Years ago, when I was assigned to cover a nudist summer camp in Maryland for a leftist magazine, I braced myself for the unexpected.
In that bright Maryland summer sunlight, I saw unwieldy operation scars, bruises the size of Bulgaria, kneecaps shaped like hard volcanic ash, butts the size of South America, and excess arm skin that recalled the bloated iguanas of Puerto Rico. Stripped humanity up close is often not very pretty, and that’s why clothing (and some modesty) is needed to make it pretty.
As Mae West once observed, “My advice to those who think they have to take off their clothes to be a star is, ‘once you’re boned, what’s left to create the illusion?’ Let ‘em wonder. I never believed in giving them too much of me.”
The motley crew of blue-haired females and often heavily-tattooed cyclists in Philadelphia’s annual Naked Bike Ride makes it plainly obvious that many of the participants can’t quite live up to the ‘naked’ claims of the event. This fact becomes obvious when one notices how many riders opt for some kind of modest body covering, as if driven by a repressed morality that’s at serious odds with the leftist street theater narrative.
Body coverings take many forms — a vest, cape, loin cloth, etc. — but it can also be done by painting your body. Many of the riders in Philadelphia’s Naked Bike Ride paint their bodies as a way to cover their nakedness; in many ways the body paint acts as a woke version of the Adam and Eve fig leaf.
Paint your naked body all over in colorful configurations and the result, really, is a suit of clothes, the opposite of naked.
The world’s first naked bike ride took place in 2004 in Canada. The philosophy behind riding naked was, and continues to be, to draw attention to anti-fossil fuel causes and as a protest against body-shaming.
Body-shaming is a leftist concept meaning that one must be blind to the dangers of being overweight and to agree to pretend that massively overweight bodies are just as beautiful as those depicted in Renaissance paintings. To say otherwise is risking being called a heretic.
Naked bike rides are most popular in Left-oriented cities like Chicago, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia.
Portland, Oregon, the city that birthed the George Floyd riots in 2020, is the most popular city for naked bike rides. This should come as no surprise. Leftists like to strip naked for causes that have nothing to do with the issue at hand but nudity is a freaky way to draw attention to the event.
It also attracts exhibitionists.
But even in solidly leftist Portland, a naked bike ride is not without controversy. Several years ago, the Portland naked bike ride was criticized by a fellow activist because Portland in the year 1922 served as the western front for the Ku Klux Klan when it had 14,000 members statewide.
The main complaint of this activist was that the Portland bike ride is too white.
“The culmination of these factors has helped to make Oregon one of the whitest places in the world,” the activist wrote. “Given its historical limitations, the naked bike ride in Portland has been an overwhelmingly white activity by proxy, not intentionally, but no doubt as a consequence of historical and structural racism. “
The suggestion here seems to be: because Oregon is too white, something needs to be done. The forces of equity should forcibly integrate the state, ordering the majority of whites to move to Haiti or New York City in order to make room for more people of color so that the Naked Bike Ride is truly a representative “peoples” event.
The Philadelphia Naked Bike Ride came on the scene in 2009 to promote the idea that that drivers need to share the road with bicycles. Human nature being what it is, one naked event tends to spawn another.
The annual Cupid Undie Run began in Washington, D.C. in 2010 and was implemented in Philadelphia eight years ago as a charity run where participants strip down to their underwear in order to help find a cure for neurofibromatos, a nervous disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerves of children in one of every 3,000 births.
“Register now to fundraise your pants off with hundreds of Philly runners in the nation’s largest underwear run,” ads for the Cupid Undie Run in February 2023, stated.
Any mention of the word ‘naked’ and ‘underwear’ gets the exhibitionists excited to show off their various body parts to a surprised and sometimes unwilling audience.
The undie run, like the naked bike ride, is spreading to other cities and attracting the same sorts of people, mainly leftist folks with nothing to do when there are no political demonstrations or riots to participate in.
Cupid Undie Run or Naked Bike Ride, both events attract the same sorts of people.
