The Weekend Newds 11/15/08

• In addition to dropping the anti-nudity proposal, the Seattle parks commissioners asked parks officials to explore the possibility of creating a clothing-optional beach in the city.
• An Australian writer observes that people seem to be baring more skin these days.

  L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival director Karen Webster says fashion trends move in cycles rather than straight lines. The recent flourishing of flesh is not necessarily leading to maximum exposure — or, heavens forbid, rip-roaring nudity. To the contrary, a counter trend is emerging that could again see people dressing up rather than down, she says.

• A Polish priest has been convicted of wilful exposure for sunbathing nude or nearly nude in a Melbourne public park.

  Magistrate Janet Wahlquist found that Father Pawlowski was indeed naked in the park and that most people would find it obscene that a grown man was sunbaking naked in a park where children might play.
  
  She fined him $400 and recorded a conviction.

• A provocative dance theatre show in Toronto has "16 performers putting on and taking off their clothes like going through a continually revolving door".
• Australia has passed a new set of protocols for artists who work with nude children.

  Council CEO Kathy Keele says the protocols are designed to strike a balance between protecting children and upholding the right to freedom of expression.
  
  "If you're working with anyone under the age of 15 and they're to be fully or partly naked, you would have to send us the permission of the parents or guardian, stating that you have explained the context of the work to the parents and the child, and that they understand the nature and the intended outcome of the work," she said.
  
  "They [must] commit to direct supervision of the child while the child is naked."

  Artists are claiming that the new guidelines are unworkable.

  Tamara Winikoff, executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, said that requiring artists working with all children under 15 years to get parental permission was restrictive.
  
  "That's problematic, particularly for people like documentary photographers who work in the street," Ms Winikoff said. "At the moment there are no restrictions on taking crowd photographs or photographs of people in the street without their permission … This would impose a very, very unreasonable restriction."

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