Could Being a Nudist Give You Bad Credit?

THE BARE Platypus has often pondered the impact of technology on home and social nudism.  We’ve discussed the likely effect of Instagram, Google Glass, Cloud Computing, and Data Rationing.  Now there’s a new issue.

This week a German credit rating company pulled back from a plan to acquire mass amounts of Facebook data.  The company claimed it merely wanted to better serve and market to customers. 

We understand that companies use information from social media to target advertising, such as placing a banner ad for RV insurance on the welcome page of a user who lists an interest in camping.  But privacy experts fear the worst when sensitive material gets in the hands of a credit rating company. 

For example, suppose such a company learned you “liked” a Facebook campaign to legalize marijuana? Rightly or wrongly, it could conclude you're more likely to wind up in jail and unable to pay your bills, then lower your credit score accordingly.

Now suppose that those who assess credit scores learned you follow Bare Platypus, or subscribe to the All Nudist e-Newspaper.  Would they assign you a lower credit score for being “more likely to be fired by an employer" over your private life?

Some of you are probably shouting “Bring it on!” at your computer screens about now.  Others are probably busy adopting new cryptic pseudonyms for their screen names.

Lies Our Fathers (and Mothers) Told

TWO DAYS from now will mark the celebration of Father's Day in this country.  Take dad out for dinner. Play a round of golf with him, or buy him a necktie. It's tradition. But on some other day don't let dad and mom off the hook for the lie that they repeatedly told you as a kid. 

Remember when they counseled you not to run in the house or have friends over when they weren't home?  It usually came with a disclaimer: "When you grow up and have your own house, you can run around in it, have any friends over, and do what you want in YOUR house.  This is our house... yada, yada,yada..."

Trouble is, now that we HAVE grown up and are paying for places of our own, mom and dad are usually NOT ready to make good on their promise that "you can do what you want in YOUR house."  Specifically, do you think they're okay with you living in your own house naked?

Neither do we.

They may begin talking to you with the line "I realize it's your house..." But don't think for a second that parents won't lecture you that it's indecent, unsanitary, unsafe, and unhealthy for your kids if your family lives bare naked.  Many people tell the Bare Platypus that they hate having to "cover up" for that week that relatives are in town.  We say, why do that?  Don't let anyone---including your dad---guilt you or embarass you out of living naked in your own home.  If they choose not to visit and spring the money for a nearby hotel, so be it.

What's the best response to the question "Are you really going to go around naked like that while I'm here?" 

It's to say, "Yes. Because I don't want to make you a liar after telling me for years as a kid that paying for my home would mean I can do within it as I choose." (This strategy doesn't work if you still live with your parents in their house, of course.)

If dad merely shrugs his shoulder and says "your house, your rules" then thank him by buying him two neckties.  Or with two rounds of golf.

Is it Really a Privacy Fence?

SOME YEARS ago, a member of our Bare Platypus team and his wife had an “animated” discussion about plans for a home improvement project.  Specifically, they were researching the expense, permitting process, and possible vendors to install a six foot opaque fence in the back yard.

“You want to spend your entire annual bonus on a privacy fence?” she asked.

“No.  I want to spend the money on a non-offense fence,” he replied.

“You want the fence so you can sunbathe and walk around naked…  You want a privacy fence,” she shot back.

He corrected her: “I DO want to walk around and sunbathe naked… A LOT, but that’s why I have to build a non-offense fence, not a privacy fence. There's a difference!”

You see, from the perspective of our Platypus, he felt forced to build the fence to avoid offending the neighbors---who would no doubt call the cops on him for nakedness.  But it was NOT out of any search for "privacy" and the distinction was important to him.

As he recounted to us, PRIVACY implies that you want to be concealed or protected from others knowing what you are doing. PRIVACY connotes that you are the person seeking out something.  As a legitimate nudist, our Platypus merely wants to avoid offending someone else. He’s not an exhibitionist, but he couldn’t care less whether someone else saw him in his birthday suit.  The fence is a courtesy to those who do not wish to see his nudity.

