State of Undress: Is Nudity Still Newsworthy?

The conversation around San Francisco's recent "Nude-in," held to protest a proposed law that would limit public nudity, which is currently legal in the city, raises an interesting question: When a practice arrives at the point where it has a system of etiquette, has it lost its shock value?

According to The New York Times, one of the objectives of the Nude-in was to draw attention to a proposed ordinance -- introduced by Scott Wiener, a city supervisor -- that would prohibit nudity in restaurants and require unclad people to put a towel or other material down before sitting bare-bottomed on public seats.

What I found funny wasn't that Weiner felt he needed to nix bare-cheeked seating, but that the protesters were insulted at the idea that they would do anything so uncouth and inconsiderate: George Davis, who the Times reported is a "self-described 'urban nudist'" and "campaigned in the buff" during an (unsuccessful) run for mayor, said that putting that towel between your backside and the bench is "basic nudist etiquette," rendering legislation requiring it "totally unnecessary."

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