Introduction

Integrity is all about living consistently with our beliefs. For many people, this is particularly challenging when we consider the issue of naturism.

For the sake of this article, let us assume that we, like many people, hold the belief that the human body is good; it follows that to believe this is not the case is wrong; and to behave as though this is not the case is unhealthy, both for ourselves and for the society in which we live.

We can also assume that this belief is not shared by the majority of people around us, and it is not present in the standards and expectations of the society in which we live.

In short, our values and beliefs are in conflict with those of the people and society around us. This is never easy to deal with.

Prologue

  Disagreement

It is obvious that Christians don't all agree about naturism; it is possibly less obvious that naturists themselves don't all agree on what they want. They certainly don't agree on what they say they want. This is about gaining the right to be naked in public; I recognise that some naturists don't care about it, and some are even opposed to it, but many do support this aim.

  Choosing your battles

From a Christian point of view, naturism is a battle we don't have to fight. Here are a few quick and obvious comments.

• There is no Biblical command telling us we must engage in public nudity.
• There is a real cost involved in fighting this battle.
• Christians are not all called to take the same role in this battle, even if we all come to the same theological position.

We will have differing understanding of the details; we will also have different priorities and different callings. We are not all called to fight the same battles; and where we do, we are not called to fight them in the same ways.

  Fighting well

Fighting a battle involves doing things that other people don't want you to do; it involves doing things when other people will not understand what you are doing or why you are doing it.

But is it possible to fight well, from a Christian point of view. When a Christian is fighting, the first casualty does not need to be the truth. Also, while you may do things which other people do not understand, like or approve of, you can do your best to avoid being deliberately offensive.

But if someone claims to be offended by the sight of your body, you are not deliberately offending them – unless you are jumping up and down in front of their face. You should be free to wear (or not wear) what you like, unless there are genuine good reason for limiting your freedom. And, if they don't like what they see, they are free to look somewhere else. My preferences should not control your life. (See Imposing Our Beliefs for more on this topic.)

Fighting the Battle

  A Possible Strategy

Stephen Gough has repeatedly been locked up for no good reason: simply because he chose to be naked. This should not happen, so the law needs to be changed. The big question is – how?

We are fortunate in England that ordinary non-sexual nudity is not illegal. But it is not permitted, either: we do not have the right to wear what we choose. So people and organisations can find ways to ensure that others pander to their strange fear of the human body. Stephen has suffered by the court imposing an ASBO – Anti-Social Behaviour Order – upon him.

One possible strategy would be for a campaign of civil disobedience. Push the boundaries. This would not need a vast number of people to be involved, but it would take some commitment on their part.

If a few people follow Stephen's example and go naked in public places, taking great care to do nothing to offend people other than being naked, they will be asked eventually by the Police to cover up. Do so.

Then, the next day, or the next week, they go naked again. And cover up again.

Eventually, either their nudity will become accepted or the authorities will take out an ASBO to prevent them going naked in public. After that, they simply obey the terms of the ASBO, and stay out of prison, just going naked where they are allowed.

The point is that getting an ASBO costs a lot of time and money for the courts and various other public servants. They have limited resources.

Our legal system can cope with one person doing this. If ten people in an area did it, that would cause serious problems. If 20 people did it, the court system could not cope. The absurdity of taking all these people to court when they have done no harm to anyone would not be sustainable, and the persecution of people wearing their own skin would have to be reduced.

This strategy can be used in as vigorous a way as the people involved wish. Some few brave individuals might wish to walk naked down the local high street, others would be much happier going skinny dipping in the local river, or sunbathing naked on a quiet part of a textile beach where nobody might notice or care about it. The two important things are: go naked in more places where you are likely to be seen, and cover up when asked to do so.

As I say, our Police and courts are horribly short of money. If they find people are repeatedly wasting their time and money by unnecessarily bringing cases of simple non-sexual nudity to court, they will take steps to stop the time wasting.

  Normalising Nudity

If nobody ever goes naked in public, then when somebody does, it is not unreasonable for a member of the public to claim they have been alarmed or distressed by this. But the more people are exposed to simple nudity and are obviously un-harmed and un-traumatised by it, the harder it is for anyone to claim distress.

It is up to us to normalise nudity. Nobody else is going to do this for us. Our legal system allows us to do it in two ways: through top-down legislative change, or through bottom-up changes of social attitudes. The good news is that we don't need to change the attitudes of the whole population to make this happen.