quote: Here's the thing: Nudity is one of those things that only hurts people because of cultural constraints. It is offensive, not in and of itself, but because some people think it is offensive. It is harmful to children only because their parents insist that it is. (As I already said, I think the mother in this case hurt her child more than the naked man ever could have. She's the one who made this dirty and wrong.)
This can be truthfully said of any disturbance short of violence, though. Profanity, odor, noise, nudity, etc. etc. Is loud noise that carries over property lines to be permitted because people could adapt to it, if they chose to? After all, millions of people live next to interstates. Are bad odors to be permitted that travel over property lines? People working in zoos get used to those, too.
quote:The loud music isn't a good example because you can't turn your ears away the way you can turn your eyes away. That can disturb your sleep or your concentration because you can't turn it off.
It's an effective example because people can adapt to it. People do adapt to it. And it's also a good example because the decibel level when music becomes unlawfully loud is arbitrarily set. The folks getting cited for too-loud stereos in their cars obviously don't think their music is too loud, while others do.
quote:And if you find it offensive, here's what you do: look away.
OK, so now people are to be compelled to not look, say, at the area between 350 and 20 degree range off their front porch?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rakeesh -- I'm not following what you mean about the loud music. I'm sorry but no, I've never gotten used to it and not everyone can, especially not when they're trying to sleep. People who live in noisy areas have disturbed sleep for years. I sleep next to someone who snores and I have never gotten used to it...I have seriously considered a new house with separate bedrooms.
And if you've got so many naked neighbors that you can't look out your window except at a range of about 20 degrees, you might want to move, too. I think they call that a slippery-slope argument and I'm not buying it.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:And if you find it offensive, here's what you do: look away.
Do you think it should be OK to be nude in public? After all, if it bothers people, they can always look away.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I actually believe that the human body is a sacred thing and should be exposed and shared with just anybody. However people should be allowed to be naked in their own homes. I enjoy it when my kids are gone and I can roam about without getting dressed. I do however make sure the curtains are drawn so if someone comes up they don't see me.
Flashing is a different manner and may or may not be scarring to a child. I remember being about 10 and my sister, her friend and I were in the friend's backyard on the porch. We lived in row homes. We heard the neighbor's basement door open so turned to see who was coming outside. There in the doorway was the mentally disturbed man who lived there with his parents (I think he was about 19-25 or so) with his robe on. He opened it, fondled himself a bit while we were looking and as soon as we turned away (happened rather quickly - ew!) he grunted and went back in the basement. It was quite obviously an intentional flashing. Were we scarred for life? I don't think so. I remember we went eewww gross and then went back to playing. We also knew to avoid that guy as much as humanly possible.
Right to be naked aside it is wrong to intentionally expose a child to your nakedness for purposes of power/sex etc. Accidental exposure is different, so is the choice of a parent to be casual about nakedness in the home as long as the intent is not to be sexual or expose the child to sexual acts.
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quote:Do you think it should be OK to be nude in public? After all, if it bothers people, they can always look away.
I absolutely do. The primary exceptions being public transit, and that businesses should be able to require clothes be worn by their employees and customers.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Noise is a poor comparison because there are documented health effects of prolonged exposure to load noise, including hypertension, heart disease, head aches, stomach ulcers, vertigo, and hear damage. Its not purely aesthetic. Even people who like loud music, well suffer hearing damage from it.
Bad smells are also rarely purely aesthetic. Most things that humans think smell bad, have adverse health effects that can be documented.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:And if you find it offensive, here's what you do: look away.
Do you think it should be OK to be nude in public? After all, if it bothers people, they can always look away.
Yes.
I do agree, though, that businesses and public transit should be allowed to have rules requiring clothing.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I am taking this topic seriously. Telling me not to do so is not going to change that.
Show me the harm in someone seeing me, or TomD, or Christine, or whoever, just walking around in our own homes, naked, or grinding coffee, naked, or whatever, and I'll take it seriously.
