The Body Freedom Collaborative

Mark Storey

I had been looking for a small handful of friends who were interested in pushing the envelope of naturist activism. I was and remain highly satisfied with the opportunities afforded me through the Naturist Action Committee, but wanted to hook up with a small, creative, rather brassy group of local naturists interested in taking effective, practical, and artistically intriguing steps to changing the public's perception of social nudity.

Daniel Johnson had been aware of the efforts of the United Kingdom's body freedom activist Vincent Bethell, and was looking for people with similar goals here in the United States. We got in touch with each other early in 2002, and found that we both wished to tap into the vitality of Seattle area arts- and activist-oriented communities to advance acceptance of non-sexualized public nudity, or "body freedom."

I knew from my experience with NAC that there is much good that can be done through "traditional" means of working with legislative systems. This line of promotion and defense of naturist liberties must continue. Still, I was not alone on the NAC board in sensing that the day had come to stir things up just a little, to use creativity and artistry both rationally and pragmatically to shift society's ideology of the body. Johnson and I decided to form the Body Freedom Collaborative.

The Body Freedom Collaborative (BFC) was originally called the Body Freedom Cooperative. When we applied to the State of Washington for not-for-profit incorporation, however, they said that we were not technically a "cooperative." Thus the name change in May 2003.

Johnson and I agreed that it would take at least a summer to meet naturists and non-naturists wishing to work with us. BFC is not a membership group. We are simply a loose coalition of individuals and groups--not always necessarily seeing completely eye to eye--who wished to work together, if only temporarily, on specific projects. We particularly hoped to team up with non-naturists who were used to challenging social norms for the good of all.

To that end, BFC planned a handful of simple, non-threatening, enjoyable outings in which Johnson and I could meet folks, and determine who might be good to work with on the more "interesting" projects we had in mind. We thus hosted a nude day hike and two evening discussions at a pub and a coffee shop.

Johnson also set up a BFC Web page (www.bodyfreedom.org) and a yahoo discussion group where like-minded people could introduce themselves and discuss ideas. Johnson became a NACAR, and BFC joined the N Network, which helped raise awareness of the group among TNS members. At an early stage, Shirley Gauthier (then the Northwest GAT Chair for AANR) was also involved, and helped tell AANR clubs in the region about our goals. By the spring of 2003, BFC had met enough good people to move forward.

Mission and Tactics

More than once this year, naturists from both TNS and AANR have asked Johnson and me what BFC is all about. The question arises because of the surreal amount of media attention this year over what little BFC has done so far. Regional newspaper, radio, and television media apparently have an unquenchable appetite for stories about naked people appearing in public.

So far, though, the media has been fairly good at articulating our goals and the tactics we propose to achieve them. BFC's mission is simple. Our ultimate goal is to see the development of an officially sanctioned public clothing-optional beach in Washington State, preferably in or near Seattle. More generally, we aim to shift our region's vision of the nude human body as shameful, morally wrong, or offensive, and slowly reshape it to be more accepting of non-sexualized nudity on public lands. More generally, we wish to pursue our aims creatively, with art, with flair, and in such a manner that observers--at least the textiles--will smile and cheer.

Johnson describes BFC in the following terms: "The Body Freedom Collaborative is a grassroots network of artists, writers, outdoor enthusiasts, citizen activists, pranksters, students, educators, and entrepreneurs aggressively advancing opportunities on appropriate public lands for body-positive, clothing-free recreation and creative expression, in non-sexual contexts. Our aim is to replace body-negative unawareness with a celebrative passion for wholesome and diverse free expression to help forge a major shift in the way we will live and relate to each other after centuries of unwarranted repression."

Some nudists have deep reservations about any individual or group speaking up or appearing nude publicly for body freedom. They do not wish to "make waves," fearing a social or legal backlash that could curtail the meager liberties we presently enjoy. These concerns are often well founded, as witnessed by city councils enacting stricter anti-nudity laws due to one person's uninformed and untimely public nakedness.

