| COMES NATURALLY #114 (September 21, 2001) | | | | [GCC] is misappropriating taxpayer dollars and |
| Copyright © 2001 David Steinberg | | | | rewarding questionable art," proclaims Republican State |
| SILENCING THE BODY ELECTRIC | | | | Senator Scott Bundegaard, "I believe we should take |
| "The more things change, the more they stay the | | | | some sort of action." |
| same." | | | | Far from anything pornographic, Kearns sees his photo |
| -- French adage | | | | as a commentary on Jesuits who practice |
| You'd think we were back in the stagnant 50's, the | | | | self-flagellation and the Buddhist notion that desire is |
| way people still get all worked up whenever a little | | | | the root of all suffering. "The clothespins are attacking |
| playful nudity shows up on the landscape of daily life. | | | | the most notorious organ of desire," he explains. Hardly |
| After fifty years of radical confrontation and | | | | a proclamation of free love, but the legislators are not |
| expanded social consciousness around a thousand | | | | interested in the philosophical nuances of life, suffering, |
| different aspects of sex, sexual orientation, and | | | | or the nature of desire. They just want the picture that |
| gender, it would seem that something as harmless a | | | | shows Kearns's genitals to disappear. |
| little bare skin would simply be too insignificant to show | | | | There's more. The University of Southern Florida |
| up on social crisis radar screens, even among folks a | | | | recently coughed up $25,000 to settle a lawsuit by one |
| good deal more conservative than you and I. | | | | of the school's art students, Nicole Ferry. Ferry claims |
| Well, nice thought, but for all our real progress on these | | | | she was sexually harassed by a photo that was |
| fronts over the years, plain old nudity still seems to be | | | | shown by graduate assistant Derek Washington in one |
| as real an issue as ever, out there in what passes for | | | | of her classes. The subject of the class was |
| the Real World. The shift from Clinton to Bush as icon | | | | controversial art. The photo was a shadowy image of |
| of national leader doesn't help, even if the shift is as | | | | two torsos, male and female, embracing. I guess you |
| much about image and style as anything else. As the | | | | could say that sex is part of the story here, but if this |
| White Picket Fence reality of the new administration | | | | is sex it's neither graphic nor outside the mainstream. |
| seeps inevitably into the national subconscious, it's | | | | (You can check the photo out for yourself at . It is, |
| taking less and less to ruffle the feathers of people | | | | believe me, both tasteful and tame.) |
| who want to see nothing but Pleasantville wherever | | | | The 250 students in instructor Diane Elmeer's class |
| they turn. Among people who have fused fear of the | | | | were warned that some images to be shown in class |
| body and fear of sex into one bubbling cauldron of | | | | that day might offend some people. They were given |
| moralistic anxiety, it doesn't take much for them to feel | | | | the option of skipping the class without penalty. Nicole |
| like the devil is at their door, waiting to infect them and | | | | Ferry chose to stay, then sued. Her father felt she had |
| theirs with some rapidly mutating virus of moral | | | | been "exposed to crude and disgusting pornography." |
| turpitude. | | | | USF, while denying that either Washington or Elmeer |
| I'm not even talking, this time, about stories that put | | | | had done anything wrong, decided to settle with Ferry |
| sexual deviance or sexual diversity up for discussion | | | | rather than take the issue to court. As the president of |
| on the current events chopping block. Let's ignore, for | | | | the faculty Senate explained, after a recent overhaul |
| the moment, the lawsuit by Indiana state legislators to | | | | of the state university system, "I'm not entirely sure |
| block performance of "Corpus Christi," a play about a | | | | where we stand in terms of academic freedom." USF |
| guy named Joshua growing up gay with his twelve | | | | thought it best to just make the whole issue go away |
| close buddies in modern-day Texas, and attempts by | | | | as quickly and quietly as possible. |
| The Promise Keepers and The American Family | | | | And then there's the whole brouhaha about the |
