It's a long video, so I provided time stamps. Excerpt:
4:38 — "That's brand new. I'm shocked as shit," says a black man, laughing. I ask him some questions about why he's shocked [by the Silent Majority Walk] and try to find out if he might perhaps actually be a Walker supporter himself.
5:54 — We hear a hubbub and I realize "These are the naked bike riders!" They ride by chanting "Less gas, more ass." I continue my discussion with the shocked-as-shit guy, who declares "That's America! That's America! That's the freedom!"
What a great memory! I like that I spontaneously brought up the questions people are still asking about the Naked Bike ride today: 1. What if children saw nakedness? 2. Do these people have a special privilege to be naked because they're in an organized, expressive demonstration? and 3. Is it a white thing?
If you manage to stay tuned to 8:18, you'll hear me ask the man at the Madison Objectivists table how Ayn Rand would react to the Naked Bike Ride. He thought she'd disapprove and that she was "old school" about "sexuality." Oh, yeah? That's not what I heard. Anyway, I don't think nudity is sexuality.
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3. Is it a white thing? It's a white ass, that's for sure.
Bike riders have several privileges anyway, like bike lanes they never use and generally ignoring traffic rules that drivers and pedestrians must follow.
But this is a special privilege that allows riders to flaunt their junk whether parents approve or not.
Strange that the laws against indecent exposure don’t apply, but since bike riders generally ignore every other rule …
"3. Is it a white thing?"
Considering you see the same cast of characters in a pride parade, it's mostly a gay groomer thing.
"Bike riders have several privileges anyway..."
I'm on a bike!
"But this is a special privilege that allows riders to flaunt their junk whether parents approve or not."
As the Supreme Court said in Cohen v. California, avert your eyes.
Ayn Rand had a boy toy while she was married. She wouldn't have cared about the bike riders, but she was too private to have joined them.
That's also the lesson from the Lady Godiva lesson: Everyone averted their eyes, except for one person, who was thereafter called Peeping Tom. Don't be a peeping Tom. If you don't like it, why were you looking? And if you're such a devoted parent, teach your children not to look or, if you have a different mindset, teach them to regard nakedness as ordinary, to be seen briefly and not stared at or brooded on. Don't be an idiot and teach your children that to be naked is to be performing a sex act. That's really creepy!
When I have been at the Market when it happened mostly people ignored it or laughed and went back to what they were doing. Only the hopeless scolds had any issue.
I thought 20 years ago or so Madison legalized topless sunbathing in parks as nakedness itself isn't inherently sexual. I don't recall chaos ensuing or children all going feral.
The Abrahamic faiths conflate nudity and sexuality. They also teach us to hate our bodies. We'd be better off if they didn't.
1. Ann did the law prof Socratic method thing with the Black guy and figured out that a group naked protest was protected speech.
And the “privilege” thing has certainly gotten more usage today. Surprised people were talking about it a dozen years ago.
2. Notice this was before iPhones were widely disseminated and people were using little cameras.
3. Glad I spelled the word “Capitol” correctly!
4. In small doses, I get a kick out of the Minnesota/Wisconsin accent.
Naked biking is one thing. But eventually you stop for a rest, or a bit of lunch, or to pick up something at the grocery, and there you are, walking around naked except for your bike helmet with your clip-on biking shoes clicking on the pavement. Not a good look for anyone, really, walking around undressed like that. You look like a human mushroom, and sound like a bad Flamenco dance is about to start.
Now, back in my college days of the late 1970s, streaking was a thing. College girls streaking will never be unpopular with the frat boys of Madison.
Usage, Professora: you said the Naked Bike Ride “whizzed by.” “Whizzed.” Really?
#1 and #3 are related.
Children don't care because they see it and do it all the time. When they get older, they do it because you've told them not to around like that and they want to provoke a reaction from you.
And it's not so much a white thing as it is a Democrat thing since they are perpetual emotional children. It helps to understand their methods and their actions in that context. If you read carefully, immediate gratification, doing whatever they want whenever they want, and provoking mommy and daddy is Article 1 in their Party's constitution.
The "Madison Objectivists" had a table, so that passersby can ask whatever burning questions they might have about Ayn Rand?
What a place!
“And thanks for asking. You caused me to go back into my archive to find the time I was at the Capitol, wandering around something called the "Silent Majority Walk" when the Naked Bike Ride suddenly whizzed by. That was in 2011, the year of the Wisconsin protests.”
