Rather than addressing my responses to individuals, I'll just add some musings on what's been posted so far.

Nudism remains, um.., very much under cover. Even people who are pushing for clothing optional beaches are frequently reluctant to have their full names published. Some nudists are concerned that they'll suffer adverse consequences, such as losing their jobs, if their involvement becomes widely known.

One consequence of this is that there seems to be a significant disparity between what people think about public nudity, and what people think *other* people think. A perception that acceptance of public nudity is not the norm results in people concealing their own acceptance of it, and thus perpetuates the idea that society as a whole is not accepting. The laws just reflect this. I suspect that some people who refused to sign my petition refused for exactly this reason.

On the issue of balancing rights, it is true that people should not have exposure to nudity imposed on them. But it's less clear that this should encompass a right to go anywhere and everywhere without coming across nudity. Such a right would imply that those who want to be nude cannot be nude anywhere. A more equitable approach would be to allocate resources proportionately, with appropriate warnings given to people that they may encounter nudity in certain areas. There are three small metropolitan beaches where nudity is allowed. On a hot day, and despite their inaccessibility, these beaches become more crowded than other metropolitan beaches. This must surely indicate that the allocation of clothing optional beaches is not proportionate to the demand.

As for whether people really need to be nude in public, one can equally well ask whether they really need to be dressed. Neither question can sensibly be answered without making initial assumptions that pretty much contain the answer. People can be dressed unless they need to be nude, or they can be nude unless they need to be dressed. Neither starting point seems to have any special status compared with the other.

The salt usage thread is still available at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=134

Sylvia.

For a few years now my partner and I have regularly visited a “clothing optional” beach, not so much for the nudity but because we can take our friendly, sociable dogs without some anti-canine Nazi insisting they need to be on a leash at all times. Nude people are maybe a bit more chilled about such things. Yes, we do bring plastic bags. No, they don’t bite, but they do occasionally…um… sniff. Sorry.

It’s nice to be able to swim in the nuddy, and even to sunbake – but clothing is definitely non-optional once the cold southerly winds spring up, or if you’ve forgotten to be scrupulously thorough with the SPF 15+. And that’s the point: clothing, like nudity, has been optional there – it’s your choice.

Most visitors to this beach are friendly, decent and tolerant, but as with any beach (including plenty of clothed beaches) you can get a perve element. Unfortunately a small number of this latter group have been getting a bit….um… “indiscreetly prominent” lately, and I gather the local council is moving to remove the “optional” bit of “clothing optional”.

A pity, but we’ll still visit, just so long as our mutts can still romp in the surf with us.

Wow, didn't realise that some people were so paranoid; BOAZ_David, but then I remembered your superstitious bent.

As I spent most of my 20s in Europe, especially around the Mediterranean, I can state, quite categorically, that visiting nude beaches is not much of a turn on for young studs “straight from MTV or whatever”.

Most Europeans accept private and public nudity as barely worth raising an eyebrow for, and I believe the evidence is that sex related crime there is well below the level of the God-fearing prudes in the USA.

There are countless resorts where clothing is only required if you actually go off site to the local town. For the uninitiated the first ten minutes are a bit of an eye opener, especially since many of the ‘perverts’ are middle aged or older and quite relaxed. Once the shock value wears off you wonder what all the fuss is about.

After all we wandered the planet for hundreds of thousands of years without a stitch and all the other animals still do.

Perhaps the real question is: why does anyone have to wear clothes except to stay warm or protect themselves from the searing sun?

Could this be the root cause of many of society's current problems?

When you repress an irrepressible urge you pervert it - it is the forbidden nature of nudity that makes it titillating not the nudity itself.

I remember a really old grand uncle telling us about the days when women even covered their hands with gloves (so the only female skin you saw was on the face) that he got a sexual rush from seeing women's ankles and he would sit opposite a puddle where women had to lift their skirts a few inches off the ground and perve.

Also if I can be a little cynical - you can sell someone a bikini for a ridiculous price - you cant charge them anything for their birthday suit. There is no profit in it - a huge industry could collapse.

It could also be an impediment to our becoming the 51st State of the most puritanical Western Nation in the world.

I rather like the Spartan view that nudity encouraged fitness since any lack of fitness was obviously going to be more, well, obvious.

Perhaps it just goes to show that our political leaders and our puritans all have very small penises and they will do anything to stop them from being found out.

Sylvia, it is just a culture thing.

Whether or not it is healthy, unhealthy, liberated, prurient, normal or abnormal, it is simply not going to be a widely accepted practice in Australia. Not just today, I would suggest, but for a very long time.

I worked in Germany for a while, and as you would know they have a totally relaxed view of public nudity

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,415516,00.html

(it's safe to click, by the way!)

But as the article points out, it has been like that for a century. Nobody had to lobby, persuade, argue or protest about it.

It was first formalised at the turn of the last century...

"a certain Paul Zimmerman opened the first known nudist camp near Hamburg in 1903. The idea was to resist the straitjacket of 19th-century social expectations by flinging away your armor of restrictive clothes. Along with vegetarianism, tee-totalling, "clothing reform," and calisthenics, nudism belonged to a new, avant-garde cult of the body"

It was an option. And being a pretty logical race, the Germans simply accepted it as another lifestyle choice.

The chances of that happening here are, quite simply, Buckleys. We simply aren't that tolerant of "otherness", in whatever form it may appear.

In WA, during the 1970s and 80s, nude bathing became very popular. North Swanbourne freebeach, just a short drive from Perth CBD, was one of the most popular and crowded beaches in WA. Amongst the many anonymous people, you could see [if you could recognise them without their clothes on] politicians, well known business people, media presenters, entertainers, senior police officers, sporting personalities, ministers of religion and so on. An independant survey showed that about 10% of the people there would be tourists.

But this beach had inadequate parking, no services and was the only busy beach with frequent heavy surf in the Perth Metropolitan area to be without the protection of lifesavers. Apparently, if you swam nude and got into difficulties, you didn't deserve to be rescued.

As the demand for more nude bathing areas grew, instead of doing their duty and providing more nudist facilities, the authorities responded with more and more NO NUDE BATHING signs and police and ranger resources were wasted on open or covert surveillance of relatively isolated beaches to prevent the increasing popularity of skinny dipping. This popular trend was deliberately discouraged by official bullying and threats of prosecution. I was head of Neighbourhood Watch for a busy beachside suburb at the time. At every meeting, people complained that you couldn't get a police officer when you needed one. But they could always get to the beach at short notice if someone complained about nude bathers.

cont