Miss California Pageant Eliminates Swimsuit Competition

They're taking the beauty out of beauty pageants.

Apparently the organizers of the Miss California Pageant want to turn the event into the style of a "runway show during fashion week."

I really have mixed feelings about this development. Yes, beauty pageants objectify women, they reek of phoniness, and they are hopelessly politically incorrect and dated. As far as I'm concerned, they should scrap them altogether.

And turning them into promotional vehicles for the fashion industry could be even worse than parading around women in swimsuits. At least the women are being judged by their actual bodies when they are mostly bare, instead of being judged by how well some designer's cloth looks on them.

No doubt that this is a knee-jerk reaction to the Carrie Prejean fiasco, which made the pageant industry look even more backwards in its neanderthal values. Surely there must be some other way for society to reward women for their achievements, rather than pitting themselves against each other in a false display of silicone-enhanced bodies and Cliff's notes prepared responses to judges' questions.

For all her bigoted views, at least Carrie Prejean had the courage to break with tradition and speak her mind. Her "opposite marriage" remark will likely go down as the most memorable line ever uttered at one of these events.

Pageant officials hate controversy. They prefer that their "winners" fit nicely into a mold which can be marketed to family values organizations. Mainstream America just loves a plastic Barbie doll.

So while the demise of the pageant industry isn't going to keep me awake at nights, I am a bit concerned over other ramifications of the removal of swimsuits by the California organizers. To me it's just another sign that we tend to perceive any displays of human flesh as something sexual. There's no doubt that putting women in bikinis on a stage isn't sexy, or appealing, but it's not sexual. If it is perceived as such, then are public pools and beaches next to be attacked for displaying too much skin?

As outdated as they now are perceived to be, at least nudist beauty pageants were honest. They were all about having the best bodies. No phoniness, no pretense, no politics, no talent competitions - just flesh. With the dawn of the feminist movement, these nudist pageants disappeared quickly, while mainstream public pageants have been dying a slow, painful death over the past three decades. The rise of child beauty pageants has been an odd development in this societal shift, raising the objectification of little girls, while at the same time attempting to reduce the objectification of grown women.

While people should never stop admiring beauty, there's something perverse about making nature's gift of sex appeal into a competition. Such obsession with mere physical appearance reminds me of Jack Nicholson's character Jonathan in "Carnal Knowledge", when his friend Sandy tells him "looks aren't everything, you know", and he responds with "believe me, looks are everything." Jonathan's obsession with looks eventually leads him to become a misogynist, never satisfied with any women he meets, until his only source of sexual arousal comes when his ego is stroked.

In a way, American Society has become Jonathan, constantly looking for the Utopian woman even in ways he could not imagine. Today he would be a plastic surgeon, trying in vain to create the perfect women to satisfy his own perverse visions. It's an endless stream of magazines, movies, books, internet sites and television shows which contribute to the media pageant of women's bodies, airbrushed and Photoshopped in wrongheaded efforts to sell this unattainable image to an insatiable public.

Even Carrie Prejean was not natural - the California pageant organization paid for her breast enlargement surgery. As despicably phony as this is, a recent pageant in Hungary required that contestants be surgically enhanced in order to make the cut. One young woman even had surgically adjusted toes.

So from my point of view, the banning of the swimsuit competition takes away the essence of what beauty pageants were originally designed to do - to honor natural beauty. As wrongheaded as it was in making beauty into a competitive event, especially in hindsight, at least it was honest. Adding talent competition, evening gowns, and scholarships to these pageants failed to obscure the fact that these pageants were really just all about a pretty face and a good figure.

Why do people watch pageants? A 1996 poll revealed that 87% of respondents voted to keep the swimsuit portion of the Miss America pageant when officials considered dropping it from the show. We are a voyeuristic society, no doubt.

We tend to turn everything into a competition, from ladies' garden clubs judging the best grown rose, to the American Kennel Club's dog shows. Movies, plays, television shows, books - they all have their awards. Even President Obama got a Nobel prize. Everybody remembers the gold medal winner, and nobody remembers who won the silver. Every college sells one of those "we're number one" foam fingers for sports teams, even though only one can make it to the top.