That had to be a moist, unsightly fiasco.
I don't see the similarity between this and Lady Godiva, except for the nakedness. Although she protested her husband's high taxes, her ride was not a protest, it was a bargain between husband and wife to get him to lower taxes. It was a penalty she was taking on personally in exchange for her request and she asked that they all be forbidden to look at her. It was not a public protest in the same way these others are.
She was humiliating herself on behalf of the town. She was not flaunting her body. It's the audacity of the Peeping Tom viewing her shame when he and the others of Coventry were the reason she was doing this that was the problem, not simply because she was naked.
Is it just the viewer who is sexualizing nudity, or is it also the exhibitionists on bikes? Ordinary nakedness is not a problem. I do not see intentional display as "ordinary" when they are on the public street. (Art studio or nude beach, sure. There are plenty of places it is ordinary and accepted. I don't believe this is one.) I find it tacky more than offensive.
(Also, the ride of Lady Godiva never happened.)
Why don't they do this in January?
I'd tell my kids to look.
Look, what do you think--should we take offense or laugh or just ignore altogether? Look, there are always people who think ordinary rules don't apply to them--people on bikes, especially. Look, there are people who think you must respect them without showing the same respect for you. Look, there's a time and place for everything, but some people think anyplace is a place for anything. Look, if you are going to flaunt your naked body in public, hit the gym first, please.
The Onion, those front yard libraries, Epic, and naked bike rides….the fun starts in Madison.
Wisconsin obscenity law makes it harder to charge a nude female cyclist with a violation than a nude male cyclist. The way 944.20(1)(b) is written, it can only be a crime if the "genitals or pubic area" are exposed. (The law is silent about any other body parts, such as chests and butts.) Since female genitals are entirely internal, they cannot be exposed; so it would all depend on what exactly are the bounds of this "pubic area" they must keep obscured? I don't know if there is much case law about that, or what evidence the state would need to produce. Like would they have to have a clear photo of a vulva to get an indictment?
The reason for public indecency laws is that when you allow males to run around outside naked - inevitably one of them is going to get aroused especially if they are younger and the hormones are flowing. That is precisely what the rules are set to prevent. And don’t give me the “naked statues all over Europe never hurt anyone” line - I’ve never seen one of them develop a spontaneous erection. But if you are fine with young kids seeing stiffies - more power to you.
There is a slight gap between naked riders and shaking your wang in the direction of children.
The problem with naked bike rides and public nudity generally is not unbridled eroticism, far from it. Naked cycling is like those clothing-optional beaches. I visited Haulover Beach once. South FL has more than its share of beautiful bodies, but they don't frequent Haulover. The bareass bathers were 80 percent male. The straights were mainly middle-aged and glabrous with unrestrained beer bellies and sunbleached body hair, obviously habitués with crown-to-toe suntans to prove it. The gays were mainly rail-thin bulimics who were about as erotic-looking as a death camp survivor wandering naked among the corpses of his fellow prisoners. The few women I saw enjoying whatever they considered enjoyable were in no danger of becoming modern Sabines, leave it at that. Nudism isn't like those old magazines your father kept hidden but you found nonetheless. Nudism is like one of those pathetic baldies who, though crowned with the merest fringe linking his temples with a grey line of remaining hair, keeps it long enough for a tragicomic ponytail.
"Less gas, more ass" Unintentionally ironic, that. Who'd lust after those pasty, flabby asses, anyway? If those peeled pedalers want less CO2 they could start with their own exhalations.
Liberal cities don't enforce laws against liberals... so no 'indecent exposure'..
Now try that in Texas though and you will GET YOUR ASS LOCKED UP and made to register as a sexual predator for life. Even in Austin Texas that will be done. If you wanna expose your junk down here go to Hippy Hollow on Lake Austin.
There was an English translated article from Der Spiegel recently bemoaning the death of German nude bathing culture. I wasn't familiar with this myself until reading the piece and doing some background research, but apparently Germans up until the 70s and 80s bathed publicly in the nude almost everywhere. There's even nude photos of a young Angela Merkel nude bathing at Bremerhaven.