On the other hand, we cannot gain acceptance of social nudity unless we crawl out from under our bushels and make a logical, compelling case for body freedom. BFC is committed to thinking out activist projects, to giving prima facie respect for law, to acknowledging the moral parameters of civil disobedience, and to recognizing the relevance (or irrelevance) of offense, before stepping out naked in public. The types of actions BFC hopes to employ will--to the best of our ability--be effective, considered, and proportionate to their intended aim. BFC likes to make waves...as long as we can surf them nude.

The Polar Bare Swim

Once the BFC Web site was up, Johnson and I decided we needed to generate awareness of our wish to promote body freedom actively and aggressively. On January 1, I read about a polar bare swim at Wreck Beach, BC. I thought it a great idea, but was too late that afternoon to organize one New Year's Day for BFC.

Looking through the calendar for a winter holiday associated with nudity, I found a second-best option.   January 17 was Benjamin Franklin's birthday. Franklin is fairly well-known for enjoying a daily nude "air-bath." So in honor of Benjamin Franklin's proto-body freedom, we inaugurated the BFC Polar Bare Swim the following Saturday. How more American could we get?

Kathy Blanchard and I checked out my proposed early-morning site: Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island near Seattle. We walked all over the park at the same time in the morning as we planned to do our swim the following week. This way we knew just when to pull it off to minimize altercations with local police, yawning joggers, and bleary-eyed people walking their dogs. We wanted neither to cause a riot nor to get arrested over such minor event.

Johnson's friend Kari joined us to help photograph the swim. The whole thing went off perfectly, with few people observing us or seeming to care. That the skinny-dip was only yards away from the King County Parks and Recreation administrative offices lent the event an extra flair that many in the media picked up.

At least one newspaper reporter, Kathy George of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer , had been visiting our Web site. She got wind of our little swim, and wrote a story about these crazy people with an agenda to advance "body freedom."

She contacted Johnson and me to ask us what we were about. She quoted me accurately as saying that I wished to use "guerrilla pranksterism" to advance our goals. I illustrated what I had in mind with an image that has taken on a life of its own.

Civil disobedience is always understood in terms of breaking a law and irritating people. I suppose that breaking a law is usually a bad thing, but I now believe that civil disobedience--perhaps in the spirit of Gandhi and King--can be done differently. Why do bad to achieve a good? Why not do good to achieve good?

Seattle still has the WTO riots clearly in mind. Most folks around here think of civil disobedience in terms of street blockades, graffiti, and broken windows. Why not, I contend, fight injustice by doing good? Why not fight for body freedom by doing good in public while naked? I told Kathy George my plan was to work with a group of 5-8 people, to arrive at a pre-selected public site in a van, to have us leap out of the van nude (the media turned it into a "black van" somewhere along the line), take five minutes to clean up a city park or scrub away some graffiti, jump back into the van, and drive away.

Observers would not know what to make of it. We would clearly be doing something good for the city, yet we were naked. I can imagine that observers might pause a minute or two before calling 911, thinking, "Let's let them clean that mess up before we call the cops." The media would love it, as is clear by one newspaper and the Associated Press requesting we tell them when and where we are going to pull this sequence of stunts.

After the first Post-Intelligencer article, other newspapers, the AP, nearly a dozen radio stations, and two television stations contacted us to get similar stories. One polar bare swim and a Gandhiesque theory of civil disobedience does not a story make, so we did our best to tell them to wait until the drippy Northwest weather cleared and we could pursue some more actions. Our biggest project of the year was only then taking shape.

The Free Beach Trilogy

Naturists applauded Johnna Adams and Martin E. Williams's one-act play, Nude On the Beach , when performed at the 2002 Western Gathering. I thus contacted Adams in the fall to ask if she and her Southern California playwright peers would like to try something bigger at the 2003 Seattle Fringe Festival (SFF). Adams agreed that if BFC could get their work into the festival, that she would do her best to come up with original plays about nude beaches, the actors, and a director.

