Bare Body Freedom

Bare Body Freedom by George Davis

This posting has turned into my Coronavirus home alone project.  I started this project in January 2020 and have allowed myself to be easily diverted.  The project is intended to describe Bare Body Freedom and then go over my history in the movement from 3 boxes of archival materials which include over 20 arrests, nude speeches in San Francisco, Times Square NYC and Capitol Mall Washington DD, and 3 books including the influential book, Naked Yoga.

Bare Body Freedom is the viewpoint that human bodies, including all body parts including breasts and genitals, are normal and natural.  Seems like a no-brainer viewpoint, but the exercise of this viewpoint and nudism in real life and real time, aka public nudity, can lead to police administrative sanctions, including arrest, in most areas of the United States, or the world for that matter.  Suppression of the Bare Body Freedom movement comes from repressive policies, laws and media censorship of the movement.

Bare Body Freedom is a philosophy based on observation and reality.  I have never, ever had anyone want to debated the issue.  We know that bare body freedom diminishes, if not ends, the concepts of body shame and sexually fetish-ing objects and body parts.  Academic studies, easily available on the Internet, show this to be true. None show this to be untrue.  Further academic studies in both Europe and America, also easily detectable by your favorite search engines, show that children being brought up around nudism have better relationships with their bodies and the bodies of others.  There are none showing any harm.

You would think that the existential reality that you have a normal and natural body would be a no-brainer to communicate.  Think again, sometimes I think that after 16 years of working on this, I should have succeeded 16 years ago.  Yet, with some validity, my original title for this posting was to be, Rebel Without a Cause?? reflecting the sometimes feeling that the movement is at square one.  Over the years, I have reflected on the stupidity of fighting stupidity.

I left a very comfortable, adventurous, and enjoyable situation in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico to come back to my archival material in San Francisco.  I was in La Paz to compete in the Banderas Bay Regatta March 24-28.  A friend and I were to sail a fast trimaran from La Paz to Puerto Vallarta (500 miles) compete in one of the largest sailing events on the Pacific West Coast, party with a bunch of sailors and then sail back to La Paz.  A pretty cool event for a 74 year old salt like myself.  The Coronavirus health authorities guidelines caused the organizers to cancel the event.  As in the US quarantines, restaurants, and elimination of public gatherings were put into place in Mexico.  Reminding all of us that this is a global issue.  In La Paz, I would have been quarantined with 4 young beautiful women and an amiable fellow.  One of the women offered to upgrade my Spanglish to formal Spanish.  So, in La Paz, I would be with great companions, beaches, warm weather, beer and ice cream.  The fundamental building blocks of life.  The US Consul in Tijuana made an announcement that American passport holders need to immediately return to the US or be prepared to stay in Mexico indefinitely without US government aid.  As long as there are international bank fund transfers, I was fine economically to stay in Mexico.  Tough choice.  I came back to my, might as well be a San Francisco college dorm apartment, pulled out my $100 student Chromebook, and got to work on this project. 

Even after my sacrifices and return, it took me a few days to get going on this project.  I am sheltered in place by myself like a lot of other people, except I do have this home based project to work on.  I fell into the traps of binge watching YouTube, reading a biography of the affair between Maria Callas and Aristotle Onnasis and the onset of the Jacqueline Kennedy triangle, and seeing some Opera and Porn videos.  The guilty pleasures.  About the only thing for the Bare Body Freedom Movement that I did was to talk to Ton Dou, a singer/songwriter bare body freedom activist who is home based in Las Vegas.  Ton Dou has recently written a book, Bare Body Freedom, Because . . .  We talked about doing a nude book signing tour with his book and my book, Naked Yoga.  I would also bring along a nude, articulate, friendly female yoga teacher.  We would definitely go to Times Square in New York City where we have both done nude political, theatrical, and political presentations with New York City Police and Government cooperation.  But, until this quarantine issue works itself out, this book signing tour is on hold.  Ton called us the "Mod Squad."

My brief biography is that I am a 74 year old white guy.  Downstream my family is non-white.  My kids and grandkids are Eurasian.  My nieces and nephews have married a Turk, a Black, a Korean, a Phillipina, and a blond haired, blue eyed lawyer who was born in Chile.  I still do yoga, dance, and lead an active life.  So, I would call my physical age about the same as a healthy 50 year old.  My mental age is all over the map.  I buried a child which automatically makes me the oldest man in the room, like a 100 years old.  I do my best to keep a 16 year old optimistic perspective.  Because I try, it works much of the time. 

I received a Jesuit education at Loyola University of Chicago.  Those that know me say that explains everything?  You don't have to know anything else.

Among the jobs and professions that I have pursued have been middle school teacher, writer, publisher, taxi driver, real estate investor, spec builder, and commercial business broker. 

I have 3 kids (youngest 35 years old) and 3 grandkids (youngest 10 years old).

Although I have been in San Francisco for 51 years this August, nowadays I spend more time visiting Mexico, Chicago, New York City than I spend in San Francisco.  San Francisco has become very overrated and backwater in my opinion.  I have no reason to be here, but my kids are in the region. I have cheap housing.  I still see long time friends like my first serious San Francisco girl friend from 50 years ago.  The secret of our success is not ever moving in together?!  On reflection, I have had two wife de jours.  My mother of children wife and final "trophy" wife.  I had a favorite girl friend of all times in the 1970's who was really funny and I like funny.  When i was in my early twenties, I also regretfully had two different keeper girlfriends that I did not keep, but I was too stupid and too much of a hedonist, dreamer, and asshole to recognize what I did by leaving them until way, irretrievably later.

Although I have had some business and financial stresses, I and my family have never experienced anything close to hunger, housing, or major medical problems.  Although death of a child is always a PTSD glidepath if one wants to dedicate too much mental bandwith to the subject.

My belief in the naturalness of the human body goes back to 5 year old memories.  Our family household was sort of clothing optional in the bedroom wing.  I practiced nudism in Germany and Italy in the 1960's.  I went to all kinds of nudist/clothing optional beaches, resorts, and spas in Northern California.  I usually had a private place for nude sunbathing, like on the roof of many of the buildings that I lived in.  However, I never merged my nudity into public space.  I recognized the stupidity of the separation, but I never did anything about it.

In 2000, I was having an affair with Cody/Yen Chu Kuo who I met at a Yoga class at 24 Hour Fitness gym.  She wanted to bring her 16 year old daughter into the US for school and family reunification desires.  I married Cody, who was once a prominent athlete and yoga instructor in Taipei, Taiwan.