Offensive vs. Harmful

Naked unless someone is offended.
by Richard Foley
http://www.naktiv.net
Many people, in the clamour to be seen to be politically correct, seem to believe in the principle that you should not do something if somebody will be upset by it. Being naked in a public space, for instance. While at first sight, this might sound a most honorable viewpoint, I'm not sure people have thought it through entirely. 
For instance, would you be happy to join a WNBR, where nudity IS accepted, and then during the course of the ride if some one person was upset at seeing naked people, you would immediately get dressed? 
If so, this seems to me to be the very problem with society today (and maybe forever). If we only ever accept a situation on the basis that nobody (pun intended) will ever be upset, then we should bring back racial segregation because somebody is upset that there are blacks on their side of the street. We should also deny women the vote because someone might be upset, (at least half the population of Appenzell in Switzerland), that women should have any say in the running of the country. We should make gay people illegal (wtf! eh?) because somebody doesn't like gay people, or is upset by the idea of somebody being gay, or is "offended" by the very thought. Etc. etc. etc. 
As Bertrand Russell famously said in a letter to The Times: "In a democracy it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged ..." 
True then, true today!

"Naked Unless Someone is Harmed"

Ideally, in the US, no law can be enacted unless the public can prove a behavior can, has, or will harm another.  The abortion debate is all about whether the fetus can be harmed or if the mother can be harmed - from both sides of the issue.  Gay marriage, gerrymandering, minimum wage, voter-ID laws, deficit spending, foreign relations, income tax reforms, immigration reforms... its all about who is potentially harmed by the legislation produced by the majority.  Gay marriage is a prime example of a majority harming the minority with bans and the courts ruling to restrict the power of the majority.

The majority of the public are not nudists - or at least not social nudists.  Yet we have laws banning nudity as obscene.  Obscene (as I noticed my spell check corrected to include the root "scene") has a history thus:  http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=obscene

I also had to have Google define "prurient" for me:  https://www.google.com/search?q=prurient&oq=prurient&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=define+prurient

So I summarize that obscene is linked to "sexual" and if a "work" has no literary, artistic, political, or scientific value it can be deemed obscene.  Being nude in public - or within view of the public, such as through the window of my home - has no literary value I can argue, nor artistic unless I stretch MY definition of art for those who have tattoos, piercings, or other modifications, nor scientific as my body is too normal to be medically relevant.

However, it is the political value that I zeroed in on.  Denying my ability to dress as I please potentially harms me as it denies my Right to Free Speech and places restrictions on my activities or expression.  Should my expression be intentionally sexual, then I could see the trier ruling against me - though that could be another conversation.  However, almost every nudist I've met in person or on-line contends a non-sexual motivation for their clothes-free choices.  So, as long as I claim non-prurient intentions and make no display "obviously" sexual then I have political value to my nudity.  Any restriction goes against precedent mentioned on etymonline.com and I can claim harm.

The religious and parents also claim harm by viewing my nudity.  They would have equal justification in the political realm.  Sexualizing (as may happen without proper contextual explanation by the parents) children is illegal for obvious reasons - if not so obvious, I would be happy to provide instruction at another time.  However, if simple nudity were akin to sexualizing children then a child witnessing their parent's nudity within the home would be equivalent to abuse and no nudist resort would be allowed to admit children.

Religious observance within an impartial state is enshrined in our very founding (ideally).  To not provide some measure of shared observance the state loses it impartiality.  However, many aspects of dogma are ignored by the state.  Some people work the Sabbath as we are allowed to eat beef on Fridays and pork at any time we choose.

So again we are faced with quantifying harm.  Is the majority viewing nudity harmed more than the minority banned from expressing nudity in the public sphere or vice versa?  Simple offense examined by Richard in his blog seems to be no more complex than the political value I examine here.  There seems to be no ideal nor legal precedent for modern nudity laws other than social inertia.  Simply because current social standards applied by the average person include covered genitals at all times within the public spaces, and have been for generations, no judge would side with my argument.  I would have to prove I am more grievously harmed than a simple loss of expression - as I am not allowed to burn the flag either.

Just because something is common doesn't make it right nor is an unexamined life worth living.