At least with beauty pageants, we are beginning to understand that that making physical attractiveness into a competitive sport is not only demeaning to the contestants, it's damaging to the perceptions of the viewers, the same way false images in magazines destroy women's self-esteem.

The more we drift from natural beauty into the distorted phoniness of the fashion industry, the more we lose contact with our own humanity. I fear this sanitizing of the pageant industry into an even more packaged product for mass consumption is even further dehumanizing the contestants, eventually to the point where we will no longer even need actual humans to compete, only a fashion designer's virtual fantasy.

The Daily Newds 5/18/09

• British model Katie Price faces possible arrest for nude sunbathing in the Maldives.

  Foreign Office travel advice warns: "Nudism and topless sunbathing are prohibited throughout the Maldives including on resort islands. "The Maldives is a Muslim country and serious violations of law may lead to a prison sentence."

• No disciplinary action will be taken against six students who streaked across the stage at the Green Mountain College commencement in Vermont.

  It's sort of become a new tradition at the school, one that is not encouraged but not "stamped out, either," (communications director Kevin) Coburn said. "It happened at last year's commencement," Coburn said, hours after Saturday's streaking.

• Married for 43 years, Ian and Nancy Watters love the nude lifestyle.

  "We do everything in the nude; mowing, mulching, gardening. We always seem to have a lot of laughs and that’s good for your health."

• A sex theme park slated to open in October has been torn down by Chinese authorities because it was "vulgar, ill-minded and misleading."
• A South Texas town is debating whether or not to ban "nude sketch classes" in the Arts District, due to its proximity to schools and day care centers.
• Laurie Penny says that burlesque today is nothing more than a "misogynist scam."

  I began to realise that what really differentiated my act from that of your average stripper wasn't the performance, or the costumes, but simply class. Like the majority of women who choose to get involved with burlesque, our troupe was made up of middle-class girls, with the act offering us an opportunity to indulge in raunchy exhibitionism without feeling "cheap" (at least initially). Burlesque serves up misogyny in a tasteful package of feathers, while the explicit nature of the shows increases each year. When I was performing, complete nudity was frowned on, but burlesque acts such as Satan's Striptease and Empress Stah have since started offering full-frontal flashing.

• Why are law enforcement officials targeting Craigslist for censorship? It's "good politics."
• A teen has been suspended by his fundamentalist Baptist educators for attending a prom at another high school because there was "dancing, rock music and hand-holding."
• A group of Belgian actors rode nude on bicycles at the Cannes Film Festival to promote their movie.
• The Christian Action Network in Cape Town, South Africa, want to criminalize pornography and other forms of adult entertainment after a recent Sexpo event. Miss Nude South Africa says that Sexpo was not exploitative.
• 80% of Key West tourism-based businesses support a clothing-optional beach.
• A Lutheran pastor has denounced Miss California USA Carrie Prejean as a hypocrite.

  "(In) America, according to this girl ... it is totally immoral for two people of the same gender who are in love to enter into a lifelong, faithful, monogamous union, (and) apparently not a problem at all for a 17-year-old girl to be photographed half-naked for the expressed purpose of sexually arousing millions of heterosexual men to whom she is not married and who are not married to her."

• Dita Von Teese was ordered to show "less cleavage" during the Eurovision Song Contest.
• A nude sketch of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is up for auction in Paris. Imagine if a similar image of Michelle Obama went on sale in New York City, and you can clearly see the cultural divide.
• Does a teacher have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" for files stored on a school computer?
• The producer of a Danish TV reality show has apologized for shooting a nude scene on a Malaysian island.
• If you think nudity has caused some trouble through the years, consider these instances where articles of clothing caused riots.
• Kenyans want the statue of a nude boy in front of a court house to be demolished claiming it "encourages pedophilia."
• One woman ignores the "naked baby police" and lets her kids frolic nude in a wading pool.
• Striking a balance between "nudists and prudists" has been difficult at North Lido Park in Sarasota, Florida.
• The Calgary Music Festival features bands, nature, and a "nude slip-n-slide."
• Helena writes, "stop being so prude and get your kit off" after witnessing women showering in their bathing suits at the local gym.

