by Jason Stotts
Nudity has now been legalized in Munich Germany, which is Germany’s third largest city. The city, in what I think is a reasonable compromise, designated six different areas around the city where nudity is permitted. Additionally, the city is very tolerating of nudity and has a tradition of what they call Freikörperkultur or “free-body culture.”
I think this is a move in the right direction and I hope that more cities adopt this, especially in the US. Frankly, I think it’s deplorable that some people think that they should be able to control the actions of others, even when they are not violating anyone’s rights. Nudity should be legal. It most certainly shouldn’t be a “sex crime,” like it is here in the US where one can be equated with a rapist for doing no more than exposing one’s body. The body is not always sexual. And, contrary to christianity and islam, the body is not evil.
Now, of course, if you want nudity prohibited on your private property, that is your right. But you don’t have the right to force others to always remain clothed, even when being naked would be preferable or objectively better (like at a beach).
Making the body taboo makes us all worse off. But, today, I’ll let Lord Russell have the last word:
The proper place for nudity is out-of-doors in the sunshine and in the water. If our conventions allowed of this, it would soon cease to make any sexual appeal; we should all hold ourselves better, we should be healthier from the contact of air and sun with the skin, and our standards of beauty would more nearly coincide with standards of health, since they would concern themselves with the body and its carriage, not only with the face. In this respect the practice of the Greeks was to be commended.
~ Bertrand Russell