Free Republic

BENNINGTON, Vermont (Reuters) -- Students occasionally parading buck naked around Vermont's Bennington College campus has been a tolerated, if peculiar, part of the university's student culture here since the 1960s. Now Robert Graves, hired this year as Bennington's dean of students, has embarked on a crusade against public nudity -- one that has run afoul of the school's free-spirited students. Students have long enjoyed an informal policy allowing them to go naked on campus. Whether it was as a topless sunbather lounging on the lawn or students running naked at an annual bonfire party, college officials turned a blind eye....

When Rebecca Braun saw a flyer requesting male volunteers for a breast cancer fund-raising calendar she suggested that her husband try out for it. Steve, 46, her husband, agreed. After all, Rebecca, 41, is a five-year survivor of breast cancer. Then he went on the calendar's Web site to uncover further information and learned the bare essentials. "I didn't know you were supposed to pose naked," he said. "But after reading the Web site I said, 'I get it.' " Braun, of Inverness, and 11 other men -- each representing a month of the year -- have posed au naturel...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Thieves have stolen scantily clad garden gnomes from a gnome peepshow in an eastern German amusement park, park manager Frank Ullrich said on Thursday. "The gnomes display naked body parts -- the same ones you'd expect to see in a human peep show," Ullrich said of his missing stars. The adults-only attraction at Dwarf-Park Trusetal, where visitors peep through keyholes to see the saucy German miniatures in compromising poses, was smashed open early on Thursday morning. Ullrich said he feared the gnomes would not be traced. "I doubt they're standing in someone's garden, they'll have to have...

Misdemeanor public lewdness charges have been filed against a man and a woman from Brewerton. Troopers used video footage shot by a spectator to identify the couple. The tape shows a topless woman wearing a strand of Christmas lights spanking a man on his bare behind during last month's Christmas Parade of Boats on the Seneca River, just north of Syracuse. After the parade, organizers received several calls from angry spectators. One of them provided a videotape. The parade organizer says it never occurred to her that she would have to inform people not to appear nude in a kids'...

A Gloucestershire vicar is to launch a nude calendar in his church after a group of 13 women posed naked to raise money for rape victims in Rwanda. The Rev Stephen Earley of St Martin's Church in Horsley said: "As Christians we are taught to help widows and orphans, so I didn't hesitate." The calendar will help Surf, an organisation working for survivors of the genocide and those with HIV. It will be launched at an evening service at the church on 26 September. "Many of the atrocities in Rwanda took place in churches where people had sought sanctuary, so...

Nipple-Free Zone A man's bare chest is too racy for Walgreens. BY AINA HUNTER When Calvin Johnson photographed merrymakers at a Fourth of July party hosted by gay activist-businessman-philanthropist Gregg Ammell and his partner, David Laws, Johnson had no idea it would be the last of the couple's fabulous parties. Weeks later, Ammell suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving his old friends with nothing but good memories. After the funeral, Johnson picked up the film he'd dropped off at a Lakewood Walgreens. Ammell's large back yard was full of sun that sweltering afternoon. In the midst of the party, he...

Posted on Tue, Mar. 09, 2004 Judge Rules 'Girls Gone Wild' Is Not PornAssociated Press PANAMA CITY, Fla. - A videotape of an underage girl exposing her breasts is not child pornography, a judge decided Tuesday in a criminal case against the producer of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series.Joe Francis, 30, and several of his employees were arrested at Panama City Beach while filming during spring break last April. Bay County sheriff's deputies charged Francis with racketeering related to prostitution and other crimes, based largely on videotapes of girls under 18.Many of the 43 counts he faces hinge on...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- There's a topless protest being planned this weekend in Daytona Beach, at the end of Bike Week. Liz Book of Ormond Beach is among the organizers. She hopes to lead a thousand "top-free" women and men along a half-mile of Main Street from the pier to the bridge. The goal is to add Daytona Beach to the small but growing list of places that allow women to show their breasts openly, just like men. Even if only two people join her protest, she plans to still go through with it. City officials and police are mostly...

