"Whenever celebrities say that they're just getting nude as a form of self-expression... I have a question."

"How often are they just walking around their house nude, like by themselves, or are they just wearing PJs like a normal person? Like, as as a normal part of self-expression, do you just like walk around nude... do you walk nude to the grocery store as a form of self-expression? You know, just walking around in public nude... Would you be walking around as a form of, you know, just knowing yourself? Would you be walking around naked?"

Ben Shapiro — listening to Miley Cyrus talk to Monica Lewinsky — asks, rhetorically, because he's very sure the answer is no.

 

But maybe you yourself or somebody you've known does walk the face of the earth nude because that's who they really are.

I know I've said this before and maybe I was quoting someone else, but I just spent an absurd amount of time searching for that, unsuccessfully, so I'm just going to try to say it again, though I'm quite convinced I said it better that other time: Nudes have virtually no role in human history.

"As a Frida Kahlo portrait glared protectively at me over Madonna’s shoulder, we talked past, present, future, prayer, dicks, nutritional yeast, and more…"

Writes Mel Ottenberg, introducing "The Madonna Interview" in Interview Magazine.

EXCERPT:

OTTENBERG: When was the last time you confessed?

MADONNA: Well, every song on this record is—not every song. Some are just joy. “Love Sensation” is just joy. But a lot of the songs here are confessional.

OTTENBERG: What about the last time you confessed in a church?

MADONNA: Oh, that’s been a while.

OTTENBERG: Do you have a relationship with organized religion?

MADONNA: Well, I was raised a Catholic and I’m a cultural Catholic.

"I have to say, I’m pretty much on my own with this question, and I’m at a loss."

Said the director Wim Wenders, 80, asked about his movie "Wrong Move" (1975) which made the now easily perceptibly wrong move of gazing at the breasts of a 13 year old. But what to do about that now?

I'm reading, "Wim Wenders Pulls Film With Teenage Nudity After Actress’s Pleas/Nastassja Kinski was 13 years old when she was shown topless in the 1975 film 'Wrong Move.' 'I could already tell that wasn’t right,' she told a German newspaper" (NYT).

"On Wednesday, Wenders released a statement on his foundation’s website," the NYT says, linking to a German text. I used Grok to put it in English:

"What distinguished Ms. Export’s work, beyond its aggression and sheer volume, was its lucidity."

I'm reading "Valie Export, Who Made Art With Her Naked Body, Dies at 85" (NYT).

Ms. Export was best known for two pieces she staged in the late 1960s and early ’70s. In the first, “Action Pants: Genital Panic,” she walked into a movie theater in Munich in 1968, wearing crotchless pants that put her exposed genitals directly in the sightline of seated theatergoers....

"On a recent afternoon at the Venice Biennale, I walked into a bright blue portable john and peed for art."

"Just outside the booth, a naked woman was submerged in a huge water tank, breathing through a scuba mouthpiece. My urine was about to pass along a tube from the toilet through several filtration systems, before topping up her glass chamber’s water level. The performer, who would stay in the tank for at least four hours, was essentially living in other people’s waste. And she had plenty of donors. The toilet is part of a presentation called 'Seaworld Venice' by the choreographer and theater-maker Florentina Holzinger that is undoubtedly the biggest talker of this year’s Biennale, which opens to the public on Saturday and runs through Nov. 22."

From "These Toilets in Venice Have the Art World Aflush/Undoubtedly the biggest talker at this year’s Venice Biennale is the Austrian pavilion, where visitors can make their own contributions to the work on show" (NYT).

I clicked on that link for "Seaworld Venice" and was confronted with big red letters saying "I live in your piss."

This is the kind of degradation of women that feminists used to rail against, but, here, the artist is female, so I guess we're not supposed to notice. The message is purportedly environmentalism. Also the artist puts herself out there: "Part of the performance at the pavilion involved Holzinger swinging her body from side to side inside a metal bell attached to a crane to make it ring out." Video at the link. Holzinger is naked. A commenter over there notes that she risks deafness, performing as a bell clapper.