Looking at the online photo galleries of past Philadelphia Naked Bike Rides, for instance, it occurred to me that these really are pretty much the “same” people who blocked, or supported the blocking, of Philadelphia city streets during the George Floyd riots in 2020.
In the 2020 protests, there were many blue-haired girls who bared their breasts and stuck their tongues out at police and news reporters.
In some sense, of course, one can view the anarchists in body paint bicycling around the city as a madcap public “art happening.”
But since many on the Left have proven themselves to be lunatics when it comes to serious issues, why should anyone be surprised that when it’s time for these same leftists to “play,” the results would be anything but raw and low-rent?
Naked Bike Rides the world over have sparked many negative reactions.
In June 2022 in Coventry, England, a naked cyclist suffered a broken elbow in an attack by masked opponents of the ride who knocked two riders off their bikes. The year before, in July, a man with a paintball gun shot at naked cyclists taking part in the World Naked Bike Ride in Saint Louis. In July 2022, two naked cyclists were knocked off their tandem while cycling through Perthshire, England during their 837-mile route to raise funds for mental health issues.
While official notices for naked bike rides tend to emphasize social decorum and manners, especially since the bike routes in large cities pass unsuspecting pedestrians (and sometimes families with children), within the naked bike community there’s a subculture that takes great delight in after-ride photos in which riders frolic and mimic pornographic postures.
A website (road.cc 2022 News) has scores of archival images of naked bike rider erect penises. This gallery is a cavalcade of poses, sometimes complete with leather masks in the style of former Biden administration nuclear waste worker Sam Brinton.
These images are in direct opposition to the virtue-signaling behind an unsuccessful 2010 lawsuit which the Naked Bike Ride organizers in Philadelphia brought against Wild About Philly TV, an outfit that shot footage and interviewed riders for a documentary on the event. Because the video was sold on the internet, Ride organizers brought suit, characterizing it as “prurient and sexual—not in the spirit of the event.”
Even in ultra-blue cities like Madison, Wisconsin, liberal residents have complained that the shock of seeing so many nude and semi-nude bodies can trigger sexual abuse memories and the like.
In Madison, the naked bike route often isn’t announced until the day of the ride, meaning that people along the route aren’t given fair warning to avoid the trauma of witnessing leftist asses on parade.
Spurwing Plover says
Some people will do anything to get the M.S. Media to pay attention to them and these idiots are a perfect example of being absurd by being absurd they can also he refried to as Useful Idiots which of course they are
Racklefratz says
Using appropriate punctuation is the way be understood. Stringing long groups of words together with no punctuation is just gibberish.
Gz7 says
Do punctuation cops having nothing better to do?
Snuffy Carter says
“is the way be understood”
Proofreading your comment before posting is also important if you want to be understood.
Kynarion Hellenis says
It is rebellion. They want to abolish all rules, norms and proprieties which serve only to restrain their evil desires. Nakedness and shame are linked forever. Only honor can rid us of shame. These people have none.
https://www.openbible.info/topics/nakedness
Ned Result says
If the basis of an any event (which claims to promote a particular cause) is some “naked” activity …… you can be assured the few (if any) of the participants are really concerned about said cause, and that the actual promotional value of such an event will be a big net zero.
Gary Hope says
All so called “Democrats” ( I call them “DimOcraps”) are all narcissists and crypto-fascists if not outright Nazi’s in pink skin clothing. Not many of them are worth seeing in the nude. Total self indulgence. Of course,….that’s the lefties for ya.
.
Kynarion Hellenis says
I agree with you. Not many are worth seeing in the nude, even if young, fit and well formed.
But I love beautiful, classical nude painting. It is devoid of exhibitionism or lewdness that accompany these public nudists.
The human body can be very beautiful.
Yehuda Levi says
As someone who lived in Portland for many years (it is much worse now) there is no such thing as a city that is “too white.” Only a racist would make such a statement.
Only racists define people exclusively by skin color. It doesn’t matter how many people in Portland have one skin color or another. They are all unique individuals who can only be judged by their character.
Robert O'Donnell says
“Only honor can rid us of shame. ”
Only the free grace of God through Jesus the Christ, our Lord, can rid us of shame.