<p>Forty thousand dollars a year — all so your kid can become a porn star.</p> <p>Harvard College's Committee on College Life on Tuesday approved the publication of a student-run erotic magazine, the Harvard Crimson reports.</p> <p>"It's a sex magazine that will hopefully be run by students of all sexual orientations and backgrounds," gushed sophomore Katharina C. Baldegg, one of two undergraduate co-sponsors of what's to be called "The H Bomb."</p>

Complaints Pour in to FCC Over Super Bowl FlashFri February 06, 2004 06:10 PM ET By Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Upset television viewers have filed more than 200,000 complaints about Janet Jackson's breast-baring performance at the Super Bowl, a record for the Federal Communication Commission, officials said on Friday. Gripes over the flash of Jackson's breast last Sunday easily eclipsed the FCC's previous record -- 80,000 complaints that came after television actress Nicole Richie used a curse word on the 2003 Billboard Music Awards, the agency said. "The vast majority express outrage that this occurred during a family...

Sometimes a breast is just a breast. Howard Dean, a physician and a Democratic presidential candidate, on Monday dismissed as "silly" a government inquiry into whether indecency rules were broken during the broadcast of the Super Bowl halftime show when pop diva Janet Jackson's bodice was ripped to expose her right breast. "I find that to be a bit of a flap about nothing," the former Vermont governor said. "I'm probably affected in some ways by the fact that I'm a doctor, so it's not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me." During the break in the National Football League's championship...

The "Girls Gone Wild" staff filmed at least 35 girls exposing themselves during spring break in the Panama City Beach area, prosecutors said. State Attorney Jim Appleman also said during a hearing Wednesday that additional charges are possible against the producer of the videos, who was arrested in April on racketeering and drug charges after parents complained to police he told underage girls to say on camera that they were 18. If convicted of all charges, producer Joe Francis could face 30 years in prison. "We'll be able to prove our case," Appleman said during the hearing before Circuit Judge...

PILOT POINT - Is it art? Or is it just offensive? A mural of a nude Eve is at the center of a controversy in this North Texas town, where the work's owner has answered police complaints by draping a bright yellow strip of canvas with the words "crime scene" across Eve's bare breasts. Wes Miller avoided being charged with distributing "harmful material" but has vowed that the fight is not over to keep the work intact. Next to the mock crime scene tape was a black banner saying: "Temporarily censored." "We decided that an arrest, knowing how this town...

Religious Hypocrisy Pharisees practiced certain monstrous sins, but salved their stricken conscience by practicing their wicked deeds with a religious facade, i.e., the non-support of their parents by declaring their property and wealth as "Corban" (it is a gift, by whatsoever those mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free - Matt. 15:5-6). With characteristic Pharisaic insincerity, this "religious man" could say all his means with which he could be expected to support his needy parents were devoted to God by an inviolable vow. Consequently, he was not expected to support...

<p>A teenager at a Buckingham Palace garden party Tuesday dropped his trousers and dashed across the lawn, pursued by Beefeater guards in ceremonial red tunics.</p> <p>Partygoers cheered as a Beefeater tackled the 17-year-old running a reported 300 feet ahead of Queen Elizabeth II. It was not clear if she saw him.</p>

In his quest for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Rep. Mark Foley has rankled a group that is barely covered in most elections: nudists. Foley, of West Palm Beach, has hit the national TV and radio talk-show circuit in recent weeks to bash a Tampa-area summer camp not unlike most camps -- except that the boys and girls, ages 11-18, are naked. Foley, a Republican hoping to replace Sen. Bob Graham, says that letting naked teenagers play together is immoral and potentially dangerous. But ''naturists'' who say the camp exposes their children to a perfectly healthy and wholesome education...

Nudity, Crassness, Perversion on Display as San Francisco Celebrates Legal Sodomy 7/2/2003 By Allyson Smith Anti-Catholic 'Sisters' group takes shot at Vice President Cheney SAN FRANCISCO—Homosexuals were jubilant—and some naked—Sunday, June 29, as they celebrated last week’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Texas’ sodomy law during this city’s 33rd annual “gay pride” parade. This writer witnessed no attempt by city police to arrest those who were publicly nude, and no attempts to urge revelers to cover their private parts. The San Francisco "gay" celebration occurred just two days after President George W. Bush visited the city on a campaign stop to...