ADDED: I don't remember ever seeing "talker" used to mean the thing being talked about: the show is "undoubtedly the biggest talker of this year's Biennale." I understand "talker" meaning a person doing that talking, but not This show is a big talker, meaning it's what everyone's talking about. I guess it's like the use of "-er" in "looker" used to refer to someone people look at and not the one doing the looking.

The OED defines "talker" only as the one doing the talking. An example from Jane Austen (from "Emma"): "I am rather a talker; and now and then I have let a thing escape me which I should not." 

And then there's that Shakespeare adage, from "Richard III": "Talkers are no good doers." I think we don't use that one too much. We're more likely to go with: "All talk and no action," "Actions speak louder than words," "Talk is cheap," and "Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk." 

"Berliner here. Don't fool yourselves. The Nightclub scene in Berlin is dead. And it was destroyed by people like you who turned it into a tourist attraction."

Says somebody in the comments section of the Washington Post article, "Pants are optional: What I learned navigating Berlin’s famous club scene/Here’s what happened when our travel reporter attempted to infiltrate some of the city’s iconic clubs as a tourist."

The WaPo travel reporter is an attractive mid-30s white woman. She writes: "When I got to the door, the bouncer said I could come in if I took my pants off." She'd prepared by wearing a black one-piece swimsuit as a base layer. She "soon realized I would have been in good company in my underwear alone — or even fully bottomless."

This gets my rarely used "underpants" tag.

I agree with the Berliner in the comments. It's sad when something local gets co-opted by tourists... even if the damned tourists will take off their pants as the price of entry and even if the pants-off price of entry only works if you are decently attractive and somewhat young.

"The best experiences I’ve had have been going to swingers’ parties held in the West End and stately homes in the countryside, but you don’t find out the venue until hours before..."

"... either through the WhatsApp group or posted on the event’s socials. It’s way better than a nightclub. You might live in the middle of nowhere and have big, bold or boring lives, but on this night you get to be with 150 people who are all up for it.... The next party I’m going to has... [a rule that] if your outfit isn’t good enough, you have to take it all off at the door. There are body painters inside who can make anyone look good — they even do vajazzling. I remember being at a party where a beautiful blonde girl got out of a taxi wrapped in a silver cloak. She passed through the entrance hall, shrugged off the cloak, and walked into the party completely naked. I also have a friend who has been going for years and always does the same joke — when he gets in, he strips to nothing but a codpiece and walks around going, 'This is so embarrassing — no one told me there was a dress code.'"

Says Anthony, 28, quoted in "Why Gen Z say yes, yes, yes to sex parties. They’re supposedly the prudish and sober generation — so why are twentysomethings flocking to polyamorous foam parties and BDSM dungeons in secret warehouses?T hree twentysomethings reveal all" in the London Times. 

Gwyneth Paltrow's dress was my favorite Oscars look when I saw it from the front in the NYT.

So well-fitted, elegant, and simple. But now, I'm seeing the side and the effect is entirely different. It's trending on X, and people aren't sure that it's not a complete accident or an accidentally-on-purpose "accident":

Gwyneth Paltrow is facing backlash after wearing this dress at the Oscars pic.twitter.com/8y7e7ynG0j

— USA NEWS 🇺🇸 (@usanewshq) March 16, 2026

My prompt to Grok: Do non-stupid people seriously think this might have been an accident? And: I think if an opening that extensive happened by accident, the dress would have fallen off (unless she'd quickly grabbed the whole thing, which she didn't).

I'm seeing some dummies using the cliché "wardrobe malfunction." Let's remember that the first use of that expression was in an accidentally-on-purpose nonaccident. 

MEANWHILE: Gwyneth is auctioning off a lot of her old clothes — clothes that are so normal and un-expensive you might want to just wear them.

"She does not feel self-conscious when she is on stage. It is only when she returns to the wings that she feels a little shy."

I'm reading "Why I’m performing Wagner naked at the Royal Opera aged 81/Illona Linthwaite won’t let being nude in front of 2,200 people stop her from defying the ‘bad press’ given to older women" (London Times).

“The curtain goes up and there’s nothing happening, it’s just me. I thought that was really frightening and then when it happened, I thought, actually, this is brilliant,” she said.