Over the course of several months, Adams and some peers from the Orange County Playwright Association submitted their work to BFC. By spring of 2003, three plays had emerged as superior presentations of first-time experiences at a clothing-optional beach. Thus was established the Free Beach Trilogy .

The three plays are Just a Little More Blue by Tom Swimm, Love the Body Positive by Johnna Adams, and Sisters at the Beach by Rik Panero. Each author is graciously allowing BFC free use of their plays for the Seattle Fringe Festival.

The Free Beach Trilogy --to be performed at the 70-seat Union Garage Two--will last ninety minutes, and have no intermission. The plays make up a comedy/drama triptych, each cast with two women and a man. The dates and times of the trilogy performances are Saturday, September 20 at 5:45 PM; Sunday, September 21 at 2:00 PM; and Tuesday, September 23 at 8:00 PM. Tickets go on sale through the SFF Web site in September (www.seattlefringe.org).

This festival is the town's largest theatrical event of the year. Over 20,000 people come from all over the Northwest to attend nearly 500 performances. The 13 th annual Seattle Fringe Festival will be held in the Capitol Hill district on September 18-28, 2003.

Applications for SFF theatrical productions are non-juried and accepted on a first-come-first-served basis. Johnson and I thus got up early February 1 and sat in line outside the SFF office to make sure the Free Beach Trilogy would get into the festival. In a line that wrapped around the block, we were number eight.

The three performances of the trilogy will contain full male and female nudity, and BFC plans to inject as much nakedness into the audience's experience as possible. Nude ushers, a nude stage crew, a nude female MC from British Columbia, and possibly some nudity in select portions of the audience are all in the planning stages.

BFC is very gratified at the number of people what have bribed, demanded, cajoled, or whined their way onto the list of potential naked volunteers. It appears that there is no shortage of men and women in the region who would like to get naked in public as part of an artistic production.

BFC is also grateful to the Naturist Education Foundation for providing the major financial support for this production. The Northwest Nudist Association also made a generous contribution, allowing BFC to meet its budget almost from the beginning. Lake Bronson Club and various anonymous individual donors have also been generous. Neither BFC nor the trilogy's backers will make any money from these performances. All money collected at the gate will be given to the actors and director to help defray their travel costs.

BFC is working with local naturists to market this production, and in the process, help educate people in the region about non-lewd clothing-optional use of public lands, as well as about their opportunity to enjoy nude recreation at regional nudist clubs. The Free Beach Trilogy should be an aesthetically pleasing promotional tool for clothing-optional recreation in the Northwest.

Nude Photo Shoots

Aside from the merely social nude hikes and coffeehouse discussions, BFC has had fun simply getting out in public and doing nude photo shoots. To date, no observer has done anything but smile and wave.

Various small groups of us have gone to the Seattle Arboretum for shots of ourselves appearing fully human walking the trails and at the Visitor's Center. For the latter shot, there were quite   few people around, so I went up to one and asked if he'd mind doing the camera work so that I could get in the shot naked with Johnson and Claudia Kellersch. He smiled, but declined, saying that he had to go jogging. I snapped the pic, Johnson and Kellersch got dressed, and we calmly walked into the arboretum. No one seemed to mind.

That same day on Foster Island it was Johnson and Kellersch's turn once again to be in the shot. A couple of guys with inflatable rafts had been following us, waiting to see what we were up to. After the shot, they raised their arms and cheered.

Russ Riddell was in some photo shoots with BFC a couple of weeks later. He explained to me that when he and his friend Alice Anderson go out for nude photo shoots in public, he rarely has any but pleasantly bemused responses from passersby as long as he just ignores them and goes on doing whatever he's doing. That could be washing his car at a coin-op facility, riding his bike on a university campus, or getting a newspaper from a streetside machine.

Maybe, Riddell hypothesizes, people are not worried so much about nudity itself, as weird naked people foisting their nakedness onto them. A normal person acting normally, but who happens to be naked, does not seem to cause much of a stir. Perhaps, he concludes, society is not so offended by mere nudity as we believe.