Wed Jun 25, 7:37 PM ET Susan Hallowell, the director of the Transportation Security Administration's security laboratory, allows her body to be X-rayed by the 'backscatter' machine at the Transportation Security Administration in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., Wednesday, June 25, 2003. The machine bounces X-rays off the skin, left, producing a black-and-white image. To the eye, she is dressed in a skirt and blazer in dark, businesslike colors. On the monitor she is naked, except for a gun and a bomb that she hid under her outfit. The government is considering using the technology at airport security checkpoints because...

British streaker Mark Roberts jumps over the net of central court, during the final of the French Open at Roland Garros stadium in Paris, June 8, 2003. Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain defeated Martin Verkerk of the Netherlands to win the title, 6-1 6-3 6-2. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer A streaker and a security officer jump over the net as Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero faces The Netherlands' Martin Verkerk in their men's final for the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros stadium in Paris Sunday June 8, 2003. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)

STRATHAM - Hardly predawn, but early for a Sunday morning, a group of approximately 50 people gather at the Stratham Hill Park parking lot. Within the hour most will take part in a unique international spelling bee, one that has gained its reputation for scripting out peace messages with naked bodies, rather than for any aptitude in orthography. There are a few dog walkers and a couple of park workers about. None appear to pay attention to the largely female group. Though many of these women will choose to remain anonymous, their hope is that people will soon pay them...

Contestants go for the centerfold Playmate-in-Waiting By Jody Callahan callahan@gomemphis.com May 16, 2003 Erica Moore drove hundreds of miles to Memphis, just for the slim chance to take her clothes off for hundreds of thousands of people. So did Kimberlee Adams. A Playboy photographer and a former centerfold are in Memphis this week, searching for the woman who will earn $50,000 as the magazine's 50th anniversary Playmate. The search continues from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at Jillian's in downtown's Peabody Place. Dozens of women from the Memphis area showed up, hoping to be the one chosen from thousands...

IN Playboy next month, Lisa Marie Presley tells all. Elvis’s daughter will not be baring all, though. The men’s magazine is behaving with uncharacteristic modesty as it celebrates its 50th birthday. James Kaminsky, 42, the editor poached last year from the lads’ mag Maxim, is updating the middle-aged formula. There will be less full nudity and more semi-clad beauties with the approval of Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s roué founder and owner. “The reader would rather see a hot pictorial of Britney Spears that might not be completely nude, than a nude pictorial of somebody’s cousin,” Hefner said. Celebrities who are not...

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. (AP) _ A Byzantine Catholic priest accused of posting his nude photograph on sexually explicit InteznEp pages has been removed from duty by the New Jersey bishop who oversees his parish. The Rev. Francis Gera was ``relieved of his assignment'' at Holy Dormition Parish last week, a lawyer for Bishop Andrew Pataki wrote in a Tuesday letter to a Catholic Church watchdog group. Lawyer Thomas P. DeVita said in the three-sentence letter that Gera also has been ``forbidden from performing any priestly functions.'' Gera, 64, was removed from his position after leaders of Roman Catholic Faithful, an...

"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." - Robert Frost Much to the dismay of many of my fellow SClarita members of the Grand Old Party, I am a conservative, card-carrying Republican. This surprises many. I get booed from time to time because I throw pies at my own. I point out that most of the Republicans I know are 19th hole posers, mountebanks and bag men and that our perfectly good political party hasn't had a decent candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. But a friend of mine sent me a fax the...

John Peel failed to get a radio interview with a nude rights campaigner because the BBC ordered him to cover up. Bosses would not allow Steve Gough to walk naked through their offices in Southampton because it might have offended staff. Mr Gough, 43, believes being in his birthday suit is a human right. He was in reception at the BBC South studios, ready to record a piece for Peel's popular Radio 4 show Home Truths, when he was banned. The campaigner had cycled naked through Southampton city centre in the cold from his Eastleigh home five miles away to...

GOD BLESS AMERICA As we all know, the Taliban considers it a sin for a man to see a naked woman who is not his wife. So, next Saturday at 2:00 PM Eastern time, all American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists. Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort. All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their house to prove they are not Taliban, demonstrate that they think it's okay to see nude women other than their wife...

City looks into rental of complex by group A local nudist club's use of the Saline Recreation Complex for evening events, including nude swims, is raising eyebrows on the City Council. The council on Monday discussed the propriety of renting the city-operated facility at 1866 Woodland Drive to the Southeast Michigan Naturists and asked for a staff report by Feb. 3. The club apparently has been renting the facility on occasion for several years, but council members said they just learned of it. "I don't know of any city-owned facility, paid for with taxpayer money, state and federal grants, that...

