Quote:
Originally Posted by Klondike
Recently, I made contact over at Flickr with a frusturated naturist living in San Diego, Ca, who vented about that cities' current intolerance towards public nudity of any kind. It is something that has gotten me a bit curious as once upon a time everyone in the rest of the country looked to southern California as a model in progressive liberalism. Anyway, so now I have become interested in the plight of Sarah Bush, a 20 year old college student who is fighting the city over the right to be naked in public. Sarah simply wants San Diego to allow a naked WNBR to take place just as it does in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, etc. Here is an article that goes into a bit more detail:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/gover...cc4c002e0.html
Sarah desperately needs support. Here we have a young woman who has seen rides elsewhere, has ridden herself in San Francisco, and who is angry enough to take on an entire city. Her city. Her once liberal turned ultra conservative city. I know we can't do much to help her, but I thought I would post this anyway so that at least we are aware of what is going on.
My fear is that San Diego's conservatism will eventually move north to Portland and Seattle. Here, at least, is some hope that a counter movement to make San Diego MORE LIKE Portland and Seattle is afoot. So get to know about Sarah Bush and her efforts - I think that just about everyone here would consider them to be heroic.
Klondike |
San Diego has always been conservative -it was never liberal; trust me - I've lived here all of my 50+ years. In the 70's it was different though - whether that was due to the shorter arm of government, or what, its hard to say. Blacks Beach would regularly attract 30,000-50,000 on the weekends, there was a restaurant in town called Dos Amigos where the waitresses wore those wife beater t-shirts without bras (it was GREAT), wet t-shirt contests occurred semi-frequently throughout the city, etc. Strange that social nudity is so frowned upon. At Mardi Gras events in San Diego it is VERY rare to see a bare breast. REALLY SUCKS!!
If you check voting, San Diego has continually begun to elect more democrats to local, state, and national office, and there is a huge tolerance for the gay community. But when it comes to naturists, nudity, public nudity, etc, it is strictly verbotten. Spencer Tunick could never get away with one of his installations in Southern California.
It's not just San Diego though - check out stories about nude sunbathers at San Onofre (Orange County) and the once GREAT 'Mooning Amtrak' - which has been all but stomped out by the OC Sherriff nazis. Its incredible to think that other states look the other way or at least accomodate public nudity for some events, but everywhere from Santa Cruz south - they treat nudists worst than they treat actual criminals.
I'll see what my friends and I can do to support Sarah, but honestly, I'm not optimistic.....
OK -done with my rant.....