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'

Bud, you are the "obsesive pendant" (whatever you think that mean, lol)and that is a fact and claiming something and not being able to back it up makes me want to ignore you from here on in

Yes, the poster posted 50/50 after you claim re "those"

Please stop wasting my time.

Goodbye

You going there is not going to make a difference.

In fact, it will probably have the opposite effect because the more people who come out to watch it, the more they’ll think it’s a success.

If no one turned up to it then it would eventually be cancelled.

If you want it to stop then you need to create a petition and get signatures for it.

The police will not stop it as they do not have that power.

Extraordinary.

Well the whole point of these events is to force people to be exposed to nakedness. That is why I object to them
The organizers would absolutely stop organizing them if no one came to watch.

It’s not about the cycle. It’s about the audience.

Is this some kind of publicity campaign? Why else would you include the location, date and time?

If it’s a publicity campaign it’s not a very successful one.

I'm a woman and I've attended naked bike rides in Bristol and London a couple of times, plenty of other female participants have been there. We did bodypainting and wore flower necklaces, I had a bubble blowing machine attached to my bike, it's that sort of hippy vibe rather than anything sordid.

Yes they would stop it if no one turned up.

If OP goes, although she’s going because she opposes it, it will still look like she is part of the crowd and may still be included in the numbers of the people in the crowd.

The best thing to do is to stay home and try and convince others to do the same and then get a petition going.

I love hippy/ spiritual events and I go to quite a lot of them. People tend to be really respectful of each other. At one, in a wood around a fire, a woman waited till dark, till most of the children had left, and then asked the one remaining mother with children, if she and her children would mind if she took her clothes off. And only when the mother consented did she do so. Because that’s the respectful way to handle things which actually embodies the ‘spiritual’ vibe of being caring to one another.

It’s not the face paint or flowers that is ‘a ‘spiritual hippy vibe’ ’, it’s how you think about and treat others. And exposing yourself to others who have not consented to this is not respectful or considerate.

The OP has only included info about one of the 18 British events, and has not mentioned any of the ones in the 15 or so participating countries.

So if it was a disguised way of publicising the event, it was a bit of a weird way to go about it. Especially as it needs more publicity, as much for the benefit of those who want to avoid the locations (for traffic reasons, as well as personal views) as those who might want to join in.

They'll probably wither (the events, not the participants or constituent parts thereof) when there's no longer enough people who want to do it.

And no, it's not illegal to be naked in public per se. The laws are about whether the nudity would cause alarm or offence, and for a marshalled event at a specific time/place (including gathering point), information about which is freely available, then no that doesn't meet the threshold.

*Again you are misinterpreting,( doubtless deliberately to fit your narrative), sexual to mean sexually aroused.

I was responding to a poster who said that there is nothing inherently sexual about human bodies. Which is wrong - there clearly is. Human bodies are sexually mature bodies designed for sexual reproduction and we can all instantly see this when we see a naked adult. Men's genitals do not look like pre-pubescent boy's genitals.

You don't have be aroused to recognise that a naked human body is a sexual body, in a way a child's is not.

Lived experience, as you put it, is to instantly see the naked human body as a sexually mature body, in the way you don't when you see a child.

Bizarrely, we now live in the fucked up state where we would not consider it ok for a bunch of pre-pubescent children to parade naked, because some perverts would see their bodies as sexual, but we are all meant to pretend that there is nothing at all sexual about a naked adult body at all.*

Jeez @Monochord I'm not 'pretending' anything and I don't need need to be Mumsnet- splained lectured about sexual/sexuality/ sexually aroused etc etc

Sexually mature adult or not, with obvious markers of being able to sexually reproduce or not, it made not jot of difference. Sexual was the thought furthest from head the one time I saw this ride go past.

It was naked bods. Curious in that aspect alone.

And there's probably a huge bunch of people, those who go to those nudist colonys on the continent, with supermarkets, petrol stations etc etc who would understand this point of view.

*Again you are misinterpreting,( doubtless deliberately to fit your narrative), sexual to mean sexually aroused.
*

And no, nothing deliberate, I just don't agree with you.

But not exclusively sexual. It is just the adult human form. We're not sexually aroused 24/7. Most of the time our adult bodies are just relaxing or labouring or moving. And we, culturally, tend to shut down the normalising of the naked adult form (and increasingly the naked child) as a simple physical entity, nakedness as sensuous rather than sensual.

