From: jbecker@ocf.berkeley.edu (Jane Becker)
Newsgroups: rec.nude
Subject: Re: Protest! (sort of)
Date: 1 Oct 1992 08:41:52 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigbang.berkeley.edu

In article <1ad2iqINNepj@gap.caltech.edu> brahm@cco.caltech.edu (David E. Brahm) writes:
>jbecker@ocf.berkeley.edu (Jane Becker) writes:
>> Greetings from Berkeleyland! ... There were a dozen or so naked people
>> parading around [Sproul Plaza], making speeches, etc....  [W]hat do you
>> think of this kind of event?
>
>Makes me think I miss those crazy Berkeleyland folks!  But what were they
>protesting?  Berkeley is one of the easier places to be nude (2 CO sundecks
							       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
really?  this is news to me!  where are they? (email if you want)

>on campus, nude hiking on the Fire Trail, dozens of CO beaches nearby).  So
>never mind their state of dress, what were they _saying_?

Several people have asked for more information.  I was intentionally 
vague yesterday, primarily because I missed most of the speech-making.

Here are a few quotes from local papers.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

	"We are freedom of speech," two dozen naked men and women shouted
	to a lunchtime crowd of some 400 curious onlookers.  "Our bodies
	are freedom of speech."
	...
	"There's a lot of social control that goes on," said Martinez,19,
	who has become known on capus for his nude and semi-nude strolls
	around the school this semester.  "The shame needs to be eradicated."
	...
	"It would be nice if everybody around the world would just raise
	up their arms and just take off their clothes," Martinez said.
	...
	Martinez was joined on the steps of Sproul Plaza by members of
	the X-Plicit Players, a group that supports public nudity, and
	a scattered few independent nudists who simply took the occasion
	to soak up as much sun as possible.
	...
	Debbie Moore, 41, one of the founders of the X-Plicit Players,
	said "We feel the only way we can fight the oppression we feel
	is to come out visibly.  We're having a really fantastic experience
	with our bodies being seen.
	...
	Most students seemed to support the demonstrators.
	...
	"I think it's really great," Shepard [a student] said.  "They're not
	afraid to say what they think.  It's very brave."
	...

And from the Daily Californian (basically the school newspaper -- not
necessarily noted for its objectivity...)

	"These are our family values," said Debbie Moore ...
	...
	"Our purpose is to prove that people define normalcy in their
	own term," Martinez said.  "We want people to come to grips with
	their own sexual shame."
	...
	Painting and caressing each other, the nudists took turns using
	the mircophone to address the crowd, exposing a difference in 
	agenda amoung the speakers.
	Martinez declared nudism a protest of the roles people are
	assigned through Western-style socialization, while X-Plicit
	Players stressed the beauty of eroticism.
	Brother John, a nudist since 1946, said nudism is a religious
	statement.  "God is a nudist.  Clothes make us a heirarchial
	society," he said.
	Ken Cheetham, who compiles the Bay Area Progressive Calender, said 
	he came to the nude-in out of his concern for the future of human
	beings.  "I see out whole society losing touch with what it means
	to be part of nature.  We are losing our sense of natural
	satisfaction," Cheetham said.
	...

Well, I'm sick of typing, so that will have to do.   I tried to be as
unbiased as possible in choosing the above quotes.

Personally, I don't think anyone was *really* listening to the speakers;
I think it's what they did, not what they said that's important.
(I suppose that in general, I tend to believe that the only ones
paying close attantion to any debate are those whose opinions are 
rather rigidly set already.  That's just me being a cynic.)  I think
that forcing people to deal with nudity *in person* is the primary
result of all this.  Although I would say that a single event probably
won't do much except provide people with another story about those
crazy Berkeley people to tell in later life.  Maybe if such a thing
were a weekly event, people would get more used to it.

-Jane
Newsgroups: rec.nude