Nudity and protest


is sometimes used as a tactic during a protest to attract media and public attention to a cause, and sometimes promotion of public nudity is itself the objective of a nude protest. The use of the tactic goes back to well published photos of nude protests by svobodniki in Canada in 1903. The tactic has been used by other groups later in the century, especially after the 1960s. Like public nudity in general, the cultural and legal acceptance of nudity as a tactic in protest also varies around the world. Some opponents of any public nudity claim that it is indecent, especially when it can be viewed by children; while others argue that it is a legitimate form of expression covered by the right to free speech.
Even in places where public nudity is tolerated, it is still unexpected enough that its use by activists as a deliberate tactic is often successful in attracting publicity from the media. For example, on July 19, 2020, a young woman wearing only a face mask and stocking cap, later dubbed "Naked Athena" by reporters, confronted police in Portland, Oregon, during George Floyd protests. Despite the deployment of pepper balls and tear gas, she posed for police for several minutes before they withdrew. Photographs of her action went viral.
Some nude activism is not to promote a particular cause, but rather to promote public nudity itself, or to change community perceptions of the naked human body, or as an expression of a personal desire to be nude in public.

Single issue protests

Anti-fur wearing

has used nudity to draw attention to their causes. From 1992 until 2020, PETA ran their "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign featuring celebrities, actors and models.

Brexit

On 29 June 2016, Cambridge academic, Victoria Bateman walked into a meeting at the Faculty of Economics while naked in protest against the results of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. She had written on her breasts and stomach "Brexit leaves Britain naked".

Land rights

Women in the Amuru district of Uganda have protested about their loss of land for farming. They have protested naked at least twice on this matter, on 9 April 2012 and of 14 April 2015. The protestors' land is under threat of being acquired by government as a game reserve, which may possibly be in turn handed over for sugar cane plantations.
at Folsom Street Fair, USA.

Peace and anti-war

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.

The African curse of nakedness

In Africa, women have used stripping naked on purpose as a curse, both historically, and in modern times. The idea is that women give life and they can take it away. The curse initiates an extreme form of ostracism, which anthropologist Terisa Turner has likened to "social execution". The curse extends to foreign men as well, and is believed to cause impotence, madness or other similar harm. The threat has been used successfully in mass protests against the petroleum industry in Nigeria, by Leymah Gbowee and Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace during the Second Liberian Civil War, and against President Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast. In 2002 in Nigeria, members of the Niger Delta Women for Justice occupied a platform for oil extraction run by ChevronTexaco in order to protest against negative consequences of oil extraction and missing labor rights. When the military arrived to remove the protestors, the women threatened the soldiers to naked curse them. The soldiers did not touch the women.
A group of about 16 women bared their buttocks and stormed into the offices of the African National Congress in Tshwane. The women were protesting against the outcome of an ANC Tshwane branch general meeting. The women claimed bouncers, armed with pangas and firearms, stormed the meeting and stopped them from participating in the voting process to elect the new branch committee.

Transgender rights

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. This was despite the fact that the U.S. federal government Social Security office already had done so. 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, 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."

Femicide is Genocide

In June 2017 more than 100 women stripped naked in front of the president's palace, Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires, Argentina to protest against violence against women.

Human gene editing

On 8 February 2017 artist Rick Gibson walked naked in front of the Vancouver Law Courts in the middle of winter to protest Canada's ban of genetic engineering of the human genome. He walked nude in downtown Vancouver for 11 minutes, 45.75 seconds in a light rain and a temperature of 7 degrees Celsius.

Public nudity movements

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.

Clothing-optional bike rides

is an international clothing-optional bike ride in which participants plan, meet and ride together en masse on human-powered transport to "protest oil dependency and celebrate the power and individuality of our bodies". This represents one of the few events that combine elements that could be described as pro nudity and pro cycling.
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.
The Spanish movement, Manifestación Ciclonudista Mundial has had rides predating WNBR and has since spread to other countries in Europe.

FEMEN

The protest group FEMEN regularly stages topless protests against sex tourists, international marriage agencies, sexism and other social ills. These protests received worldwide press coverage in 2009. Since late 2011 FEMEN operations became not limited to Ukraine and they have demonstrated in other European countries including non-Ukrainian protesters. FEMEN justifies its provocative methods stating "If we staged simple protests with banners, then our claims would not have been noticed". FEMEN receives small financial backing by individuals. In January 2012, three members of the group staged a topless protest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In October 2013 FEMEN had its largest membership in France. In October 2012 the organization claimed it had about 40 activists in Ukraine, and another 100 who had joined their protests abroad.

Naturist and nudist movements

There are a number of groups and individuals who protest for the right to be naked in public.

Urbanudista

A group led by Avril X called UrbaNudismo has led several casual nudity excursions in high visibility public urban environments in Brazil as well as some Western European countries.

APNEL

is the prominent French nudity rights group.

NAKTIV

Naktiv.net is a generic Naked Activities site.

Denmark

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 allowable 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.
, Auckland's 2005 WNBR organiser.

United States

The short-lived Naturist Lifestyle Party in New South Wales, Australia aimed "to bring naturism fully into the public eye, with view to getting an equitable allocation of public resources to those who support the naturist lifestyle." Gerald Ganglbauer convened Free Beach Action NSW, a lobby group for naturism in New South Wales.

Netherlands

Robbert Broekstra was involved in a group called "Friends of Nature". They would often go for naked excursions on public lands, sometimes in urban areas, often taking pictures. He was also involved in INIC. He authored the book Robbert Broekstra's Nude World and his group appeared in "Naked Travels 1", by Charles MacFarland.

German movements

The Freedom to be Yourself campaign 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 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 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. 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, 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.
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. 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!"

Topfreedom

The topfreedom movement has challenged the law in a number of countries, especially in North America and in Europe, on sex equality grounds arguing that the present public indecency laws discriminate against women. The movement advocates equal rights for women to be topfree in the same circumstances that a man is permitted to be bare-chested.
The Topfree Equal Rights Association is a Canadian organization which endeavors to assist women who are having legal troubles exercising their rights to be topfree. Their website states that they serve both Canada and the United States. The organization also aims to inform and educate the public about topfreedom, and to change laws against topfreedom in North American jurisdictions. GoTopless goes further and organizes demonstrations to protest against the legal and public attitude to the inequality. In Sweden, Bara Bröst is active in advancing topfreedom, as is Topless Front in Denmark. In France, the feminist collective Les TumulTueuses has moved beyond seeking equality with men as indicated by their slogan: "My body if I want, when I want, like it is".

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