The role is Erda, in "Siegfried."

Erda is usually “frocked her up to the nines” in gossamer gowns, Linthwaite said, but Barrie Kosky, the director, wanted the octogenarian’s body to symbolise nature and remind the audience of their mortality.... 

That's the director's view — an old woman reminds you of death — not the old woman's. She thinks she's there to remind you of life: 

She thinks her performance is something of a political act in a country she views as “spiritually arid” for its lack of empathy towards older people. Ultimately, she wants the audience to look at her and see the future not as a tragedy, but an adventure. She wants people to feel: “Hey, I’m looking forward to 80.”

I asked Grok: "If you saw Erda in 'Siegfried' portrayed by an old woman would she remind you of death or life?" [ADDED: The actual full question was "What views are attributed to the character Erda in 'Siegfried' and if you saw her portrayed by an old woman would she remind you of death or life?"

Answer:

"The Government Published Dozens of Nude Photos in the Epstein Files. The photos, which showed young women or possibly teenagers with their faces visible..."

"... were largely removed after The New York Times began notifying the Justice Department.... As part of its required disclosure of the Epstein files, the federal government was tasked with redacting both sexually explicit imagery and information that could be used to identify victims. But in the process of reviewing more than three million pages uploaded to the Justice Department’s website on Friday, The New York Times came across nearly 40 unredacted images that appeared to be part of a personal photo collection, showing both nude bodies and the faces of the people portrayed...."

The New York Times reports.

Government-issued pornography. Presumably accidental, but what can you expect with this longstanding prurient interest in Jeffrey Epstein?

That can't feel good.

"Her custom negligee dress and matching cape were crafted in silk georgette in a deep red garnet. But once Roan removed the cape, the result was a naked dress that seemingly exposed her breasts, with the silk georgette suspended by nipple rings."

I'm reading "Chappell Roan’s Naked Dress at Grammys Shocks Social Media/The double Grammy nominee created what was arguably the night's first viral moment when she turned up in a sheer look by Mugler" (Hollywood Reporter).

Congratulations on getting attention. It's quite a look, and it kind of looks good. But I'm just worried about that kind of weight suspended from pierced nipples. You're treating your breasts like hooks on the back of a bathroom door, things to hang clothing on.

Here's a closeup (on X) that highlights the pulling. It's not just an illusion that the whole bottom of the dress is hanging from those nipple rings. You can see the distortion from the weight. You can see the risk of injury. The viewer is drawn into the experience of pain and danger. Who is that for? 

"I'm alarmed enough when I see a woman with her dangling boobies. If I saw a penis in the ladies rocker room, I would freak out too."

"This is nothing against trans anybody. What it's saying is if I turn around and I see a pee pee — a penis — in front of me inside of the room, I would probably go to management and say, 'Wait a minute. Why is there somebody a naked man in this room?' Because... just from a safety standpoint and just from a, you know, from a privacy standpoint, I would so I can see why she would have gone and reported to management. There's a man naked in the — now, if they clarified and they said, 'Well, trans, okay,' but I think they should take her concerns also seriously because if she's uncomfortable, does she not have the right to be at least uncomfortable with this situation is what I'm saying...."

Said Joy Reid on her Reid This Reid That podcast:

I only quoted part of what's at that clip. Joy Reid goes on and on about nakedness and extensively details what's wrong with "dangling boobies." Nor is she a fan of the "flat ass." Jacque Reid joins in. Both women assert that they are not transphobic... as they go on and on saying what has been getting people called transphobic. It's quite amusing (and, to some, I presume, enraging).

Here's the NY Post article about it: "Joy Reid joins outrage at trans members in locker rooms: 'If I saw a penis … I would freak out, too.'"

"In January, the Texas police entered a group exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth that featured [Sally] Mann, and they seized several photos from the 'Immediate Family' series..."

