The right to bare boobs

When I worked in law enforcement, I once went on a ride along with a deputy through a crime-ridden part of the city. While driving along I noticed a naked man standing in his front yard. I giggled and told the deputy, "Hey, we just drove past a stark naked dude standing in his front yard." I quickly learned this was not as funny as I had thought. "Naked people are usually 51-50s." Hhmmm... I had stumbled across some excitement! When we drove up to naked man, he ran around the front yard and then ran into his house. We called for backup. It took 4 officers to get him to put some clothes on and to come out of his house. He had been living in there with only a mattress and some stuffed animals. Apparently the city had bought him the home as part of some type of rehabilitation program.

Is public nudity truly a sign of insanity? In yesterday's weird news, Sweedish woman can no longer bare their breasts on public beaches. The proponent for this new law stated that "There is a great difference between how people in general perceive men's and women's bodies. It is therefore hard to maintain that [the topless women] were in a comparable situation to men who bathed with naked upper bodies." Now, I think this statement has to do more with sexual perceptions than mentally ill ones, but I still find it interesting how we attach certain assumptions to people's naked bodies.

Personally, I don't understand the big deal about boobs. When I was in Europe, I sunbathed topless and discovered that while it was exhilarating to address the American "taboo" of bearing my boobs in public, it really wasn't for me after all. Some weird fat harry Italian in a speedo kept walking by my friends and I and it creeped me out. But if others are comfortable with bearing their boobs, than I say, so be it!

There is a nude beach in San Diego, but it is always old men with narely back hair and fat women with saggy boobs who lay out on that beach. I saw it once and will never be the same.

While baring boobs is no big deal to me, I do have to say that I am in the camp that believes that complete public nudity is pretty odd. I came across an article a couple of weeks ago (I'll paste it below) about a former city council member who now lives in a nudist colony. Why would he want to be in the newspaper for that? How is living naked an accomplishment or something you'd want to publicize? Would you really want your mother knowing that you sit your bare butt down on the same furniture where other people's bare butts were sitting before? Think about the germs! I find it interesting too that his biggest accomplishment was building a skate park. I wonder if he had dreams of skating naked? Ouch, that would hurt. So would snowboarding naked. That would burn...

This got me thinking back to that day in the patrol car. If there is a colony of naked people, is that the same thing as being in an insane asylum?




By Lisa Petrillo
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 16, 2007

Jay Goldby, a former Poway councilman and ex-president of that city's Chamber of Commerce, usually greets his visitors completely naked.
“I've gone through some changes since I left,” said Goldby, who quit politics in 2004 after serving two terms on the Poway City Council.



EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune
Former Poway City Councilman Jay Goldby is now general manager of Sun Island Resort, which calls itself "Southern California's Premier Clothing-Free Resort."
The most obvious change would be Goldby's lack of clothing.

Despite the sometimes blistering heat, Goldby, 67, the father of five, even skips shoes these days as he pads blissfully barefoot around the East County nudist colony he now manages.

On a recent sunny morning, he greeted another unclothed resident, who asked if he had been to the gym. Goldby, who underwent heart bypass surgery last spring, admitted he hadn't but probably didn't need to. There are no secrets about things like getting regular workouts around Sun Island Resort.

The resort sits behind formidable fences in the rocky hills outside El Cajon. It bills itself as “Southern California's Premier Clothing-Free Resort,” and as a family-friendly destination.

Goldby loves his new life here, he said. “When you're not wearing any clothes, there is no pretense.”

That's perhaps a surprising view considering Goldby's background: Army veteran, former deacon and pro-business councilman from a city with a voter base nearly 80 percent Republican.

Goldby, who lives with his wife in Carlsbad, said he has little contact with Poway these days. Still, during last month's wildfires, he got a chance to exercise the leadership skills he honed as an elected official there.



AdvertisementSun Island was rebuilt after suffering severe damage in the October 2003 fires. This time, the nudists were prepared.
Goldby said a dozen residents defied evacuation orders and ran 24-hour fire-watch patrols in case there were flying embers. They disconnected natural gas lines, stationed 55-gallon drums filled with water near all the structures, brought in industrial-strength hoses and generators, and got aggressive with whacking weeds. The wildfires did not threaten the resort.

“We got through safely,” Goldby said.

But it was one of the few times residents at the ranch remained fully clothed.

“Embers burn skin, you know,” he said.

Goldby remains vague about when he became a nudist, though he allows that he may have spent time at the colony before leaving Poway. Although no longer a registered Republican, he said he remains a businessman and is proud of the improvements he has brought to the resort, once considered a counterculture haven.

Poway leaders recall him as popular with the business community, which in the early 1990s criticized the council as being anti-growth and anti-business.

At the time, Goldby owned a sign-making business in town, which he sold after a divorce in 2001. He was part of a political makeover of the once staunchly slow-growth council, one of several business advocates who won council seats, including current Councilman Don Higginson and Mickey Cafagna, a developer who is now mayor.

But Goldby was not just about business. He took a special interest in seniors, teens and substance-abuse prevention. Goldby described his tenure as that of a political maverick, often the swing vote and on some issues the lone vote.

In December 2003, Goldby married Sherrie Anne Bagley, then the executive director of the Poway Senior Center. The following month, he announced he would not seek a third four-year council term because he planned to pursue other projects involving public works and substance-abuse prevention. In January 2005, after accusations of financial mismanagement, Sherrie Goldby was placed on administrative leave and then asked to resign from the senior center.

Goldby said one of the accomplishments he is most proud of in Poway is helping to create the city's innovative Skate Park, one of the few municipal skate parks in the county that is free.

His biggest disappointment was failing to persuade the council to invest more in services for senior citizens.