Genesis 3:7 “And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” – AFV
Genesis 3:21 “And for Adam and his wife the LORD God made coats of skins and clothed them.” – AFV
Ephesians 2:5 “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] has made us alive together with Christ. (For you have been saved by grace.)”
Denny D'Inphomasian says
It only is through indoctrination–typically religious indoctrination–that nudity is sexualized and stigmatized. The classic artists understood this and frequently celebrated the human form in all its wondrous glory. If simply seeing someone nude triggers sexual urges or traumatic stress, it’s a strong indication that therapy is needed.
THX 1138 says
There’s a right time and place for nudity just as there’s a right time and place for a burka. A swarm of Muslims intentionally and obnoxiously parading themselves in burkas at a nude beach is as inappropriate and rude as a parade of naked bicyclists down Main Street.
In a free, civil, and civilized society all property is private property including beaches, parks, libraries, schools, bridges, streets, and sidewalks — problem solved. But no country, not even America, has gotten there yet.
“In the history of mankind it is EARLIER than we think…. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” – Ayn Rand
Steven Brizel says
This is all part of the woke world’s revolt against all rules and values.
Onzeur Trante says
Lobbing rotten tomatoes comes to mind when reading about this.
tomhoser says
Fresh out of tomatoes, still have a few pumpkins though.
internalexile says
Seeing larger groups of naked humans has always been pretty dispiriting.
Steve Fryer says
Naked cycling nihilists. That just about sums up US politics right now.
BLSinSC says
I’ve been to a nudist “camp” and believe me the ONLY URGE I had was to IRON all those wrinkles! People might think that nudist places are big orgies in the sun, but until you’ve experienced an 82 year old MOON shine right in front of you you’ve seen NOTHING!! Also, men who are older tend to sag so there is a REAL possibility of accidentally “sitting” on certain body parts! And where we went everyone carried a towel to sit on – THANK YOU!!
It was an eye opening experience that I’m glad was a “one and done” – “been there and saw PLENTY of that”!!
Now I have to admit that “Octoberfest” in Key West with ATTRACTIVE women in body paint was nice – leaves just enough to your imagination to make you go “hmm”!
Algorithmic Analyst says
They look better with their clothes on.
American Voter says
I’m almost certain their next step will be to involve children in their perversions…and to put some fun/happy/safe name on it.
THX 1138 says
In a free, civil, and civilized society all property is private property including beaches, parks, libraries, schools, bridges, streets, and sidewalks — problem solved. But no country, not even America, has gotten there yet.
“In the history of mankind it is EARLIER than we think…. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” – Ayn Rand
Tershia says
All that these exhibitionists draw attention to is their own shortcomings.
Charleen says
The headline underneath says, “Why people along the route aren’t given a warning until the day of the ride.”
Why aren’t they? This doesn’t really answer that question.
Maybe you need better subhead writers?
Dr. Robert Vincelette Jr. says
The problem is crackpot superstition about the visibility of something as ordinary as any body parts. We do not need superstition.
What is obnoxious or indecent to expose but is culturally accepted and far more aggressive and bullying than nudity is forcing unwanted music into people’s homes by car stereos and backyard boom boxes used as public address systems. In America fundamentalist churches blare trashy pop music sung in baby talk slang to dumb it down to their target audience the same way they dumb down their religious doctrine to the simplicity of calling the Bible the perfect inerrant word of God. This condescending dishonesty forced upon an unwilling public does not care if the Bible offends people who find the mass genocides and God killing innocent children to punish their parents a blasphemy that reads more like the word of Satan disguising himself as God. We can ignore whether people are covering their sex organs if it becomes common more easily than thinking people can ignore the public displays of blasphemy flouted by aggressive fundamentalists trying to convert us to what we regard as Satan worship.
When I am approached by such crusaders I openly accuse their Bible of passages written by Satan to tempt us of committing the sin of condoning to the degree of celebrating Saul’s ethnic cleansing and Joshua’s final solution which left no survivors of the communities in Canaan whose cities he stole.