Most people can instinctively and immediately tell the difference between an exhibitionist and someone who is just having fun prodding social norms to advance a social agenda. I've been hiking nude for over a decade, and as long as I remember to act as if nothing odd is happening, no one has appeared at all uneasy with my or my friends' nudity.

Other nude photo shoots have taken advantage of Seattle's favorite landmarks. BFC has briefly nudified the Fremont Troll , the street outside Hale's Brewery, the University of Washington football stadium, Seattle's Burke-Gilam Trail, and Seattle's favorite public artwork, Waiting for the Interurban. Why? To show ourselves and others that most people do not mind a bit of public nudity if it is done in a lighthearted, fun-loving spirit.

The Fremont Fresh Art Festival

Many of John Cornicello's photos have appeared in N . Cornicello is both a naturist and an art lover with close ties to the art communities of the Fremont district of Seattle. He told BFC that Shanon Askay, an organizer for the inaugural Fremont Fresh Art Festival, wanted three volunteers to pose "nearly naked" as Fremont Solstice Parade nude bicyclists for her Sunday, June 15 event.

I contacted Askay offering assistance from BFC. It turned out that Askay was open to the idea of nudity, but she and other festival organizers wanted their first event to go smoothly. BFC agreed to ask the volunteer bike models to wear a minimum loin covering in the front. Daniel Johnson, Russ Riddell, and I sat on the bikes for nearly two hours as artists young and old painted and photographed us. People walked, cycled, and drove by with waves and smiles, as the morning breeze made our nudity fully apparent under the flimsy bandannas draped over a string around our waists.

BFC also offered to host a nude modeling session for artists. We called it "Nudes Painting Nudes." Not only did BFC provide five nude models as part of the public festival, but artists (like Portland naturist Henry Yuen) could themselves sketch and paint nude. Festival attendees walked among the nude models and artist, giving us them chance to chat naked with clothed people in a public setting.

Askay asked BFC to take part in a similar festival this October, and in years to follow. She hopes in the future to allow us to inject more nudity closer to the center of public action. BFC was happy to be of service to this festival, and looks forward to working with similar local groups in making at least some forms of public nudity a normal thing in the Northwest.

Future Plans

BFC has still a long way to go. At least two reporters have distorted things Johnson has said to generate a supposed rift between BFC's goals and those of nudist clubs. Although BFC's mission is directed primarily at public lands, both Johnson and I want to see the clubs in the area benefit from our efforts. We are not going to limit our quest for body freedom on public lands, however, to those few approaches the most cautious and timid nudist might employ.

In addition to the Free Beach Trilogy , BFC is beginning production of a Body Freedom Film Festival. Johnson is contacting independent filmmakers across North America who have produced or are producing films addressing naturism, social nudity, clothing-optional beaches, and related issues. Johnson has multiple college degrees in computer animation, and is pursuing his own video work in animation on these themes.

In addition, BFC looks forward to brief acts of mischievous creativity in advancing body freedom on public lands.   Call it "guerrilla pranksterism," "civil nudification," "naturist dramaturgy," or simply "naked silliness," BFC just wants to show the playfulness and normalcy of being human.

Rooted in the artistic creativity of the late 1960s are short performance art pieces called "happenings." For BFC, these events are to be seemingly unrehearsed, spontaneous displays of creative public nudity. BFC thus plans to engage the public from time to time, and from place to place, on humorous and aesthetic levels, giving them pause to reconsider their antipathy to the human form.

The approaches embraced by the Body Freedom Collaborative are unique, we think, because they are grounded in both forethought and respect for law, are designed to actually accomplish something, even if only in an incremental fashion, and are imbued with a funky, creative spirit. BFC does not pretend that it will change the world by itself; we do hope, however, to be part of a change for the better.

This article first appeared in Nude & Natural 23.1, (Autumn 2003) 74-80.