Trying to control the world?
I see you won’t succeed.
How do I know?
Like this!
-Lao Tsu
It always happens. People get a bug up their butt about something, and then they want to make it illegal. Such is the case with public nudity in Brattleboro, fueled by a couple sporadic incidents of the same, with unfortunately broad media coverage.
Such legislation usually seems like a good idea at the time, and maybe it is for some people. But like Whitman and all the great poets in his tradition, I’m still a believer in freedom, and moreover, the maximum freedom possible for individuals within a reasonably civilized society. Without freedom, we can’t experience life to the fullest. We feel inhibited and pressured to conform. And as a result, we become half the persons we could be if we weren’t worried about social conventions.
That said, I want no one limiting my freedom of experience -- including but hardly limited to the possibility that I might run into a naked person on Main Street. I’m happy to be protected from rapists and murderers, but protecting me from people that harm no one? I don’t need that.
Since the whole Brattleboro nudity subject first came up, I’ve heard a lot about the fragile psyches of children. Having been a kid once, I’m not buying it. Back in my day, we had streakers. They were naked. We thought it was funny. Today’s kids probably see more nudity at home on tv than my generation ever saw anywhere but at the art museum. It’s really hard to imagine that a child of any age could be damaged for life by the mere sight of a naked person. Parents could help by explaining it to them: “That man is deranged, honey. Don’t pay him any mind.”
As for the offended adults, I’m amazed at their lack of mojo. But leaving that aside, I just don’t see how being offended can be legally construed as being harmed. If that were a legal definition, the jails would be overflowing with offensive people, crowding out the common criminals. They aren’t, sad to say.
Although you could if you wanted to, I think it would be wrong to pass laws, particularly those with criminal penalty, based solely on the fact that some people are offended by something. One need look no further than our Puritan ancestors to see what happens when people use the law to protect themselves from that which offends them. Suddenly you can get your nose cut off for holding hands. But I digress.
On Tuesday, November 6, the Selectboard is expected to discuss enacting a permanent ordinance against public nudity. Town attorney Bob Fisher has proposed language for a criminal section to the ordinance, making repeat infractions a criminal charge, with criminal consequences and penalties. If you want to talk about offensive, this last bit offends me. With today’s heightened fear of sex offenders, it’s easy to imagine that a nudist (or naked person) could be saddled with sex offender baggage for the rest of their life based on a few (perhaps ill advised) incidents.
I guess what bothers me the most about legislating morality in this way is that it’s so freaking bourgeois. I’m reminded of Pete Seeger’s old song about the houses made of ticky tacky:
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.*
We could all live in the same kinds of houses, drive the same cars, wear the same brands of clothes, eat the same food, watch the same tv, watch the same sports, take the same medicine, read the same magazines, think the same thoughts, and act just the same. But this is Brattleboro. We’re not all the same here.
In the current debate, there are people who want a law to make sure they’re never offended by public nudity again. Some of these same people want to punish the offenders. This group is very vocal and in your face. There are other people who do not care about or want a law against public nudity, and these people are timid and shy, probably because they’re afraid they’ll be branded as child-hating monsters if they come out in favor of not making nudity illegal. (It’s always hard to be for not doing something.)
In the end, it’s a bit of a nominal freedom. I’m no more likely to exercise my right to be publicly naked than some of the anti-nudists are to shop on Main Street. But that said, I don’t want my freedoms to become crimes, or my quirky little town to fall to the moral minority, no matter how right they think they are. Instead of passing needless laws, let's concentrate on the real criminals, and let the oddballs be.
*Little Boxes, words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990.