The Super Sunday Newds 2/1/09

• Police in Billerica, Massachusetts, are investigating a 14 year-old girl who was caught sending a nude photo of herself while in her middle school class. In Cleveland, a court-ordered survey shows that the vast majority of kids are not aware that such expressions of their own sexuality are illegal.
• "Best Undressed" is a new documentary on the Miss Nude Australia pageant.

  In a modern society of sexual equality, this competition seems out of place, sexist and sleazy. But in recent years the competition has flourished with a constant flow of young and beautiful girls, keen to compete for the prize of Miss Nude Australia. In the era of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, seeking fame even for being naked increasingly appears normal. They enter the Pageant with all the seriousness of a fully clothed Miss Universe Title.

• A columnist recalls the "Buff Bowl" at Lake Como Nudist Resort.

  While the cheerleaders wore wispy little sashes of their team colors, the most of the players wore only sneakers and those little belts of contrasting colors with streamers attached by Velcro.
  
  That prompted the greatest quote I've heard in my sportswriting career, as a quarterback covered the basics of Buff Bowl flag football.
  
  "The only rule we have," he said, "is if you grab something and it doesn't come off in three seconds, let go."

• Trinity College in Dublin has launched an investigation into students who ran naked in the annual "Gumball Challenge" fundraising event.

  The challenge moved into the public realm as students were dared to “get naked in a phonebooth”, “get kicked out of a hotel”, “strip on any form of public transport” and “drop an open condom onto a bar”. The phonebooth outside Topshop at the top of Grafton Street saw at least five people baring all.

• A new series called "Naked" on BBC Three gives a group of five professionals "a series of challenges designed to help them get rid of inner demons and help their self-esteem at work and at home. It culminates in a dramatic naked stunt in which we find out who has gained the confidence to literally bare all.". Unfortunately online video for this series is available in the UK only.
• Are Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy nudists?
• From LA Weekly:

  Naked Creatures , curated by Ian MacKinnon, features solo and group performances of dance, music and video, where queer artists take it off and "rejoice" in the naked human body. After all, the promoters tell us,
  "underneath everything, we are all naked creatures."

• Portrait artist Dorian Vallejo is accepting commissions for "intimate life portraits" which are a "perfect Valentine's Day gift."
• Morrissey and his band have posed nude for the inside sleeve of their new single.
• A New Zealand woman took a photo of her nude toddler at the beach and entered the image into an online snapshot competition, where it as rejected because it "could be construed on the Internet as being pornographic.". Despite that insane logic, the photo won another competition sponsored by a local newspaper.

  “If I want to put my child’s back view up for view that's my business,” said Nicci...“It was something totally, totally innocent, they were wanting photos that were iconic, and what more iconic than children playing on a beach,” she said.

• A hike to Deep Creek Hot Springs in Upland, California, is scheduled for February 28.

  PLEASE NOTE: you should not sign up for this trip if nudity bothers you. There may/likely will be nude people in and around hot springs. You are welcome to bring your swimsuit or not.

• The Pawnbroker is recognized as "the first mainstream, critically acclaimed film that featured a topless scene."
• Minsky's burlesque house in New York is open again in the form of a new Broadway musical, with music by Charles Strouse.

  "In the mid-'20s, you were allowed to have nudity onstage as long as you didn't move," recounted (Bob) Martin over a pastrami sandwich at Katz's Deli on Houston Street, just a few blocks from the site of the National Winter Garden (now a Whole Foods). "There was one actress at Minsky's, Mademoiselle Fifi, who shook her breasts, and that caused a raid."

• Authorities in Appenzell Innerrhoden, a Swiss canton, have passed a law to fine freehikers.

  Melchior Looser, the canton’s law and police minister, said: “Ultimately, in the summer lots of kids stay in our mountains.”

• The director of the Tennessee Technology Center has resigned after he sent nude photos on a state computer.
• An Australian exchange student found life a little different in Finland.

  "Finnish people love to get personal behind close doors, Amy explained. “They love saunas… naked saunas. Talking to strangers is unacceptable. Shaking hands is not on. But jumping in a sauna full of people with no clothes on is totally normal.”

• A dance production in Cleveland entitled "Nearly Nude: Deconstructing Beauty" deals with women and body image - the media's bombardment of impossible shapes and sizes, as well as "what we do to ourselves."
• Actress Ginnifer Goodwin has strict no-nudity clauses in her contracts.

  The Walk The Line star, who plays one of a polygamist's three wives in hit U.S. show Big Love, insists fans will never see her strip for a role, and only lovers and her doctor will see her naked.
  
  And just in case co-stars and directors get carried away in steamy scenes, she has a back-up plan to keep everything covered up.
  
  She tells Los Angeles magazine, "I write things in Magic Marker all over my body - 'No way, Jose,' (and), 'Bill, stop looking at my boobs.'"

• American Idol contestant Melinda Camille told judges that she loves to dance naked in her room.
• An article in the Johns Hopkins Newsletter advises not to fear nudity, but to embrace it.

  But what if we were comfortable enough that we could deal? What if seeing one's privies was commonplace? Firstly, big dicks and voluptuous breasts would no longer be as large a deal as they are body parts. Following this, skill comes into frame. One's abilities in the sack are just as important to attraction as one's appearance, but the more comfortable we are with nudity, the more our intellect catches up to the emotional reality of this. In business terms, transparency increases competition, and competition increases the possibility that you are just as desirable as the next supplier.

• All six members of the cast of Hangin' Out are nude throughout the production.
• Richard Mason, president of government affairs for South Florida Free Beaches and the Florida Naturist Association, spoke to Broward County's Legislative Delegation and told them that nude beaches are good for Florida's economy.
• Wonkette fears that the White House is becoming a "nudist colony" under the new informal President.
• Kathleen Rooney is on tour promoting her book "Live Nude Girl" about her experience as a nude artists' model.

  I really liked it," she said. "I found it sort of addicting. I wouldn't say it was a compulsion, but I haven't done it for a year or more and I'm kind of longing for it."
  
  But what's the appeal?
  
  "Well, it's twofold: The first is, 'Holy cow, I'm naked in front of people. What a thrill!' It is exciting, but that's not the main reason. I felt I was making connections to people, and as a writer, that's really important to me. With some of the artists I met, I felt like I was really making a contribution. There is a kind of partnership between an artist and a model that's really different."

• The nude cruise industry is growing at a rapid pace.

  "People are hungry for a connection for something that is real and our cruises provide that," said Craig Stevens, creator of Source Events, a travel company based in Miami. Smith is not only surviving, his business is thriving. He is taking advantage of the 400 million dollar a year nude recreation industry. Source Events, which began booking gay cruises, is now expanding their horizons. "Women that want to create women's cruises, other people that want to do youth cruises," said Smith.

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