| Organization to keep a record album with the song | | | | Summer 2001 Abercrombie & Fitch clothing catalog, |
| "Jesus Christ, Homosexual" from ever reaching retail | | | | which shows fun-loving, college-age men and women |
| stores. Let's also skip over the story of how Leilani | | | | cavorting in the nude -- playing touch football, splashing |
| Rios had to go to court to hold onto her place on the | | | | in the pool, laughing, flirting, kissing, showering, generally |
| Cal State Fullerton track team after she refused to | | | | having a good time -- boys, girls, alone, together. Rather |
| quit her job as an erotic dancer. These are important | | | | lovely, really. |
| stories too, but they are about something a little more | | | | Illinois Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood (Republican) |
| loaded than simple nudity. | | | | is not amused. She has mounted a "Stop A&F" |
| We know how tightly people can get tied in knots | | | | boycott campaign to protest the nudity. Never mind |
| about sex that's outside their personal sense of what's | | | | that A&F only sells the catalog to people over 18 and |
| mainstream. But what's been piling up in my folder of | | | | has it shrink-wrapped so it can't be flipped through by |
| clips for possible future columns are stories about | | | | impressionable children. Wood claims that the A&F |
| nothing more controversial than the reality of the | | | | catalog has "35% more nudity" than its previous edition. |
| naked human body, about the inclusion of the naked | | | | (One has to wonder whether this supposedly precise |
| human body in some rather straightforward works of | | | | calculation is based on number, size, or graphic impact |
| art, theater, and advertising. These are naked images | | | | of the photos in question.) Her website ( offers no |
| that have nothing to do with sex at all. But plenty of | | | | fewer than 22 (discreetly censored) pictures from the |
| people are steaming about them nonetheless. | | | | catalog ("click on photos below to enlarge") to make |
| Provincetown, Massachusetts, is not what you'd call a | | | | her point, allowing her to both capitalize on the visual |
| conservative town. It's best known as an artist colony | | | | appeal of A&F's nude young bodies and condemn it at |
| and as a specifically gay-friendly resort. In the | | | | the same time. |
| nakedness department, it's even got its very own | | | | "Abercrombie and Fitch is glamorizing indiscriminate |
| delightful, publicly-sanctioned, clothing-optional beach. | | | | sexual behavior that unsophisticated teenagers are not |
| Nonetheless, the Crown and Anchor Inn, which has | | | | equipped to weigh against the dangers of date rape, |
| been showing a local production of Off-Broadway's | | | | unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted |
| biggest hit, "Naked Boys Singing," has been twice | | | | diseases," Wood declares. She has rallied not only the |
| ordered to "cease-and-desist" showing the play by | | | | Council on Islamic Relations, the Illinois Catholic |
| P-town's erstwhile building commissioner, Warren | | | | Conference, Concerned Christian Americans, and the |
| Alexander. Alexander has classified the show as adult | | | | Chicago Rabbinical Council to her cause, but also (I'm |
| entertainment because it includes full, frontal (male) | | | | embarrassed to say) the Chicago and Illinois chapters |
| nudity, and in P-town, adult entertainment is not allowed | | | | of NOW. |
| within 500 feet of churches and municipal buildings. | | | | A&F spokesman Hampton Carney seems to be |
| Both the local Town Hall and its Unitarian Church are | | | | taking Wood's campaign in stride, perhaps even |
| closer than that to the Crown and Anchor. | | | | welcoming the publicity her campaign is bringing to |
| Now, you should understand that "Naked Boys Singing" | | | | A&F. Appreciation of nudity, says Carney, is simply a |
| is no live sex show. It describes itself as "a musical | | | | part of college experience, pointing to both UC |
| revue celebrating the joys of male nudity in song, | | | | Berkeley's famous nude activist, Andrew Martinez, and |
| comedy and dance." According to reviewer Martin | | | | the "overwhelmingly positive" response he says the |
| Denton, "the material is, by turns, gentle, humorous, | | | | catalog has generated from A&F customers. |
| sentimental, and--very occasionally--slightly raunchy." | | | | All of which is nothing new, but the flash point at which |
