From: bthoms@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: rec.nude
Subject: Re: interesting email
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:34:06 +1300
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1bf5tfINNio8@network.ucsd.edu>, middleto@poincare.ucsd.edu (Tom Middleton ; System Manager) writes:
> I got some interesting email recently.  I don't really have a point in
> posting it, maybe its food for thought, maybe its good for a laugh.
> 
> [anonymous email quote:]
> *>	"As long as you and others like you take an intolerant
> *> attitude, you will not get support from the non-nudist people
> *> who support your cause because they want to be tolerant."
> 
> Translated: "If there is anything I can't tolerate its intolerance."
> 
> 
> -- 
> "These are difficult times for our country, and in searching for the causes
> of our social ills, we could chose to blame the media, or the congress, or
> an administration that's been in power for 12 years, or we could blame me."
> 							Murphy Brown

I suppose that this is as good an issue as any to initiate me with full
gumboots flying to bulletin boards (until a week ago, I thought the network
cable was mostly to do with printing). I apologise if the technology overcomes
me a little.

New Zealand has something of a history of being "tolerant", to the degree that
there is a great deal of the ilk of the anonymous e-mailer. Nudists, especially
in clubs, have nothing to fight for and nothing to prove, despite that people
are still being harassed on beaches, relegated to inaccessible bits of coast
line and ridiculed or (worse) ignored in the mainstream press. In a country
that has almost more beach area than in-land area, and a tiny population to use
it, this is a shame.

In having been a public relations officer for a large club in our biggest city,
I regularly came across the attitude from long-time nudists that we don't
really want to be public about nudism, because already have the right sort of
people. Even worse, recently, when the most popular free beach in the city was
legislated against by the local authority, members of our club supported that
council, because nude sunbathers were offending people!!!

Well, table legs offended the Victorian British, Ice Tea offends our Police
force and innocently bare bottoms clearly offend some people who pay a lot of
money for the houses overlooking this particular beach (St Leonards in
Auckland), but do we have to buy into that? I strongly debate that our local
Nudist Federation does not only have an umbrella role to play for organised
clubs, but also an advocacy role to play for inoffensive recreational public
nudity. Further, I think like Tom Middleton, I wonder if there is something a
little odd about people who go round looking for "passive" causes to feel good
about supporting, when the real issue is that nudists are being harassed by the
attitudes of a textile society all the time.

I guess it gets me a little worked up that when other minority groups see
tolerance as the bete noire of the trendy lefties, since simple acceptance is a
lot more positive. Good on groups like X-Plicit and like Tom who are public
enough to make any sensible person wonder what all the fuss was about in the
first place. 
Newsgroups: rec.nude