  Being a Swede, where nudity is something natural, this is incredibly strange to me. When I'm in the communal showers I notice that these women are still wearing their swimmers but had they been naked I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Why is it that some women, depending on their upbringing, culture or religion, cannot get undressed in front of other women. We all look the same. And when I'm in the shower I don't look at what your bodies look like. I'm busy trying to squeeze out of my wet, too tight bathing suit and just wash myself. I have no interest in looking at other women. So please, just get your kit off and feel that it's ok to wash yourselves properly. Because you can't really reach all your bits when wearing a Speedo!

• A new naked tribe has been found in Nigeria.
• William Cook, who founded the Eastwoodhill Arboretum in Gisborne, New Zealand, was an avid nudist.

  ...he often did his gardening unimpeded by clothes, apart from the boot he wore to help with digging holes, and visitors soon learned that it was a good idea to phone for an appointment.

• Attorney Scott H. Greenfield calls the criminalization of teen sexting as "the stupidest thing ever."

The Daily Newds 5/14/09

• In the fallout the Carrie Prejean Miss California fiasco, a photographer contradicts her story that her breasts were exposed because the wind blew open her top.

  (Domnic) Petruzzi says he shot the photos on a "normal day" and it's ridiculous to blame it on a breeze. As for Prejean's claim the pics were taken between shots for the modeling session (she was posing for Bliss Magazine), Petruzzi says -- "she was totally posing and looking into the camera."

• The co-executive director of the Miss California Pageant resigned yesterday saying she no longer believes in the organization because Prejean was allowed to keep her crown, despite apparent violations of her agreement.
• Yet more Prejean news. The Baptist Standard reports that conservatives are split over the beauty queen and if she is the appropriate role model for Christian women.

  Writer Dave Welch added comments on the conservative website World Net Daily in his article, "Is Carrie Prejean Really a Hero?" "I respect Miss Prejean for her stand and her willingness to testify of her faith," Welch wrote. "However, I much more highly admire, respect and esteem my wife, my daughters and all the girls and women who have chosen the higher road. They are determined to show that their worth is not in how they look in a bathing suit but that they are wonderful creations of a loving God who designed them with meticulous detail as they are."

• Is Gok Wan "genuinely interested in changing the perception of beauty", or is he just exploiting ordinary people with his contest "Miss Naked Beauty"?
• A clear sign that mass media and cultural pressures are destroying the body images of yet another generation, British swimming champion Rebecca Adlington, age 19, thinks of herself as "unfeminine".

  "I think there is a problem in that girls don't think it's cool to be sporty. I had that feeling when I used to trudge into school after training with my hair wet, smelling of chlorine, with no make-up on and thinking, 'Oh God, all the other girls look fantastic.' We need to change the view that you can't be a sportswoman and be feminine. I am certainly feminine outside the pool.'"

• Radio talk show Michael Smerconish puts his ass on the line. Literally.
• A Nevada assemblyman was reprimanded for viewing pictures of "scantily clad women" on his own personal computer.
• Legal challenges continue in Virginia over the constitutionality of regulations defining nudity in adult establishments.

  The ABC board revised its own regulations, which prohibit the display of "genitals, pubic hair or anus by an entertainer, or any portion of the areola of the breast of a female entertainer."

• In the face of mounting legal pressures, Craigslist will no longer offer an "Erotic Services" category, and will create a new one titled "Adult Services". That should do the trick.
• Julie Hilden, writing on FindLaw, says that prosecutors should not charge sexting teens with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor".

  It would be absurd, for instance, for two sixteen-year-olds who are dating to be deemed criminals because each sent a nude photo of him- or herself to the other, while meaning for the photo to be kept entirely private. Teenagers do have First Amendment rights – and, with the exception of obscene (and in this context, obscene-as-to-minors) speech, sexual speech is protected.