| Aside from New York and P-town, "Naked Boys | | | | controversy rears its head seems to be moving |
| Singing" is being produced in London, Rome, Tokyo, | | | | backward all of a sudden. It's no longer questions of |
| Sydney, Houston, Chicago, South Florida, and San | | | | breaking obscenity laws that are at issue. Rather, |
| Francisco. "Seeing eight men with their members | | | | people who are offended by speech and images that |
| flinging around in all directions on stage while they sing | | | | are clearly legal are feeling that they have the right, |
| and dance is just funny," Australian Director Jeremy | | | | even the duty, to speak up and have those images |
| Cumpston says of the play. "It's all about nothing more | | | | and ideas beaten down by the force of public |
| substantial than silliness and fun." | | | | pressure. It's not coincidental that many of these |
| So what's the big deal? Once upon a long, long time | | | | people are politicians looking to make political hay from |
| ago (1968), there was big fuss over nudity in a | | | | other people's biases and fears. I think it's also not |
| Broadway play. The play was "Hair," a celebratory | | | | coincidental that Image of Propriety George W. Bush |
| musical about the then-new hippie phenomenon. A | | | | demonstrated last November that his version of |
| year later, there was more controversy when nudity | | | | gee-gosh old-fashioned propriety could be parlayed |
| showed up in another Broadway play, "Oh, Calcutta." | | | | into occupying the White House. |
| Nudity in legit theater was groundbreaking back then. It | | | | For a bit of cross-cultural perspective, try this on for |
| had never happened before. Hippies, acid, free love, | | | | size: New Zealand's Auckland Museum recently |
| and the Haight-Ashbury were sweeping all sorts of | | | | rejected an opportunity to exhibit the original Dead Sea |
| traditions out to sea. People were struggling to catch | | | | Scrolls, deciding instead to go with an exhibit of body |
| up with the times. But that was over thirty years ago. | | | | art that includes nude paintings, photographs of genital |
| The world has changed from bottom to top fourteen | | | | piercings, and mannequins wearing bondage equipment. |
| times since then. Have we entered some kind of time | | | | The museum board decided that the Dead Sea Scrolls |
| warp? Maybe Dwight Eisenhower isn't really dead; | | | | were "too esoteric" and that the body art exhibit would |
| maybe he's been face-lifted into Dubya. Maybe the | | | | be more of a popular and commercial success. As the |
| fact that Dubya can claim the title of Leader of the | | | | Australian director of "Naked Boys Singing" noted |
| Free World encourages people like Commissioner | | | | wryly, we are "much more open to [nudity] than the |
| Alexander to stand up and let their outrage at penises | | | | Americans, more laissez-faire that way, a bit more |
| bobbing around on stage be known. Unfortunately, | | | | relaxed, you know." |
| Warren Alexander is not the only bodyphobe feeling | | | | Indeed. |
| his oats these days. | | | | [If you would like to receive Comes Naturally and other |
| Jim Kearns is a 25-year-old photographer and student | | | | writing by David Steinberg regularly via email (free and |
| at Glendale (Arizona) Community College. His photo, | | | | confidential), send your name and email address to |
| "Self-Portrait: Desire as Penitence," shows him standing | | | | David at . Past columns are available at the Society |
| naked with (among other things) clothespins on his | | | | for Human Sexuality's "David Steinberg Archives": . |
| genitals. The photo was published in GCC's literary | | | | Two books edited by David -- "Erotic by Nature: A |
| magazine, The Traveler. As a result, state legislators | | | | Celebration of Life, of Love, and of Our Wonderful |
| are threatening to cut funding to the college unless | | | | Bodies," and "The Erotic Impulse: Honoring the Sensual |
| GCC President Teresa Martinez Pollack, who has | | | | Self" -- are available from him by mail order. |
| defended both Kearns and "The Traveler," either | | | | Descriptions and ordering information are posted at |
| resigns or redefines her position on freedom of | | | | and .] |
| speech. | | | | David Steinberg |
| As it turns out, state legislators can't fire Pollack | | | | P.O. |
| outright, but they do hold the college's purse strings. "If | | | | |