It's sad if we see the adult body as exclusively sexual as soon as it's naked. Some people (not me, admittedly) like the feel of swimming naked or sunbathing naked or even gardening and hiking naked. They like that sensory connection with nature. I don't think that is perverted. Sensuous and sensual physical response are two different things. Conflate them and you lose an important distinction.

I'm overstating here. I'm naturally very physically shy and prudish. But that doesn't mean I think everyone else should be.

Normally I love a good protest, but I draw the line at naked cyclists, I had a one night stand with one once and his scrotum was unnaturally lengthy, due to long periods of time on a razor blade saddle, not a sight I want to see again thank you very much!

*So why naked on a bike?

If being naked is no big deal, why shouldn't your kids' scout leaders be naked? Their teachers? Your boss? Your MP? Your mum at your wedding?

@Monochord*

Who said being naked is always no big deal.

Or that they wanted everyone naked, all the time?

As opposed to not objecting to an advertised, specifically routed event.

Not caring about this bike ride is not the same as wanting to exist in a nudist colony.

Normally I love a good protest, but I draw the line at naked cyclists, I had a one night stand with one once and his scrotum was unnaturally lengthy, due to long periods of time on a razor blade saddle, not a sight I want to see again thank you very much!

omg TMI ! 🤦‍♀️😆

Why though?

Surely if you’re so desperate for attention you can find something better than doing it by taking your clothes off?

It's sad if we see the adult body as exclusively sexual as soon as it's naked. Some people (not me, admittedly) like the feel of swimming naked or sunbathing naked or even gardening and hiking naked. They like that sensory connection with nature

But this isn't a connection with nature in private or even in a quiet area away from others. This is an event which specifically needs spectators - willing or otherwise - in order to function. Whilst the naked body is not always sexual, for some it is - and this public exhibition of nakedness is one big voyeuristic thrill for some participants. If they want hold the event why not have a ticketed thing in a venue where people pay to take part or watch and then all the proceeds can go to the global worthy causes they claim they're stripping off for.

. If they want hold the event why not have a ticketed thing in a venue where people pay to take part or watch and then all the proceeds can go to the global worthy causes they claim they're stripping off for.

That doesn't really say 'protest' though does it.

Neither does 'innocently' stripping off about vague global things that will not be improved one iota by a bunch of (predominantly) male cyclists dangling their bits off a bike saddle in public.

Neither does 'innocently' stripping off about vague global things that will not be improved one iota by a bunch of (predominantly) male cyclists dangling their bits off a bike saddle in public.

Well the naked bit does " grab attention ". And stirrs up angst. See this thread.

So more of a protest vibe tbh.

As I have previously described quite extensively, whether you feel sexually aroused is quite different from the adult body essentially being a sexual body. In the way children’s bodies are not. Adult bodies are full of markers of their sexual maturity. We have quite the taboo against nakedness in our culture ( most cultures do). If individuals want to go to specific sites to break that taboo, fine. But this event is one that forces that breaking of that taboo on others. And I don’t think that’s ok.

But this isn’t a private event and many who will witness it will have no idea it was on.

I can’t see any rationale for it to be ok for people to be naked here,,if it’s not ok for them to be naked in other contexts where those seeing them naked have also not consented to that.

Protest? Lol. It might get people talking but from this thread it’s shown that many people wouldn’t support the vague causes they claim to be protesting about because of the unnecessary nudity and because of the dodgy elements these things always attract.

can’t see any rationale for it to be ok for people to be naked here,,if it’s not ok for them to be naked in other contexts where those seeing them naked have also not consented to that.

You can't see the difference between this NBR and those other examples you gave?

I quite enjoy being naked in my own space, I haven't attended a naturist site yet but I probably will one day to see what that's like. I don't see anything inherently sexual about being naked, it's just bodies we've all got them. But it does get attention to the cause you're trying to raise awareness of - no one would write a news story of "1000 cyclists cycle through London", but "1000 naked cyclists cycle through London", they do. The vast majority of people we cycled past smiled, laughed, took photos while giggling, waved from buses or cafes.

How often in life do you have the opportunity to cover yourself in bodypaint and cycle naked past the houses of parliament with a big group of other people doing the same, playing music and blowing bubbles and waving at the laughing passers by who were probably filming a tiktok to send to their friends saying look at what I saw crazy people doing today - it was fun! I didn't see anyone being shocked and appalled, and the police were there and fine with it.