Monkeys at the zoo have the same parts as humans, for all intents and purposes. For that matter, so does your GOAT. Why don't we get some pants on THEM?
Get some britches on that goat, Porter. Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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MPH, I'm curious, why do you think its my responsibility to make sure no one can see me when I am naked inside my own home? I can see why it would work that way if I didn't want people to see me naked. But why is it my responsibility to make sure that people who don't want to see me naked, won't accidentally do so?
What other things do you think should be restricted in the privacy of ones own home because neighbors might find them offensive? If the neighbors find my curtains, or taste in decorating or the pictures I hang on my wall offensive, should they have the right to force me to change them because they can see them on the street through my windows? Does it make a difference if they object because they think my decor is pornographic or merely ugly?
Unlike some on this board, I think communities should be able to restrict nudity in public places. But my home isn't a public place even though it has windows and doors. I think its my neighbors responsibility not to look through my windows and doors even if they can. If they accidentally see something through my windows or doors, they should ignore it. That's what polite neighbors do.
At night when I have the lights on, I generally assume that people will be able to see into my house unless I draw the curtains. But during in the day, its much harder to see through the reflections on the glass and being able to open the curtains lets natural light into my house. That has real value both for my health and for my pocket book. I shouldn't have to give up that natural light to prevent nosy neighbors from watching me or to enjoy simple freedoms in the privacy of my own home. Looking through my windows is an invasion of my privacy. Anyone looking through my windows, is violating me and has less than no right to complain about what they might see inside the walls of my home.
[ October 23, 2009, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I'm not trying to get you to take it seriously.
I'm saying that I take it seriously.
Please respect that.
Well, I'm not sure how. I promise to never show you my nuts. Is that good enough?
*sings (to the "Married with Children" theme song) "goats and britches, goats and britches, go together like some thread and stitches, DON'T...you know it BROOOOTHER, you must use one to clothe the...O-THER".
Aaaaand, just for the record, you in fact ARE trying to to get me to take it seriously, which I'm happy to do. HOWEVER...I'm going to need you to show some demonstrable harm here, along the lines of "why seeing people naked is bad for kids."
Again, bearing in mind the monkeys at the zoo, etc.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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I am curious, though, at what point does your home become private?
I can see that if you have floor-to-ceiling windows in the front of your property that are ten feet from the sidewalk, walking around naked in that room wouldn't fall under the "in the privacy of your own home" umbrella.
But that's an extreme example.
What about when an effort has to be made to get "off the beaten path", so to speak, to see into your home? Is it still improper?
I this case, the woman/child were cutting across the man's property. That is, they were not where one would expect passersby to be, and looked into the windows of the house from a unique vantage point.
Does the same apply if someone is naked in a 10th story apartment facing the water, and can only be seen with binoculars?
How about a room that's a half mile from the road/sidewalk/mailbox/neighbors, where someone would have had to come onto your property to see you?
What about a basement room with a very tiny window facing the side of the house?
How about in a room further into the house that happens to have a mirror that would allow someone to be seen from the back yard?
I think I'm just curious about where the line is drawn. (for the record, I am one who has no problem with nudity in general)
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote: I think I'm just curious about where the line is drawn. (for the record, I am one who has no problem with nudity in general)
I think the clear best answer to this is not to draw the line at all. A naked human shouldn't be something to be hidden away as if looking at it is somehow harmful.
I'm trying to think of some other case to consider whether what you do in your home is truly private, but can't think of any. Like others have said, sound and odors are not truly analogous to vision.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Well, it seems that the law is something along the lines of whether a person had a "reasonable expectation of being seen".
In this case, as in the examples I gave, I think it's pretty clear that the person did not have a reasonable expectation of being seen - as an observer would have to have gone out of their way to see the person.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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It is "private" in the sense of being private property whether my curtains are open or not
If I understand correctly, in your opinion, in order to have privacy in their own homes, people must give up having natural light? I think thats an unreasonable requirement.
