glares from men while walking home, and a few friendly nods as well.

On to naked homework!

Thursday, 20 January 2011

Out and about in the Castro.