Everything Also Complain

From ‘More cases of people going nude in public’, 15 Dec 2010, article by Chua Hian Hou in ST

…2010 is set to be a record breaking year (for public nudity). In the six months to June, there were 105 cases – one every other day.

Only last Sunday morning, an unidentified man in his 20s went to a 24 hour McDonald’s restaurant along Queensway to buy coffee in the nude. And last Thursday, a heavily tattooed man in his 40s sat naked on the pavement in Ang Mo Kio for several hours before he was arrested.

…Such antics disgust Singaporeans such as retiree Bernard Lim: ‘You want to go around naked, do it in the privacy of your own home where you won’t offend others’…He said he would call the authorities if he saw such incidents.

The Descent of Man?

See how our living at breakneck speed under so much stress has forced certain individuals to regress to a lower species of Homo Exhibitionists. Maybe these people have just lost it, or there is a underground nudist cult out there promoting the therapeutic benefits of dropping your pants in public, like primal scream therapy, except that the screams are coming from elsewhere. If you think about nudity from a ‘we were all born without clothes’ or ‘Return to the Blue Lagoon’ perspective, it’s hard to pinpoint why we should be so terrified or disgusted by something as mundane as the human anatomy. Disgust at seeing a naked human body is a learned response, an emotion that babies are not innately equipped with. Of course if nudity were of a titillating nature designed to bring about a sexual response it would be a different matter altogether, but if someone walks around a park in his birthday suit and isn’t infringing the rights or space of his fellow human being, perhaps one should just close one, or both, eyes and assume that the decision to expose himself is a calculated one based on the premise of ancient holistic principles too esoteric for us clothed ones to understand. Perhaps the writer of this 20 August 2004 article ‘Feeling stressed? Try nude therapy’, Today, could emphatise. I’m sure Today writer Prithpal Singh would jump at the chance to interview these folks in the flesh. AANR is the American Association of Nude Recreation, apparently. Whatever happened to normal pastimes like cycling or bowling, I wonder.

Filed under: 2000s, 2010, Nudity Tagged: | Nudity