"... her landmark monograph of their three preadolescent children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia — in which the children appear nude. (None is more graphic than your average Christ child of the Italian Renaissance.) The police were prepared to bring charges of child pornography against the museum, even sending officers on a (broadly discredited) investigation of art museums in New York, according to the Fort Worth Report. A grand jury declined to bring it to trial, and Mann’s photos were later returned to Gagosian, her gallery. But to the artist and many journalists, the seizure seemed to bring a belated, QAnon-era fruition to the allegations of child exploitation that Mann has weathered since unveiling the photos in the 1990s..."

From "Sally Mann, in Her Golden Hour, Faces Fresh Culture Wars/One of America’s finest memoirists, in photos and in prose, is at the peak of her powers in 'Art Work'— and wondering if her pictures will survive" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see some of her photos, not the seized photos, and read the whole story).

"In her attic, Mann stared at a stack of the 150 unexhibited 'Black Men' prints, wrapped in opaque plastic. Downstairs, we clicked through scans of them: forearms, backs, hands folded, prayerlike. A photograph is two things, Roland Barthes said: what it says to the world and what it says to you. Mann has found herself hounded by that first way of seeing.

I've been inside the museums and I've scrawled my way through many life drawing classes, and it's never occurred to me to refer to nudes as "suggestive."

But this morning I'm reading The New York Times....

A key congressional committee on Monday released a note and sexually suggestive drawing containing what appeared to be Donald J. Trump’s signature that was included in a book for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 — a drawing that Mr. Trump has insisted he did not create.

And The Washington Post...

... Democrats on the committee released portions of the book — including a suggestive picture and note allegedly drawn by President Donald Trump when he and Epstein were friends.

A nude is suggestive? A line drawing of a nude???

Cover your eyes, children, we're in the Henri Matisse gallery!

A quote from Henri Matisse: "I have always considered drawing not as an exercise of particular dexterity… but as a means deliberately simplified so as to give simplicity and spontaneity to the expression, which should speak without clumsiness, directly to the mind of the spectator."

When Henri — or Donald — speaks without clumsiness, directly to the mind of the spectator, what does he suggest?

When a nude purportedly drawn by Donald Trump is called "suggestive" in the NYT or the Washington Post, we're supposed to think that the message is... what? Rape this? 

"How are we supposed to do pro-Trump messaging?"/"Oh, come on, guys. We're South Park. We can do it!"

Read warnings* before clicking.

*Warnings:

• Although South Park Studios posted this on YouTube, it is the end of the episode, so it's a spoiler, but I don't think that matters much, and they obviously don't either.

• There is some male nudity. 

• Trump is exalted but also humiliated. I think both Trump haters and Trump lovers can be entertained, depending on psychological complexities I would not pretend to plumb in this list of warnings. 

I watched this episode last night... after forking out $119 for an annual subscription to Paramount+ Premium. I paid precisely because I wanted to watch this episode, which I'd heard was great.

I was entirely satisfied. The animation of Trump is inventive. His Canadian-style detached head and pronunciation of the word "about" suggest an ongoing narrative — perhaps that he was really born in Canada and that's why Canada needs to become the 51st state. There are the new problems of living in post-"woke" America. Cartman — and the show's writers — are deprived of the material they liked to satirize and so life may not be worth living. We laughed a lot and are planning to rewatch.

"And I’m still amazed by how quickly I got used to being naked in front of others, how little I cared, how little notice others took."

"I thought I would be stared at, regarded as an embarrassing old woman showing off in public. Pottering in my garden this morning, deadheading geraniums and hanging out the washing, I was itching to take off my nightie and stand there in the altogether, but I have close neighbours; even next door’s cat was giving me the side-eye. Living with my 40-year-old son, I certainly don’t intend to parade around top and bottomless indoors any time soon, but I have invited a friend to join me on Brighton’s nudist beach, which is very near where I live. Swimwear seems so unnecessary to me these days...."

Writes Elaine Kingett, in "I’m 75 and hate my body. Will my first naturist holiday help? The writer Elaine Kingett used to love her body but that changed after a heart attack, breast cancer and the death of her husband. Can a ‘clothes optional’ break in Crete kickstart a reconciliation?" (London Times).

Naked as a clam.

I'm reading "Don’t sleep naked — the nine best tips on how to sleep in the heat/Struggling to drop off then waking at the crack of dawn? Boiling nights can be a challenge. Here’s what to do" (London Times).

