Standing Up for Wholesome Nudity
Here we are once again looking to a Spring of promise and renewal. We have a full plate of legislation that continues to try to rewrite what is protected and not protected attire on public and private lands. I don’t know what’s going on in Missouri, but your lawmakers seem to be especially concerned with rewriting the descriptions of printed or digital materials from already established meaning to words that have not been defined in law. This leaves established precedent in jeopardy. I’m referring to changing “pornography” to “child sexual exploitation – or abuse – material”.
This is what we are now seeing spread across legislation, not only in Missouri, but also in other states. While case law helps defend simple nude images from being classified as pornography, that safety is lost when you come up with a new term and then define it as “any image or rendering of the nude human body”.
Our efforts at educating lawmakers on wholesome nudity is challenged when they think any nude body is a chance for sexual exploitation. We have examples of bills where simple nudity is prohibited anywhere. I’m guessing these lawmakers never shower or change their clothes. How can someone think they can legislate against all nudity? Yet, they use “any and all” in their bills. We can’t hope to normalize the nude human body when we still have uneducated people writing laws. That is why our focus is on teaching those writing these laws that simple nudity is not a crime.
We talk to legislators each year at the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) about the nudist movement and the long history of nonsexual interaction of nudists. While we meet a lot of legislators who listen and support our efforts, we also talk to those who are not friends of the nudist community. We’ve pointed out that a baby picture of them on a bear skin rug would be considered pornography within the scope of the language they are proposing. We discuss existing law that criminalizes letting your child run naked in the sprinkler, or run naked down the hall following their bath, and how they can be charged with sex offender status based on the language in a bill. We try to suggest how they can address their concerns and ours about inappropriate behavior without attacking the wholesomeness of simple nudity.
Nudism should be about being one with nature and connecting with our fellow humans in a safe and nonthreatening way. Spring is a good time to reaffirm our love for being nude in nature.
-Tim Mullins
Government Affairs Chair
