Most of those who showed up in little or no attire Friday opted for swimsuits, but a few hardy souls dared to bare more. Among them was Bettina Huth of Stuttgart, Germany, who roamed the exhibition wearing only sandals and a black bikini bottom.Oh, yeah, those terrible Americans. What hypocrites!
Although she used a program at one point to shield herself from a phalanx of TV cameras, Huth, 52, said she didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
"I go into the steam bath every week, so I'm used to being naked," she said. "I think there's a double morality, especially in America. We lived in California for two years, and I found it strange that my children had to cover themselves up at the beach when they were only 3 or 4 years old. That's ridiculous."
I'm amused by the way nudists flatter themselves, always claiming to be especially honest. But then they always say things that sound so disingenuous, that they are just being natural and why is everyone making such a fuss?
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I will be a fan of clothing until the time when we all have the bodies of greek gods.
Just because something is "natural" does not mean it is beautiful. Decay is natural.
Why use a program to shield herself from the TV cameras?
Nothing would dim my appreciation of art faster than seeing my fat, white nude body. Even in a bathing suit. Yuck.
3-4 yr. old kids running nude at the beach = sunburnt butts with alot of sand stuck in their butts and alot of crankiness on the way home in the backseat of the car, fussing and bickering and pestering each other - not a fun ending to a great day at the beach with the family that's for sure.
Apparently the enlightened European is not familiar with the American philosophy of Sam the Eagle. As he reminded us many times on The Muppet Show, "We're naked underneath our clothes."
Or something like that.
My guess is that museum goers viewing idealized depictions of nudity will make note of the stark reality confronting them. It isn't just terrible American's at fault here. I've got a mirror that reveals unwelcome thoughts about nudity.
I have a body like a god. Too bad it's buddha.
Nudists are big egoists, the European variety sees itself embracing Nature, the way Rousseau intended it - it's their casually sophisticatted entitlement to enlightenment. Also, neener-neener on the prudish.
Naturism is also their small, fairly socially-acceptable rebellion against the great unnatural edifices they build. All those damn castles and regulations, "Papiere, bitte!"
Down on the Danube there are numerous "Frei" schwimmplatz, gravelly beaches with stunted trees and willow bushes where even the Baptist church youth-group with whom I spent Sundays, would go skinny-dipping.
Euro-Baptists are a lot more fun that some Ami-Baptists, that's for sure - and the Vienniese girls, oh yeh... One of the guys in the youth-group had the last name of Klimt - his grandfather's notorious and scandalous pictures hang in that museum. Something of a black-sheep in the family, but the Vienniese love a juicy and shocking scandal. It's like a social defibrillator that breaks up the dull monotony of life off in a corner of a decaying and forgotten Old Empire in the hinterland of Europe.
Then they go out and buy the tres-chic and molto-expensivo shoes of the Manolo, who doesn't even like to see the shorts in public, "Manolo says, unless you live in the Bermuda, or are the male stripper, the shorts at the place of the work they are unacceptable."
Well, I had a nightmare about something like this a few nights ago . . . one of those dreams where you're walking around in public and suddenly look down and realize you forgot to put on your clothes. Ugh.
There simply needs to be an international law that stops the homely from walking around nude.
Mcg - hilarious!
Purple Kangaroo,
Ah yes, the old dream about showing up naked in public. Do nudists dream that they show up at the beach with clothes on?
I agree that we have strange ideas here regarding nude children.
Until my sister was about 7 or 8, whenever we'd go to the condo pool, she wore bathing trunks for boys, and no top. As her hair was very short other residents assumed she was a boy - all her life people have made this mistake. However, at some point one of the residents learned that she was a girl, and a great hubbub ensued, the result of which she was forced to cover up her non-existent chest or be banned from the pool.
So during the time everyone had thought she was a boy, all was fine and decent, but once exposed as a girl her behavior was somehow depraved.
Uh, it's call science, JB. I'm pretty sure there's some scientific evidence that points to what was going on 4000 years ago, and I don't believe any of it points to some mystical garden.
Also, to counter your point: Ancient Greek people had little if any shame about their naked bodies, and, as evidenced by the article Ann linked to, Europeans have much less shame when it comes to nudity than Americans do. So if Creationism is the cause of shame of nudity.. then creationism must have happened a lot more recently than the Bible would have us believe.
Yeah, right, it's just art, like this is just politics.
Breasts, not Bombs
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