No Nudes and Good Nudes

In 1913, a show of “Modern Art” was held at the 69th Regimental Armory in New York City. One of the most controversial exhibits was by French artist, Marcel Duchamp, and was entitled Nude Descending a Staircase. To many viewers, this piece was quite shocking. In view of the title, you might think that the shock lay in some kind of ultra-realistic depiction of the unclothed human body, probably female. But in fact, what was shown was so far from realism that, without the title, it was hard to discern any “nude,” let alone any staircase. The mere word “nude” was still somewhat titillating to a generation just emerging from the Victorian era.

The “figure” shown was hardly recognizable as male or female – or even human.

Ever since the Garden of Eden, there has been a savor of sinfulness about sheer nakedness. In general, this has applied only to Homo Sapiens, and other creatures have been excluded from ethical indictment. That was, until our own time, when that great hoaxer Alan Abel founded S.I.N.A. – which officially stood for “Society for Indecency to Naked Animals” – an acronym which made about as much sense as its activities, such as putting special brassieres on cows. Oddly, some opponents took this whole “Crusade” very seriously, and spent much time and energy defending the rights of animals to be unclothed, if that was their (presumed) wish.

There are however some garbs which we do allow to animals, such as the protective types of old hats which are, or used to be, seen on the heads of horses and other equines pulling street-carts, with their ears poking through specially-cut holes. Then there were the little “uniforms” of organ-grinders’ monkeys, who of course had to have hats, so that they could collect coins from the audience.

But with people, the act of disrobing has of course always had a variety of implications. One is the obvious sexual meaning, as a stage in the process of reproductive union. But before all that, we have the entertainment stage, as implied in the term “strip-tease,” upon which whole show business careers have been built, such as that of the performer known as Gypsy Rose Lee.

There are, however, other very different motivations for taking it all off in public. One can be protests of various kinds. I had a little taste of this kind of social or anti-social activity, when living in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the 1960s. Clashes between “bourgeois” authority and the so-called Counter-Culture took many different forms, but one was organized blocking of traffic, accompanied by shocking displays of public nudity. 

As a Bard of that era, I published a whole collection of satirical parodies called The Haight-Ashbury Songbook, subtitled “Songs of Love and Haight.” One of its pieces specifically celebrated this street-nudity phenomenon, with a song making use of the then well-known show-tune (from The Music Man) called “Seventy-Six Trombones.” My version instead glorified an imaginary “Seventy Chicks” and went like this:

Seventy Chicks hit Haight Street one Saturday Night,
And a hundred and ten police soon were there,
‘Cause not one of those three score ten who marched back and forth again
Wore a thing but flowers in her hair.
Seventy Chicks made news in Haigh-Ashbury
Doing nothing but feel the air with their skin,
But a horrible Judge said “Fudge! Legal reason cannot budge – you are guilty of the gravest sin!”
Every single girl was given 30 days – 30 days, 30 days, to mend her dirty ways –
But, though booked for looking lovely in the nude,
They still pursued their impossible attitude.
Seventy Chicks, home from Penitentiary, found a welcoming crowd in Haight-Ashbury.
At a signal, the whole crowd rose – and they all took off their clothes –
Just to show their, show their, show their SOLIDARITY!

Today “Nudism” has a culture of its own – but non-nudists are so afraid of contamination that they confine such weirdness to its own “nudist colonies,” or to other restricted areas such as “nude beaches.” The truth is that the sight of unclothed adult human bodies, despite their popularity in Art, is, to many people, even of our own era, still unsettling, and somehow a violation of social norms. In fact, in most jurisdictions, public nudity is still a crime, for which you can be fined and imprisoned. For the exact basis of this harsh 21st Century morality, I’m afraid we must still go back all the way to Genesis.