The fur on our Platypus bristles at any implication that he would spend money on a fence if others didn’t have hang ups about nudity. He wouldn’t. 

How about it readers? Is he being hyper-technical or is the distinction important? Is it important we make clear that our fences are NOT to protect those within them so much as a concession to those on the outside?

Naked History: The Basics of Nudity on Cape Cod

THE OTHER day the members of our Bare Platypus team were talking about the battles that have been fought with various government agencies over nudism in North America.  We turned to the critical need to preserve lessons and strategies learned because the membership and volunteers among nudist organizations experience regular turnover.  We must transfer “institutional knowledge” or risk losing whatever experience nudists have acquired in waging our battles.

Location.  With that in mind, let’s turn to a discussion of the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts.  The Cape Cod National Seashore spans a number of towns along the Cape.  If you haven’t spent much time in Massachusetts, we’re talking about that arm that hooks out into the ocean, almost as if the state were flexing a muscle.  Follow the “arm” to the very end and you’re in the Provincetown – Truro area, home to much of CCNS. 

Legal Changes.  Skinny dipping and nude sunbathing enjoyed a long tradition on many of the beaches now managed as the CCNS. Problem was, in the early 1970’s the fame of the nude beaches spread and it was not all a good thing.  Many visitors sojourned down to the CCNS in hopes of gawking at nudists much the way you’d view animals at the zoo.  There were even tour bus companies operating from as far away as Boston who organized “see the nudists” tours.  These gawkers brought their own set of problems with the law, as well as trampling through environmentally sensitive dunes.  By the mid 1970’s, seashore officials had had enough.

They secured passage of a federal regulation prohibiting nudity on the CCNS.  The regulatory process included notices in the Federal Register, an official comment period, etc.  Once completed that regulation---targeted only at CCNS---went into effect and remains in place to this day.  The regulation is one of only a handful of such federal nudity bans specifically targeted to parts of the National Park System. (There is one prohibition at Honokohau park in HI).

Volunteer Spirit.  For decades, local nudists, including Bill Falconer’s Sunchasers Travel Club  and the Pilgrim Naturists of New England, have been working to have the regulation rescinded.  They organize an annual CCNS Cleanup, which cleans miles of the beach every year and holds an impressive 15+ year track record. Such service projects have helped cultivate a positive working relationship between nudists and seashore staff to the point that some staffers would rather find other things to do than cite nudists if they don’t receive any complaints.  Yet the law remains.

Every seven years or so, National Parks on federal seashores take a status check and revise their Seashore Management Plans.  On these occasions, nudists have followed the process and put formal requests into the record (usually accompanied by hundreds of petitions in support).  Nudists have also traveled to congressional offices in Washington DC with a Massachusetts constituency to present officials with pictures of each year’s CCNS Cleanup volunteers and reports of the actual mileage cleaned and pounds of trash collected.   With each year more friends get made and more people educated.  Yet the regulation persists.

Lessons.  Many reading the Bare Platypus were not even born when the federal government banned nudity on the Cape and there are few left championing FOR the ban, but it remains.  Today’s lessons: (1) Thank those who are trying to change things; and (2) REMEMBER that it takes only a short time to lose a nude beach venue, but decades to get it back.

6/10/12 Week’s Walter Award Goes to…

SOME WEEKS the choice for our Walter Award---which is named for Dr. Walter Bishop of the hit television series Fringe and announced each Tuesday in homage to his “cook naked on Tuesday” philosophy---comes so naturally.  This was one of those weeks!

We simply must recognize Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda of The Today Show for answering the questions, “Is sleeping naked normal?” and “Is skinny-dipping normal?” with an emphatic 'Yes!"  The women provided those answers while playing a few rounds from a new game show that polls the general public on what’s normal, and then challenges contestants to match the results, like the Family Feud game show of old. (The poll found a majority of those surveyed didn’t think sleeping starkers is normal, but what are you gonna do?)

