World Naked Bike Ride and Nudity

Whatever are your reasons for presence, as long as you are not hurting anyone, you are valid supporter.

World Naked Bike Ride is a brilliant initiative to support bike riders.
The event promotes three basic points:
(1) bike riders are vulnerable on the roads,
(2) riding a bike is good for health and environment,
(3) there is nothing in human body to be ashamed of.

But where there is nudity there are problems.
People used to try to simplify every possible pattern, but in this case it is not that easy.
On the one hand we are born nude and die nude. It is natural and obvious.
On the other hand people like to pretend, because thanks to it they can achieve better goals.
Clothes become a way to win a competition between imperfections, age and young perfection but often immature and stupid. Shame is a cunning tool to make this possible.
So in this time in our culture we started to join nudity with shame.
You cannot completely avoid mixing nakedness with sexuality, because it is natural; it is hard to make love in clothes.
However, as naturist, I need to admit my body behaves differently in public nudity and intimate situations. Once you get used to being naked, you start to treat it as type of clothing. This is how it should be.
Despite the fact I do not treat public nudity in a sexual way I am still attracted to it, because in my case I like openness.
I have to admit I am still surprised a bit, that openness is not always a case.
There is plenty of reasons why people attend to the ride.
The main points are not necessarily the most popular reasons.
Points are however good, official excuse; even if this is excuse to ourselves.

So there are:
honest supporters are mostly middle-aged and not very emotional;
people attempting rides on “hooray, let's do something crazy”, then next day "o gosh what have i done" (that will explain happiness on ride but avoiding the subject after the ride);
minority representatives, who just like to watch and expose themselves even without bike;
people who like to watch and take pictures of bodies, which they don't have chance so see in real life;
some people are conjoining another idea for living like to be vegan, to be hairy and smelly, be confident despite disabilities and after surgery like mastectomy;
and there are many other reasons - maybe everyone has a different one.
Beauty is attractive to everyone.
Young perfect bodies is something that everybody craves to see, so they intensively support this kind of event, even if fact that considering a body attractive or not, have sexual background! We should be aware of that, and as intelligent species put our needs where they are supposed to be.
There then comes the problem especially for the girls.
Pictures are ending up on the internet, sometimes on sites not related to WNBR pages, where girls are picked up from the crowd with people chasing them for their contact details.
This is surely a violation of privacy against someone’s will.


But wait.
Taking a part of event like WNBR is actually a conscious decision that you will show yourself and every shared picture of this event is actually supporting the event itself.
How a person who is taking a picture can know what is allowed and what is not, if girls do not want even to talk about sharing it?
The best pictures can be taken for someone who has bad intentions in mind, and forcing pictures.
That same picture can help another person to convince themselves to take a part in ride and support the cause.


So what is a good photo and what is a bad photo?
Where is the boundary?

In my eyes, it is bad when pictures are detached from event.
Also, when someone does not wish to be photographed we should respect that, and not be intrusive.
Everybody has some reasons to join the cause, and that is fine, as long as it is supporting the cause.


My suggestions:

For the Girls (actually all entrants) - be more friendly, talk about your point of view, be open to photos but claim usage of them is strictly for a reason that you share your personal image for.

For the photographers - be polite, not intrusive, respect that supporters are sharing their image for a cause not privately for you, so make sure the pictures you are taking is part of the event.

For the organisers: make sure that rights of participants are secure, and be able to take care of law support if any photo material is used against will.


Communication is a most important for building good future, talk to the people, try to make new friends even if someone is not sharing the same values as you it does not mean you should not give a chance to prove himself.