• Auburn, California, seeks to crack down on nudity and "lewd acts" on a remote stretch of the American River.

  Council members say the beach has long been a destination for nude sunbathers without a problem. But it's recently become known for sex encounters after it became more accessible to boaters with the opening of a new section of river last year.

• A 35,000 year old figure of a voluptuous nude woman is perhaps the world's oldest sculpture.

Is Nudity Now a Family Value?

Here's one of the photos TMZ posted today of a topless Carrie Prejean, complete with obscured nipple. Prejean claimed in a press conference today that it was the wind which must have blown open her top. Does her hair look windblown in this photo?

Again, I don't care that she posed nude, or made a sex tape. And I don't care that she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman. As she points out, our President shares the same view.

What irks me to no end is that she is turning this personal belief into a political cause in a attempt to deny civil rights to American citizens seeking merely to marry the person of his or her choice. You can believe what you want, but stay out of my face and the faces of other citizens.

Prejean turned into such a spectacular train wreck that Donald Trump and the sexist pageant industry decided to keep her on as Miss California, undoubtedly due to all the publicity which has piqued new interest in the manufacturing and selling of American beauty.

There is a strange upside to this all, since the Christianist right is embracing this girl as some sort of second coming of Christ. Appearing on Dr. James Dobson's radio show, Prejean said that she was being tempted by Satan, and that she believes herself to be a witness for God in her crusade against gay marriage.

Carrie Prejean looks and struts like a porn star, yet talks like Billy Graham. She's more than willing to expose her body to sell lingerie or to tempt men, but she calls herself a moral Christian.

None of this really makes any sense at all. It's like someone declaring that the human body is dirty and shameful, and then getting naked at a nudist resort. It's wacko talk.

Wait, I said there was an upside. The fact that Prejean posed nude, the fact that she had breast implants, and the fact that she is a beauty queen who struts near naked to be judged on her attractiveness to men, has not prevented her from becoming a role model for Christian women. The sexual side of this whole affair has been rendered moot, immaterial, inconsequential.

In an era where all type of nudity is taboo, when kids are being prosecuted for taking nude photos of themselves, along comes Carrie Prejean and her sexed-up image to make nudity a Christian value.

Now Prejean's nude photos are far from being nudist or naturist, but in comparison the family-friendly clothes-free experience seems pretty tame compared to what the right wing is willing to accept from the beauty queen. It's as if the Christianists decided that there was no way to win the culture wars, so they took on someone who looks like a porn star to help get the funds rolling back in.

The political battle over abortion is all but dead with Obama getting ready to make the first of what should be several appointments to The Supreme Court. Gay marriage is now the big demon, but the tide of states approving same-sex unions is likely too big to stop. The only hope for the Christianists is to maintain it as a political football throughout the south, the last bastion for dying conservative philosophies, and prevent a 50 state sweep. And what better person to lead that effort than the Anita Bryant of the 21st Century, Carrie Prejean.

This is the time for nudism and naturism. The economy is in shambles, the Moral Majority is tied to the hull of the Pequod and sinking, and the new spokesperson for the Christianists is a bimbo. It's a perfect storm for lobbying for more public land to be set aside for clothes-free use, not only as a benefit to naturists, but for local communities looking to fill their coffers with new found revenue.

If the moralists think that the sight of Carrie Prejean looks pretty good, then they have little to oppose when it comes to a few nude beaches here and there.

Bye, Bye Carrie

TMZ has obtained new topless photos of Carrie Prejean, so in addition to hypocrite, phony, bigot and ignoramus, she can now add liar to her title.

UPDATE: The Trumpster has decided to keep this train wreck as Miss California. There is no such thing as bad publicity. The media is eating this up.

The Daily Newds 5/12/09

• In the UK, the town of Huddersfield is going all out to encourage breastfeeding.
• Paula Cooey, a professor of religion at Macalester College, wonders if embattled beauty queen Carrie Prejean is God's prophet or a porn star.

