This article prompts us to ask what message, exactly, is walking around in one's altogether supposed to send? Does a naked body make some sort of political statement? If so, what could it possibly be? "Hey, look at me I'm a liberal!"
Does the individual who strips him or herself down to the bare essentials simply crave attention? Are they psychological cousins to "flashers" who, like monkeys in the zoo, find amusement in flaunting their most personal accoutrements in front of others? Are they deluded exhibitionists who think that their naked anatomy is a turn on for bystanders? Are they nothing more than rude, and perhaps deranged, souls who simply enjoy embarrassing others?
If exposing oneself is merely a symbol of rebellion it seems pretty childish: "Okay, George Bush, if you're going to go to war in Iraq I'm going to show the world my willy!" What deeply suppressed obsessions and neuroses do these people feel the need to liberate?
Maybe a psychiatrist could tell us why the folks who do this sort of thing think it is anything other than a sign of a deeply troubled id and/or arrested development and why communities think that it's somehow "progressive" to permit it.