9 tips are needed because air conditioning is not one of them. In first place is the one that begins the headline, "Don’t sleep naked." We're told "Wearing loose-fitting cotton PJs is a better option than sleeping in the nude, according to the sleep consultant Alison Jones, a spokeswoman for the sleep technology company Sealy. 'A light fabric helps to wick away moisture so that you are less likely to feel clammy,' Jones says."

I think the phrase "Don't sleep naked" is just click bait. If cotton were good for "wicking away moisture" then those who like the freedom of naked sleeping could just cover ourselves with a cotton sheet. But didn't cotton lose that reputation. Hikers these days are advised to avoid cotton. It may wick moisture, but it stays damp. And isn't that what we mean by feeling "clammy"?

By the way, were clams called "clams" because they were seen as clammy or did the word "clammy" postdate the use of "clam" as the name for the familiar mollusk, so that things were being called "clammy" because they seemed clamlike?

"I’m watching your show, and I’m watching your butt sticking out there.... What is going on here? This is crazy."

Arnold Schwarzenegger jokes about seeing his son Patrick naked on screen in ‘THE WHITE LOTUS’:

“I’m watching your show, and I’m watching your butt sticking out there. And all of a sudden, I see the weenie. What is going on here? This is crazy.”

pic.twitter.com/okdNsYx5PE

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) June 3, 2025

"Neighbors soon grew frustrated with the constant hubbub at the house. They saw people coming and going carrying gun holsters..."

"... as the security team ballooned along with Mr. Musk’s safety concerns. Though Texas has permissive gun laws, the activity stood out. 'I call that place Fort Knox,' said Mr. Hemmer, a retired real estate agent who lives across the street and is president of the neighborhood homeowners association.... Mr. Hemmer, who has long owned a Tesla, grew so frustrated with his neighbor that he began flying a drone over the house to check for city violations, and he keeps a video camera trained on the property around the clock. Last year, he complained to West Lake Hills officials about Mr. Musk’s fence, the traffic and how he thought the owner was operating a security business from the property. Mr. Musk’s security team also contacted the West Lake Hills Police Department about Mr. Hemmer, according to city records. One security official accused Mr. Hemmer last year of standing naked in the street, according to the records. Mr. Hemmer denied that he was naked and said he was on his property wearing black underwear. On another night, he said, he was walking his dog fully clothed and stopped when he suddenly needed to urinate — which Mr. Musk’s camera captured. 'The cameras got me,' Mr. Hemmer said. 'It’s scary they have guys sitting and watching me pee.'"

I'm reading "Won’t You Be My Neighbor? No Thanks, Elon Musk. Residents of an upscale enclave outside Austin, Texas, learned the hard way what it’s like when a multibillionaire moves into the mansion next door. Some of them have started a ruckus over it" (NYT).

Some screwy details in that story — Texans bothered by holstered guns, flying a spy drone into your neighbor's airspace then complaining that he's got cameras aimed out at the street where you took the liberty to pee, that whole nakedness-or-black-underwear conundrum....

In any case, doesn't Elon have his own city now? I'm reading "Voters Approve Incorporation of SpaceX Hub as Starbase, Texas/A South Texas community, mostly made up of SpaceX employees, voted 212 to 6 in favor of establishing a new city called Starbase" (NYT).

"C.E.O. Choked Man Who Danced Barefoot on Cruise Ship...."

A NYT headline speaks of the recent trend of throwing your life away for nothing.

The altercation began shortly after Mr. DeGiorgio’s wife had confronted the man about barefoot dancing, telling him, “Look, we are all grown-ups here — can you put your shoes on?” Mr. DeGiorgio’s wife told investigators that the man had made a crude remark to her, and the security video showed him giving her the middle finger, according to the F.B.I...

I looked it up. The "crude remark" was "Shut up, you fucking bitch." 

We're told DeGiorgio's pay package (at First American Financial) is $7.8 million.

What's so bad about taking your shoes off to dance? It can be a way to be quieter, more graceful, or to protect the dance floor — think sock hop. And I've heard the wistful longing: There will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance.