Naked

There were a couple of stories which caught my eye in the past week which I believe to be interrelated.

One has to do with the broughaha over a young woman who made a video in downtown Dallas where she stripped naked and fell down on the spot where JFK was assasinated.

The other has to do with a group of High School students in California who "Sang Down" a group from the Westboro Baptist Church who were protesting the High School from across the street.

The young woman in Dallas was making a music video... or so it was claimed. Personally, I've never heard the song nor have I ever heard of the young woman who made the video. Judging from the uproar and the extended coverage on the 10 O'Clock news (We're Central Time, here), you would have thought that the woman had pulled a pistol and started shooting.

"OH MY GAWD, SHE DID THIS IN FRONT OF CHILDREN!!!"

I've noted that we are a people of what could only be described as "Victorian Sensibilities" despite the fact that Queen Victoria has been dead for over 100 years and the fact that we have been out from under the thumb of the English monarchy for over 230 years. We view nakedness as a sin, perhaps because there is the common belief that nakedness can only lead to shameless acts of sex. Even a mother discreetly breast feeding her infant is seen by some as being nothing but a shameless harlot.

Having dealt with my wife's bout with breast cancer and the subsequent reconstruction of her womanhood (See "Registered Guns"), I tend to see nakedness just a bit differently than I once did. We have dealt with and have discussed how we feel about our bodies and we feel comfortable about them. We're not going to go out and walk the dog in the alltogether, nor are we going to publish pictures on the internet in the manner that John Lennon and Yoko Ono did for an album cover some years back. But at the same time, there may be periods of time when we might not bother dressing right away after taking a shower.

Now, the young woman in question making the video may have done so in questionable taste, but at the same time, she was using artistic license to demonstrate vulnerability (as we are all vulnerable without our clothes on). While we have no compunction about seeing naked people as statues, we seem to see actual nakedness on a living, breathing human being as being something dirty. "It must be kept from the children, you see."

Children, though, can see nakedness from an entirely different perspective. I recall hearing a joke about a mother and her child driving along on a beautiful spring day behind a convertible. The passenger in the convertible, a well-endowed young woman, totally naked, gets up out of her seat and faces the woman in the car behind her. The woman in the following car was horrified - her young passenger looked and exclaimed, "Mommy! That woman isn't wearing a seat belt!!"

The real problem with the "video shoot" in Dallas was more in the eye of the parents than it was in the eyes of the children. Most children can figure things out and decide for themselves what is right and wrong.

Which brings up the story about the High School in California.

Most of us are familiar with or have heard about the Westboro Baptist Church. It's the creation of Fred Phelps who could only be described as human garbage at best. He's the "GOD HATES FAGS!" guy. You know him, you loathe him. And his supporters decided to picket a High School in California because they accepted human beings as individuals instead of as groups with certain labels attached.

The students launched a counter-protest (with the approval of their teachers) and quite literally shut down the Westboro people by singing to them.

The students had figured it out.

They didn't need someone to point out to them what was right and wrong, they figured it out all by themselves and acted on a set of principals which, oddly enough, are much the same as those preached by a Rabbi about 2000 years ago. He was a liberal Jew named Jesus.

Because of that protest and because of the remarkable feats of intelligence I have witnessed in a number of younger people (including second cousins, nieces and nephews), I am very encouraged by today's youth. They don't need to be preached at or told what's right and wrong. Given proper encouragement they can figure it out for themselves.


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