The article avoids coming right out and saying it, but it's pretty clear Turkish and Muslim immigration are what forced Germans to put their clothes back on. Nude bathing was not sexual to Germans until people started arriving in large quantities that highly sexualize nudity and consider it extremely shameful. It's a fascinating look at how culture changes in real time and why, and also how innocent perceptions of something are forced to change when a considerably more primitive and violent culture subordinate its host. Seeing as we've either reached peak depravity or will soon, I wonder how long it will take before nudist trolls realize they should put their clothes back on lest they be beaten or killed when accidently riding through the wrong neighborhood. I figure it's only a matter of time, not if.
Nudity may not be about sexuality, I agree. I still don't want to see it on a public street.
It's never the people you'd want to see.
That was great!
"And if you're such a devoted parent, teach your children not to look..."
Of course, those parents who cover their child's eyes or ears when confronted with nudity or profanity are derided by naked bicyclists as "prudes" or worse as they're not just (perhaps not at all) interested in "freedom," but in demoralizing (or sexualuzing) those they disagree with.
"And if you're such a devoted parent, teach your children not to look..."
Of course, those parents who cover their child's eyes or ears when confronted with nudity or profanity are derided by naked bicyclists as "prudes" or worse as they're not just (perhaps not at all) interested in "freedom," but in demoralizing (or sexualuzing) those they disagree with.
"I don't think nudity is sexuality."
I'd be very comfortable betting that for 90%+ of men who appear naked in public, it absolutely is.
(I'm open to the possibility the number might be a little lower in certain indigenous tribes, but it would take some convincing.)
"Sex is one of the most important aspects of man’s life and, therefore, must never be approached lightly or casually. A sexual relationship is proper only on the ground of the highest values one can find in a human being. Sex must not be anything other than a response to values. And that is why I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important . . . . [Sex should] involve . . . a very serious relationship. Whether that relationship should or should not become a marriage is a question which depends on the circumstances and the context of the two persons’ lives. I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically certain. When one is certain that one’s choice is final, then marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is based on values."
Said Ayn Rand talking to Playboy, March 1964
"Usage, Professora: you said the Naked Bike Ride “whizzed by.” “Whizzed.” Really?"
Very consciously chosen. To "whizz" means "To move swiftly with or as with such a sound."
A quote from the OED:
1853 N. Hawthorne Jrnl. 9 Aug. in Eng. Notebks. (1997) I. i. 13 The small, black steamers, whizzing industriously along.
That it also means to pee and that people pee through body parts that are on display in naked biking is just icing on the cake.
Via the OED, this quote:
1929 D. H. Lawrence Pansies 24 I wish I was a gentleman As full of wet as a watering-can To whizz in the eye of a police-man.
Tom T. said...
"It's never the people you'd want to see."
No. No, it is not.
Good manners have gone the way of good taste.
A nude young Angela Merkel?
Ayn Rand nails it!
""To move swiftly with or as with such a sound.""
The sound, is "a sound as of a body rushing through the air... ; (of trees) to rustle; (of a burning or hot object) to hiss, sizzle." (OED).
The fat men are naked. The attractive women are not. False advertising.
All the naked bike parade really accomplishes is it illustrates the insanity that is Madison, WI. It doesn’t do shit for the “climate”. But, it reminds those of us who live in sane land what not to be, and why we work hard to live here.
Strange defense by Althouse regarding the men riding bikes in public with their penises dangling. Teach a child to just divert their eyes. Don’t put the ownership on the adult to put some pants on, but rather, put the responsibility on the child not to look. That seems pretty consistent with 2023 Feminism.
This isn’t your Grandma’s feminism.
If there a black man man, riding his bike through a wealthy liberal neighborhood in Madison, the cops would be called. Parents would bring their children inside until somebody arrested the guy.
But get 100 crazy fucking white libs together for a naked penis dangling “protest”, and it becomes the responsibility of children, and the general clothed public to turn their head.
This wasn’t a protest parade. It was simply insane, fat Wisconsinites riding bikes naked. Please stay in Madison.
Byron “Whizzer” White.
JFK called him Whizzer.
is it a white thing
Well the one year Madison allowed naked black dudes in the parade, the fat white guys with small dicks were humiliated. And then the fat naked Madison white guys were pissed their wives and girlfriends were staring and glaring at the impressive nature of the black guys, rather than averting their eyes.
After the Madison crowd saw a few well hung black guys ride by, the started chanting “SHAME” at the fat naked white guys.
So, black guys are no longer invited because in these types of settings because fat liberal naked white men from Madison need their safe space.
Professora @ 10:36: wonderful riposte. And the Lawrence quote is marvelous.