I, like every other person in America, made sure that I was there for the kick-off. Super Bowl Sunday, the premiere American statement about our sports, about our life, about our country. Even if you didn't see a single down of regular season play all year long, you most likely found yourself planted in front of the TV for at least part of the game between the Bucs and the Raiders. A lot of people find themselves also checking it out for those million-dollar commercials. This year's batch was pretty good. The "Sierra Mist" ones were my favorite. Whether it...

A Texas travel agency which organises clothing-optional holidays, is to run what it claims is the world's first nude flight. Houston-based Castaways Travel says sex won't be allowed on the flight from Miami to Cancun in Mexico. It has chartered a Boeing 727 for up to 170 passengers for the May 3 flight to the El Dorado Resort & Spa. The crew will be professionally dressed, and passengers must be fully-clothed for check-in and takeoff. Company owner, James Bailey, said more than half the seats on the flight and rooms in the resort have already been booked, reports the Miami...

Vital Signs Looking for a new way to spread goodwill to all this holiday season? All we are saying is give peace your pants. By Sarah Phelan Getting naked leaves you vulnerable. Think nudists and thistles. Strippers and stalkers. Streakers running past, dangly parts swishing. Even professional nudists or strippers lay themselves open to criticism and ridicule, not to mention self-doubt, every time they toss their panties and Y-fronts to the wind. All of which gives you an inkling of how much courage and determination it took for 26 adults to take it all off for peace at Bonny...

TIMISOARA, Romania, Dec 20, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Former gymnastics star Claudia Presecan has quit her job as a sports teacher in this western Romanian city after appearing nude in a DVD film and photographs published in Japan, school officials said Friday. The film and a photo album, which began to be marketed in Japan two weeks ago, shows Presecan along with fellow former gymnasts Lavinia Milosovici, 26, and Corina Ungureanu, 22, posing and performing gymnastics naked. Some pictures show the women wearing Romanian gymnastics uniforms. Presecan took the all-around gold and the team gold at the 2000...

TEHRAN - In an unprecedented measure in the history of international relations, President George W. Bush appointed Zalamy Khlalizad as his plenipotential envoy and coordinator for the post-Sadddam Iraqi affairs.The move shows that the overthrow of the Saddam government is one of the objectives of the United States to be fulfilled in the next few months. The decision has in fact been taken regardless of the outcome of the investigations of the UN inspectors in Iraq, the Iraqi treatment of the UN inspection team, and the tactical maneuvers of Iraqi generals with respect to the probable future democratic measures inside...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) _ A businessman and former pastor was charged with possessing child pornography after a photo of a nude boy appeared during a computer slide presentation he gave at work, officials said. Employees at Exel Inc. told police that James Andrew Smith had finished a PowerPoint slide show Sept. 4 when he tried to open another document on his laptop computer. The image of the young, nude boy appeared on screen, according to the co-workers. Smith blamed the image on a computer virus. Authorities later found child pornography on computer disks seized from him, according to a...

Acclaim to Edit Nudity from Version of 'XXX' Game Last Updated: November 04, 2002 05:18 PM ET By Ben Berkowitz LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Acclaim Entertainment Inc. AKLM.O on Monday said its controversial video game "BMX XXX" will not contain topless nudity in the version to be released for Sony Corp.'s 6758.T PlayStation 2 console later this month. Some of the nation's leading retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT.N and Toys R Us Inc. TOY.N , have said they will not carry the game because of subject matter that also includes strippers, pimps and coarse language and features the tagline...

Betel nut brouhaha exposes disagreement By Laurence Eyton TAIPEI - Taiwan's "betel-nut beauties" are being told to cover up. And they aren't happy about it. The girls are a key part of a business worth by some estimates US$1 billion a year. And the way they go about their business is bringing Taiwan into disrepute and possibly corrupting society, some local politicians have started to argue. It certainly can be a disconcerting sight. Along major highways and on the off and on ramps of the main north-south freeway, the transport backbone that connects Taiwan's industry in the north of...