During normal daylight hours, it is reasonable to expect that people passing your home at a normal distance will be unable to see anything clearly through a window. Certainly if people are trying to see in, they could but that isn't a reasonable standard. People who are trying, can walk into my home at anytime of day or night, If thieves break in while getting out of the bath, should they be able to charge me with indecent exposure? What if they are child thieves or just neighbor kids who haven't learned to knock before entering.
We do in fact have neighbor children come into our house uninvited quite frequently if we do not lock the doors. If one of them happened to come in and accidentally catch me getting into the shower naked, should I be charged because I didn't lock my doors? As you put it, if others can see it accidentally, it's not the privacy of my own home.
Circumstances where one can absolutely ensure 100% privacy are impossible. Does that mean one can never be naked legally? The real question have I filled my obligation toward privacy and at what obligation does the neighbor have not to invade that privacy.
A person in ones own home in broad daylight should not need to close the curtains to be able to take their clothes off legally.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:A person in ones own home in broad daylight should not need to close the curtains to be able to take their clothes off legally.
Whether or not this is true is entirely dependent on how close the windows are to the sidewalk or to other windows where people normally are.
quote:During normal daylight hours, it is reasonable to expect that people passing your home at a normal distance will be unable to see anything clearly through a window.
If you live in a middle class kind of house with a large front yard that pushes the house back.
Not all houses sit at the back of a quarter acre lot, you know.
If I walked around without clothes, there are about 20 condos around where the people within could see every curve, as well as the people on the sidewalk and people driving by on the street.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: quote:A person in ones own home in broad daylight should not need to close the curtains to be able to take their clothes off legally.
Whether or not this is true is entirely dependent on how close the windows are to the sidewalk or to other windows where people normally are.
I'm going to get back to the point I was going to make when I asked porter to clarify his position:
If you think that it is more important that people passing by your house cannot look into your windows and see your naked body, than that people should be allowed to walk around their homes without worrying about facing legal consequences for the state of their dress, then complaining about being considered a prude is absolutely ridiculous: You ARE a prude, because you believe that there is some intrinsic harm done to passerby who see your naked body that outweighs the right of people to live as they see fit on their private property.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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Despite your enthusiasm for namecalling, you have not presented a compelling argument, since you have failed to account for the factors brought up by others.
In other words, saying something false over and over again does not make it true.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I haven't actually objected to being called a prude, and I won't, because it's not a word that really means anything.
I do object to people jumping to false conclusions about what I think and believe and claiming it to be fact. Like you just did, Paul.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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"since you have failed to account for the factors brought up by others."
I haven't seen anyone make an argument for how it is damaging to society (or individuals) if people are easily seen nude in their homes. I just scanned the thread again looking for it, but I don't see it. What factors are you talking about?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: If I understand correctly, in your opinion, in order to have privacy in their own homes, people must give up having natural light?
Frosted windows.
Back fences.
Sheer curtains.
Just off the top of my head.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: If I understand correctly, in your opinion, in order to have privacy in their own homes, people must give up having natural light?
Frosted windows.
Back fences.
Sheer curtains.
Just off the top of my head.
All of which significantly reduce the amount of natural light that comes into the house.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:A person in ones own home in broad daylight should not need to close the curtains to be able to take their clothes off legally.
Whether or not this is true is entirely dependent on how close the windows are to the sidewalk or to other windows where people normally are.
quote:During normal daylight hours, it is reasonable to expect that people passing your home at a normal distance will be unable to see anything clearly through a window.
If you live in a middle class kind of house with a large front yard that pushes the house back.
Not all houses sit at the back of a quarter acre lot, you know.
If I walked around without clothes, there are about 20 condos around where the people within could see every curve, as well as the people on the sidewalk and people driving by on the street.