  We as a nation promote biologically reductionistic, soft-porn views of human bodies and human sexuality, views that do real violence to real people. Don’t get me wrong; my objection is not to naked bodies and eroticism, but to shrouding sexual titillation and drooling voyeurism with the patina of beauty and virtue, a phenomenon hardly restricted to the religious right alone. We don’t have to be right-wing evangelicals to be confused about our own flesh; bought, marketed, and consumed through various print and electronic media. Indeed, the Carrie Prejeans and Jerry Falwells Jr. of the world are just more transparent.

• Two Ohio teens were sentenced yesterday over nude photos on their cell phones.

  Prior to sentencing, defense attorney Charlie Rittgers told Powell the boy was never in trouble before and was “remorseful” for his actions. “He is scared to death at being here,” Rittgers told the judge. “He did not realize that what seemed to be an innocent act on his part could have ramifications.”

• Some people expect Facebook to cave in to protesters who want all groups devoted to Holocaust denial to be banned. The powers-that-be at Facebook put themselves in this predicament when they banned photos of mothers breastfeeding their children. Free speech is messy. You can't only demand the free speech you want without accepting the free speech of others. Banning the breast, now banning certain political speech, and what will be the next topic to be deemed offensive? Nudism? As abhorrent as the Holocaust deniers are, they cannot be denied their First Amendment rights.
• The rash of recent nude photos of celebrities is likely part of a larger trend.

  "The commonsense response is that anyone who thinks popular culture is not helping to shape the social script for teens just isn't paying attention," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "It's not the only thing, of course, but what's happening in celebrity culture and what's happening amongst their peers has a great influence on teens."

• The media need to stop sexing up all body parts - now "love handles" are seen to have a "damaging effect" on a person's love life.
• AANR's publicity campaign for a world record skinny-dip has reached at least one news outlet.
• Go for it! Shirley Jones's husband thinks it would be "sensational" if the 75 year-old beauty would pose nude for Playboy.
• If you are unemployed, Central Casting in New York is looking for nude models.
• Lily Allen, forced to change lyrics to one of her songs by the BBC, told her audience that she "might just go naked. In fact, I think everyone coming to watch should go naked. I want to see the whole crowd naked." I think she really means it.

Prejudging Prejean

I have so many mixed emotions about these semi-nude photos of Miss California Carrie Prejean, exposed on TheDirty.com.

When asked about gay marriage at the Miss USA pageant, Prejean said that it was great that Americans had a choice. The fact is that they don't have a choice except in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa (it will be legal in Vermont on 9/1), so Prejean is ignorant at best.

I also think that anyone who denies basic civil rights to any citizen is a bigot. All the arguments against gay marriage mirror the comments made during the civil rights struggle, when African-Americans were denied their equal rights under the law.

Then came word that the California state pageant paid for Prejean to get breast implants in order to put her "in the best possible light on a national stage" , thus making her a first class phony.

I applaud any woman who gets breast surgery to correct deformities, reduce excessive size, or for reconstruction after a mastectomy, but when an obviously attractive and healthy woman gets breast augmentation merely to win a contest, it puts her in the porn star category as someone just selling his or her body for money. It's objectifying the already objectified.

So when a bible-thumping ignorant bigoted phony is shown posing in sexy lingerie with a come-hither look on her face, she adds hypocrite to her rapidly expanding list of labels.

I really don't care if she posed totally nude, or topfree, or even made a sex tape - the problem here is that she has taken hypocrisy to a new stratospheric level by wearing her religion on the sleeve of one arm, while wearing her sexed-up phoniness on the other.

I don't know Carrie Prejean, she might well be a fine person and all of this is merely a public-relations disaster, or she might be a victim of the whole pageant industry which has gone from celebrating female beauty to manufacturing it.

Beauty pageants have disappeared from nudist resorts, and the Miss America Pageant, once the queen of them all, has trouble finding a basic cable channel to carry their event. Perhaps this Carrie Prejean fiasco will spell the end of this outdated, sexist and objectifying practice, or the old adage of "all publicity is good publicity" will actually generate more interest by a public hungry for tawdriness.