TAMPA, Florida — Congressional candidate Chuck Kalogianis says he wants affordable prescription drugs and social security to be the main focus of his campaign. But his past as a stripper in Massachusetts may get in the way. Kalogianis, 39, acknowledges his two-year stint with "Men in Motion" more than a decade ago when he was a law student in Boston. In his act, Kalogianis wore a bird costume that masked his face but exposed his legs. It ended with him doing a chicken dance and tearing off the bright yellow costume to show his French bikini thong to crowds of...

<p>FORMER playmate Anna Nicole Smith has no problem getting naked on her new show - but E! producers are still trying to figure out if they can show it.</p> <p>The buxom blonde who's known for her uninhibited and wide-eyed approach to life, stars in a new reality sitcom "The Anna Nicole Show," debuting this Sunday at 10 p.m.</p>

New State Laws to Take Effect Smokers in six states will pay more for their habit as of Monday, nudity with "artistic value" will no longer be off-limits to minors in Utah, and teddy bears will have official status as the state toy of Mississippi. Hundreds of new laws take effect with the July 1 start of fiscal years in many states. The laws reflect legislators' concerns with the burdensome threats of terrorism and budget deficits, spiked with a few less-weighty matters. Florida lawmakers, for example, found time to stipulate that cooking-school students under the legal drinking age can taste...

Using Booze and Breasts to Get Voters Last Updated: June 10, 2002 09:38 AM ET PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech voters are having to make some hard election choices -- should they support the party offering free alcohol or the one using topless women in its campaign? With the Christian Democrats handing out free shots of plum brandy in the Moravian town of Valasske Mezirici during a weekend election rally, the Communist party had to quickly change its strategy for a meeting in the same town square. Soon the party had five topless women handing out campaign literature, forcing people...

The retired mycology professor -- he studied fungi for a living -- says his parents raised him to swim nude and he did the same with his four children. Members of the Tampa Area Naturists group would like to see part of the east beach area at Fort De Soto Park become clothing optional. "Wherever there is a body of water there always has been and there always will be skinny-dippers," said Korf, who is married and lives in Gulfport. "It's American as apple pie." The Gulfport resident and about 45 other Tampa Area Naturists, many of whom are seniors,...

The Boise City Council voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to approve a proposal that will allow dancers and other artists to bare all in Boise — as long as it´s done in the name of serious art. “It´s appropriate we do try to exempt the arts community,” said Councilwoman Paula Forney, who voted along with council members Jon Mason and Carolyn Terteling-Payne to support an amendment to the city´s anti-nudity ordinance that will allow those engaging in “dance, ballet, music or dramatic performances … of serious artistic merit” to be completely nude as long as they aren´t doing so in...

A little nudity has caused a big stir at Kennesaw State University. A student production of "The Grapes of Wrath" featuring two scenes with full-frontal or partial nudity has sparked protest. But the appeals to keep the actors clothed have come from unexpected quarters --- not skittish administrators, but fellow students. About 500 students petitioned the theater department, unsuccessfully, for a ban on nudity in all productions. "Nudity is nudity, no matter how it is done," said Rachel Brooker, 26, who organized the campaign. "I think it's inappropriate." The university president has backed the theater department, supporting the play as...

If you see our culture sliding into the abyss, go to www.ajc.com and register your vote regarding the following: one of the two scenes in a stage play at Kennesaw State University has a nude actress offering her breast to a (food) hungry man. Right now the votes are running about 50 some to 40 some --- pro nudity.

TWENTY seconds. That, give or take a few seconds, is how long the beauteous movie star Kathleen Turner stands stark naked in "The Graduate," the weary new comedy that opened last night at the Plymouth Theater. This dimly lighted moment of exposure generated heavy-breathing headlines in London when Ms. Turner appeared there two years ago in the same play (inspired by the 1967 film of the same title), and it is presumably one big reason the show's New York incarnation has a $5.3 million advance ticket sale. (It doesn't hurt that the production features Jason Biggs and Alicia Silverstone, the...

People say that sex and nudity always sell, but over the years, the Christian Film & Television Commission’s Annual Report to Hollywood has shown that movies with no sex or nudity do much better on average than movies with sex and nudity. The figures on Sexual Content and Nudity in 2001 below show that movies with no sex and no sexual nudity (No S and No N) in 2001 earned twice as much (about 100 percent or more) at the box office than movies with implied sex (S), depicted sex (SS), excessive sexual content (SSS), some sexual nudity (NN), and...