Sick of the Naked Bike Ride

[HardyEM]

Hello I'm posting about the York- World Naked Bike Ride ob 29th June 2023 @ 4.15pm. This year I've decided enough is enough and as a York mum I'm going to go along and tell them so (North Yorkshire police have also been informed).

Having your cock and balls (overwhelming majority of naked participants are men) out in public isn't OK on any other day of the week - even if they are virtuous, net zero, climate saving ones.

No one really believes it's OK for adults to parade around naked in front of families and children in public without their consent and why should we have to stay at home? So this year I'll be there to collect evidence and respectfully handing out some pants.

'The Emperor's New Clothes'

That sounds painful.

I met a man on a walk once who was walking naked. It was quite frightening as I was young, alone, walking down a cut through to town in a field by myself, when I saw him coming along the path. I just walked past him and he had a smile on his face. My heart was beating fast and I rushed the last minute or two to the edge of the field. He was probably just enjoying the naked walk, but it felt completely unnerving to me and I didn't know whether he had harmless intentions or far more harmful intentions. It's not possible to see other people's intentions.

I don't think walking around naked showing genitals is ok, and I don't think walking round in a gimp suit is ok either, both break standard taboos in our society and can be used either for the thrill for them or to frighten others.

First and foremost the people who do this are cyclists. Not sexual perverts or abusers of women.
How do you know? So if someone’s a cyclist they can’t also be a pervert?

I don't think there is much of a sexual thrill cycling in the cold, naked.
Why are they doing it then? If they enjoy being naked so much, why aren’t they going to a private naturist location such as a nudist campsite? Or in the privacy of their own homes. If it’s not particularly physically comfortable cycling naked then why are they doing it?

If I suspend belief for a moment to consider that these people are genuinely doing this to draw attention to the issue of climate change, why not all dress up in fancy dress or bright yellow or something? Why naked?

You do realise too that a lot of the cyclists are women? Do they get a sexual thrill out of flashing their breasts at unwitting bystanders?
I would be willing to bet that the majority of participants are male but yes I’m sure that there are female exhibitionists there too.

And you're another poster who's conflating a cycle ride naked with an abusive, aggressive sexual act- indecent exposure.
I don’t think decent people expose their genitals in public, knowing full well that it’s likely to cause distress and offence to others. I can’t prove what’s going on in peoples heads but our society says that we keep our genitals covered up in public so I certainly question the motivations of anyone who breaks that societal boundary.

The simple stuff: The Naked Rambler was mainly arrested in Scotland. He set out to walk from Lands End to John O'Groats (for the second time) and was arrested once in England but released almost immediately. The Scottish authorities decided to throw the book at him and ended up jailing him each time until he accumulated several years in prison.

In terms of people wandering around naked in general, it's a bit chicken and egg. There is some evidence that up until the 19th century people were more relaxed about public nudity, particularly as clothes were expensive until the invention of steam powered spinning and weaving. However a combination of cheaper clothes and a rise in evangelical christianity which equated nudity with sinful sex led to it dying out. For example, the coin-operated seaside telescopes (if they still exist - it's a long time since I went to a traditional British resort) were originally invented so that women on the promenade could get a better look at the men who were naked in the sea. Various laws followed.

The evangelicals then went off round the world taking the Gospel injuction to 'clothe the naked' literally!

So we ended up in a situation where nobody did it because nobody did it because the law said they couldn't.

If everyone was naked on the beach or in the swimming pool then no-one would think it unusual or problematic.

Personally the older I get the more relaxed I become and I also have some issues, to put it mildly, that the body I got is inherently indecent yet if I wrap my genitals and bottom in a single layer of cloth, that's fine. And women on mediterranean beaches appear to consider themselves decent in the tiniest g-string yet indecent if they go without. It doesn't make much sense to me, at any rate.

My understanding was that the original purpose was akin to the PETA 'I'd rather be naked than wear fur', a protest about the vulnerability of non-motorists on the road (cyclists, and others).

I think it has lost that purpose. However, one afternoon, not on a school day, designated route, I am fine with. I can and do choose to avoid it.

As for public nudity in general, it should be designated places not the current vague law we have now.