Probably not. Until I moved to Trinidad, I lived in row of Townhouses that were part of a Condo complex. There were probably a hundred condos facing my front door and windows. There was a walk way where neighbors walked within less than three feet of my kitchen window and I passed equally close to theirs. In daylight conditions, you really couldn't see anything clearly inside these windows unless you went up and pressed your nose against them. In normal daylight, the light reflecting off the outside of normal glass is usually signicantly more intense than the light transmitted through the window so its a reasonable assumption that people won't be able to see you clearly through the window. I'm certain that there are certain shadow situations that would make that an exception so if you don't want to be seen inside your house, then go with the shear drapes or tinted windows.
But that isn't the issue at hand. The question is whether I should be legally required to have shear drapes or tinted windows to keep people from looking in my windows. And while I can understand that some people would wish to protect their privacy in that manner, I think legally requiring is ridiculous.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Strangely enough I didn't even realize that there could be any problem with that. The city I live in it is perfectly legal to leave your home naked and do whatever you feel like, as long as you don't undress in public, purposely expose yourself to minors(dont know actual term), or get an erection.
I have seen plenty of naked people living here in vermont, and you should really see the annual naked bike ride.
I guess some places just dont understand the fun of being naked...
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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quote:Rakeesh -- I'm not following what you mean about the loud music. I'm sorry but no, I've never gotten used to it and not everyone can, especially not when they're trying to sleep. People who live in noisy areas have disturbed sleep for years. I sleep next to someone who snores and I have never gotten used to it...I have seriously considered a new house with separate bedrooms.
I'm not talking about music so loud as to actually be physically harmful, but rather music that is so loud at its source that it is annoying a couple dozen yards away with walls in between.
But if you're advocating the 'don't look at what's in plain view' argument for nudity...why can't you (general you) invest in some earplugs or a white noise machine or something?
quote:And if you've got so many naked neighbors that you can't look out your window except at a range of about 20 degrees, you might want to move, too. I think they call that a slippery-slope argument and I'm not buying it.
That's not what I said. I just picked thirty degrees as an example, as in someone looking out from their front porch might have between 11 and 2 o'clock in their line of sight a big window where someone enjoys strolling by naked.
quote:I do actually think it should be okay to be nude in public, but YMMV.
Well, hey, get enough folks to agree with you (and by 'enough' I mean more than the incredibly tiny minority that shares this opinion right now), and take a shot at it! Because until then, it's frankly more than a little silly to suggest that there's any real burden involved in wearing clothes in public. Is anyone, anywhere, actually harmed by this onerous requirement?
quote:Bad smells are also rarely purely aesthetic. Most things that humans think smell bad, have adverse health effects that can be documented.
They have adverse health effects if one never gets closer to them than, say, the smoke coming out of a neighbor's chimney?
quote:I do agree, though, that businesses and public transit should be allowed to have rules requiring clothing.
Why? What right do businesses have to infringe on the apparently trampled right to public nudity? Public transit there are obvious health concerns of course, but businesses?
Here's a question: should it be legal for someone to be nude in, say, a densely populated urban area? You're trying to hurry to work one morning in a crowded throng of people on the sidewalk, when BAM! Purely accidental jostling results in you getting full on body-sweat contact.
It's strange to hear health concerns cited regarding smells and noises, but not to hear them cited regarding public nudity. Wearing clothing is actually healthy. There's a reason our cave-dwelling rock-banging ancestors kept that animal skin on even when they weren't getting snowed on.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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You people who hang around naked all the time at home:
Do you sit naked on your chairs? If so, do your friends mind sitting on your residual nakey-butt molecules when they come to visit? Posts: 1512 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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quote:Originally posted by Yozhik: You people who hang around naked all the time at home:
Do you sit naked on your chairs? If so, do your friends mind sitting on your residual nakey-butt molecules when they come to visit?
As a general rule if i have the place alone I am either naked or nearly so. residual nakey-butt molecules ? That's just silly but that would be a great name for a band
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quote:If so, do your friends mind sitting on your residual nakey-butt molecules when they come to visit?
Out of curiosity, do you sit on the toilet seats at your friends' houses?
Also, comparing sights to sounds or smells is silly, imo. Whereas sights can be easily avoided, sounds and smells cannot be as easily avoided. Saying that they too can be avoided is ignoring the additional effort needed to do so.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Also, comparing sights to sounds or smells is silly, imo. Whereas sights can be easily avoided, sounds and smells cannot be as easily avoided. Saying that they too can be avoided is ignoring the additional effort needed to do so.
There isn't an additional effort not to look at the naked person catching some rays in his great big window looking out to the sidewalk?
Note that I'm not saying it's hard not to look at something one finds offensive. I'm suggesting that when something (or someone) is literally in your everyday line of sight - such as across the street from your front door that you open and look out from every day more than once - it's not as easy as saying 'just don't look'.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I'd like to say that in my opinion flashing is done with either shock or malicious intent and flashing children/somebody deliberately is always a sexual harassment issue. Whenever someone is seen to have flashed children, it's like: "He was lurking in the woods by the school and deliberately exposed himself in a lewd manner to the nearest children." That is a crime.
Flashing at a sports game or other public area (e.g. running naked) is not sexual harassment unless it's specifically a children's event (or the person deliberately went past a group of children).
Casual nudity is merely "public indecency". There was a case in Britain recently about the fourth plinth art exhibit. For those who don't know, this exhibit was a series of people standing on the plinth for one hour at a time. One man chose to stand naked and a family complained. It was not a crime to do this. I'm sure if he had been acting in a lewd or suggestive fashion towards anyone, it would have been a crime. Simply being naked in public (I was surprised to find) was not a crime.
I do think that adults shouldn't really have recourse to have someone casually naked charged with some kind of crime. Having children present (hard to avoid in a public place) I'm a little iffy about.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think that the biggest thing I have an issue with is that this woman called the cops because she and her kid saw him naked in his house while they were cutting through his yard without his permission.
I mean, if they were on the public sidewalk and he was posing naked in his front window, or masturbating in front of them, or even outside, I could see the point. But she took her kid and walked across his property without his permission and saw him just walking through his home, something she was probably unlikely to see from the public sidewalk unless his kitchen is in the front of his house with big picture type windows in it.
It also implies that she was looking in his windows because unless he was displaying himself in the window (which is not indicated in the article) how likely is it that she just happened to notice it while walking through. Shouldn't she be in trouble for being a peeping Thomasina?
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:There isn't an additional effort not to look at the naked person catching some rays in his great big window looking out to the sidewalk?
Never said there isn't additional effort not to look.
But to compare the effort to avoid the sight of something to the effort needed to avoid the sound of something is silly.
If there is a sight that is offensive, I can look away. Granted, this is an additional effort. However, if there is loud offensive music blaring, it's not as easy as "listening away". One would either need to wear sound-canceling headphones, listen to their own music louder, buy and wear earplugs, etc.
With a pervasive smell, it's not even as simple as holding your breath... because at some point, you'll need to take another breath.
While it takes some effort to avoid a sight, it takes a *lot more* effort to avoid a sound/smell.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:But to compare the effort to avoid the sight of something to the effort needed to avoid the sound of something is silly.
Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting there are equal efforts involved. Or even that they're very close, in the case of smells for example.
quote: If there is a sight that is offensive, I can look away. Granted, this is an additional effort. However, if there is loud offensive music blaring, it's not as easy as "listening away". One would either need to wear sound-canceling headphones, listen to their own music louder, buy and wear earplugs, etc.
So long as it's not actually painfully loud, though, an individual can learn to 'listen away'. Both at work and at home I have to deal with that problem, and I've adapted without difficulty. I'm not talking about music that is so loud it presents a health risk in and of itself, just music that is loud - or offensive - enough to be aggravating.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Out of curiosity, do you sit on the toilet seats at your friends' houses?
Sitting on a toilet seat is different, because most of the seat is cut away so you aren't actually making contact with a surface that someone else's anus and/or genitalia contacted.
Sitting on an upholstered chair---that creates a situation analogous to sitting on somebody else's used underwear. And other people's used underwear is gross.
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