The Walter Award also recognizes Kathy Lee and Hoda for saying some very positive things about nudity when they opened a Nakation-in-a-Box live on the air some years ago.  They actually held up copies of nudist park guides, Nakation towels, temp tattoos and sunblock while conceding that the whole idea sounded fun.  Hoda also relayed her experiences on a nude beach while visiting Europe as a college student.

For answers that embody the true spirit of Dr. Bishop, we wish you this Walter ladies!

The Perils of Breastfeeding

THIS WEEK news media carried yet another story of a woman asked to leave premises after breastfeeding her baby.  This time the venue was a public library in Minnesota .

The story disappoints the Platypus staff for a couple of reasons.  First, we’d like to think of libraries---those bastions of study and shelves stocked with books on all manner of uncensored subjects---showing an open mind about such things.  Second, we thought the considerable efforts of groups like the La Leche League had helped educate the public by now about the superior benefits in infant health that breastfeeding provides to infants: Tops for nutrition and increasing immunity by passing on valuable antibodies from mom to tot.

But what does that matter when someone witnesses a bit of naked mammary?   Won’t someone think of the children??? (Actually we thought we were thinking of the children… but, oh well.) 

As long as breastfeeding gets a mom kicked out of the library, or a picture of this bonding experience gets a mom kicked off Facebook, the age of nude beaches probably remains light years away.  There are, however, rays of hope.  

In Florida, for example, a security guard once told a young mother she couldn’t breastfeed in public. She happened to be then-governor Lawton Chiles’ daughter and the infant, naturally, his grandchild.  Very soon Governor Chiles helped usher in a law making breastfeeding permissible in any location where a mother is otherwise lawfully allowed to be.  (Actually this may not fix the problem. Re-reading the news accounts of “library mom,” it appears Minnesota also has such a law on the books.  Not much help when the uniformed but un-informed guys with the billy clubs show up.)

Here’s hoping more states follow suit and more people get a clue.  In the meantime,  follow this link to see touching photography that celebrates the innocence in these feedings.  If you’re like The Platypus, you probably never even notice the breasts in these pics. 

But those babies’ eyes?  Captivating!

                                                                        

Taking a Minute to Say, “Thanks”

IN OUR last blog post we noted the many, many voices in the choir promoting a nude way of life.  We would like to spend this post recognizing a few of these voices who have been particularly helpful to the Platypus:

 

http://allnudist.wordpress.com – Allnudist has been treating visitors to their site and Facebook pages for years, as well as regularly publishing an E-newspaper cataloging nudist articles culled from many sources…including the Platypus at times.  The Platypus has served the nude travel industry for nearly 15 years and, in our opinion, AllNudist commands a very accurate understanding about the way things in the nudist community actually are (even if we wished some of it wasn’t true). There’s a good chance you came to us from one of AllNude’s links, but if you haven’t visited yet you should.

http://nudiarist.tumblr.com/ – We were reading nudiarist often… long before starting the Platypus.  Chet, author of this site, also serves as a member of the public relations committee of  a national nudist organization.

Will Forest - Author, blogger, nudist.

http://nuderenewed.com/2012/04/26/taking-it-back-in-house/  This site is taking innovation to the next level.  Currently they’re working on a project to  host fellow nudist sites and blogs… a “home” where such sites will not have to fear censorship or sudden termination of service.  They have been most kind to the Platypus.

http://nudestate.tumblr.com/ -  This is a “Tumblr” site whose mainstay is nude / naturist photographs.  We appreciate their assistance in re-tweeting and linking to our Platypus posts.

www.nurba.org – NURBA’s mission is to get people to think outside the box about nudity.  As their name suggests, NURBA encourages nudity within urban settings and while doing everyday tasks, going beyond the cliché nakedness on the beach or in pools.

As weeks go by, we plan to regularly thank others in the naked blogging community.  We deeply appreciate all who help get the message out!