I'm positive that if the non-fed Proud Boys, or a group of Oath Keepers decided to have a penis dangling naked parade downtown Madison for Fathers Rights, the town would freak out, they would all be arrested, and the approach of simply having children avert their eyes would be abandon.
I know I'm stretching it here. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers would never parade naked in public. Especially with children present. They actually have a quiet sense of "Pride".
Same with a naked pro-life march consisting of women who want to protect the unborn. Madisonians would freak. They would line the streets and humiliate these women more than they were already humiliating themselves.
But again, pro-life women wouldn't march naked through town with children present.
The absolute insane hypocrisy of Madison, WI really quite impressive.
Byron “Whizzer” White. JFK called him Whizzer.
Maybe he had prostate problems.
Dropping my trademark snark for a moment, I have a serious question. I’ve heard of “cyclist syndrome,” and I’m asking any members of the Althouse commentariat who participate in naked bike rides (or if you know someone who does so). Does bicycling naked, with literally nothing between loose-hanging gonads and the bicycle seat, increase or decrease the likelihood of cyclist syndrome?
This is purely a matter of curiosity. Now that I’m 77, in the words of the country song, “I don’t look good naked anymore.”
It's not a "white thing", it's a leftist, democrat party, progressive asshole thing. Anything to stick their fingers into society's eye or their disgusting genitals in people's faces.
Maybe he had prostate problems.
Byron White earned the nickname “Whizzer” by running swiftly through opposing secondaries as a collegiate consensus All-American halfback for Colorado, Heisman Trophy runner-up, and later two-time All-Pro running back.
Tom T. said...
It's never the people you'd want to see.
--
Remember Femen?
If the nudists are sexy, it involves sexuality. Even the disgusting can serve as birth control.
Then there's the "Pride" parades...
YouTube appears to be full of video clips taken during naked bike rides in various cities. The women, sometimes “clad” in a thin layer of body paint, mostly appear to be athletic-looking and, therefore, fairly attractive. The men often look scrawny and otherwise out of shape, suggesting that they are not at all physically fit. I.e., flaunting their penis snd scrotum more than their abs and glutes.
I recognize that both I and the videographers are probably incentivized by our gonads to focus on young, physically fit women. Even overweight old geezers like me.
Sussex, WI will have it's annual 4th of July Parade on Main Street this Tuesday. Everyone will be clothed. Children will be safe, and gather candy. Everyone will stand when the color guard marches by.
I'm sure the Waukesha's Dancing Grannies will be there again, and they will get loud rounds of applause.
Everyone will be clothed. And if a group of people decide to ride their bikes naked in the parade, in front of the children, the will surely be arrested...but only after they get their asses kicked.
Contemplate those nude riders dismounting from sweaty bicycle seats and plopping down onto sidewalk café chairs for a refreshing drink.
Would YOU, Althouse, want to sit on those chairs after they left?
You can judge Ayn Rand's attitude toward sexuality and nudity simply the characters in her books.
John Gault, Dagney Taggart, Hank Reardon, Francisco d'Anconia, and Howard Rourke were sexual people.
But NONE of them would have ridden a bike around naked in public in front of kids. And none of them would have bought into the carbon climate change scam.
The people in this naked "climate" parade are the ridiculous, and villainous James Taggarts, and the Ellsworth Tooheys of her novels.
Anna,
That's why there are portable Bidets...via Altazon portal, of course.
If nudity does not indicate sex, can we assume you have sex fully clothed?
You don't have to answer.
"should we take offense or laugh or just ignore altogether?"
Ponting at their junk while laughing would be the appropriate response.
Gusty Winds said...
"You can judge Ayn Rand's attitude toward sexuality and nudity simply the characters in her books."
Gusty Winds is right.
Ayn Rand was neither a prude nor an exhibitionist.
A community sets its standards, either democratically through its laws, or through rough justice demonstrating what it won't accept.
I'm glad I don't live there.
That's nothing. In Portlnd we got a lot of naked stuff. Of course, we piss and shit on downtown streetcorners, too. But, all in all we are marvelously witty, insightful and progressive. Hey, little girl! Look at my dick. Look dammit!
Contemplate those nude riders dismounting from sweaty bicycle seats and plopping down onto sidewalk café chairs for a refreshing drink.
Proper nudist etiquette calls for the individuals to carry a small towel to put under their butts when they sit down.
Etiquette? Rules? Laws? I forgot — these are bike riders. Nevermind.
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