That is the title of an article from a British newspaper that I found in my news feed a few days ago. The original is here. The article talks about a sign that was clearly put up by nudists:
According to the article, the sign said, “You may encounter naturists enjoying this area naked today. Simple public nudity is not illegal in England and Wales.”
Next, there is this: A spokesperson from Forestry England said: “This is an unauthorised sign. We have not permitted or been made aware of any events taking place. The sign was removed last week by our rangers.”
Obviously neither this spokesperson nor the rangers who have removed the sign are not aware of British nudity laws. There is no need for an ‘event’ to take place when people simply want to put in some recreational nude time.
There are comprehensive rules and guidelines for the British police etc. Clearly the rangers were not aware of this either.
It’s scary to witness that, in this age of information and communication, this kind of information is barely communicated. Of course it could also be that there is too much regulation and communication. People can get overloaded with that. In my job however, it is common practice to first check if there are rules and agreements on things, before acting. (I wonder what happened with the sign too. Did it get returned to the owner or the person who put it up as a courtesy for other visitors?)
This is yet another sign (pun intended) where people are reacting on the trigger word ‘nude’.
It is sad to see that there is no progress being made in this area, in a time where the world is warming up and clothes are more and more unnecessary.
I continue to be amazed that anyone can be interested or offended by nudism in any way. This world has so many more serious problems that could require attention and be solved for the good of all but we spend time arguing about non-serious problems. If someone is offended by the encounter of an unclothed person in the woods they should simply look away or mention to the person that they should properly cover themselves. If the naked person refuses due to some idealistic reason they are to blame. Common sense can solve most of these problems and the government can take a back seat to all of it.
That would be a good way, indeed, but the world (as in “people”) don’t seem to run that way any more.
People have to freak out, go to extremes, create panic.
I also notice many people end every sentence with a ! or else they fear they are not heard!
And we can’t have that!
I totally agree with you. Without exclamations.
More likely they removed the sign because the sign wasn’t authorised.
Which is sensible, else the entire forest becomes awash with signs for whatever people want to advertise.
And yes, many in the UK are unaware of the laws regarding public nudity. Of all the Brits I know (admittedly, none are in law enforcement or nudists) only 1 is aware of the fact that public nudity is legal, and he thinks it’s only legal within the confines of your own garden.
We, of course, are interested and aware of these situations because we are nudists. I pay no attention to things that I have no interest in so there are probably happenings that are really important to others that would be boring to me. I think most people are not concerned about public nudism at all so your statement is exactly correct.
There a some movements here like “Free the Nipple” that are becoming more and more influencial in major cities and regulations are getting modified to allow topless in public for both men and women. These changes seem to take a long, long time to get action. Dedicated nude hiking trails are also needed in our forests and deserts.
the “free the nipple” thing may well have the opposite effect of that intended. In several places it has led to calls to ban men from being topless as well.
Not because people mind men being topless, but because they don’t want women to have the right and under equal treatment laws that means men shouldn’t have it either.
Interesting. I read through the “comprehensive rules and guidelines for the British police”. Here’s my takeaway from the text itself and from what I inferred… from a US perspective:
1. Simply being nude is not automatically breaking some code, rule, law, etc.
2. The person who was offended/harmed has to be able to show some sort of offense/harm actually occurred or was likely to occur. The simple statement of such does not bring it into being.
3. It generally sounded like a warning to police that if any sort of charge,summons, ticket is going to stick, there’d better be something beyond simple nudity involved.
If only the US had half that amount of common sense.
Lots of places in the world could do with a handful of that, in nudity’s case. And so many others.