DON’T LIKE NUDIST EVENTS? STAY AWAY

Birthday suit swim organizer says fuss shows Calgary needs more naked events

I grew up just a short bike ride away from Wreck Beach, Vancouver’s famous nudist hangout. As an elementary school kid, my friends and I would ditch our bicycles in the woods and leap over the edge of the sand cliffs — making like astronauts on the moon as we jumped our way down the sloping cliff in the powdery sand — rather than take the woodsy stairs down to the secluded waterfront.

Eventually, however, Wreck Beach transformed itself into a nudist beach, and my friends and I pretty much stopped going, unless it was cool out. That, folks, is the simple way of dealing with nudists. If you don’t want to get naked around other people, don’t go to nudist events or nudist beaches.

Which brings us to the frenzy going on in Calgary over an afterhours, private event scheduled for Sunday at a southwest public pool described as a “naked water slides and wave pool” night that is “family-oriented and kidfriendly and open to people of all ages, body types, all genders, sexual orientations and anyone else in between.”

An online petition created over the weekend on change. org by Calgarian April Parker has garnered more than 11,000 signatures by early Monday evening. The petition calls on the city to either “put this event to rest” or “at least … make it ageappropriate!”

Parker’s popular petition states in part: “Sexual predators will be on the prowl — having an event like that is just like Christmas to them,” and there is “an extremely high chance of photos and videos being taken without consent ...”

Naked Jeff, the founder of Calgary Nude Recreation, moved to Calgary from Vancouver several years ago and is the organizer behind Sunday’s event at the Southland Leisure Centre. He has a novel solution behind remedying the controversy.

“I really think all of this backlash is proof that Calgary needs more nudity in it,” said Naked Jeff, who declined to give his full name for fear of the “crazies” who are lashing out at him online, insinuating he’s a pedophile or some other kind of sexual deviant.

“It’s crazy to associate social nudity with criminality,” added Jeff, who is in his 30s.

“Nobody would care in Vancouver. They’d try to do a news story on naked people in Vancouver and everybody would shrug and say, ‘That’s not news.’ That’s what Calgary should be like,” he argued.

As for the fear that people will be recorded surreptitiously, Jeff says all recording devices “will not be tolerated and people taking pictures or anything like that will be detained, arrested and charged.”

The glass in the leisure centre’s foyer will be blacked out for the event and all men must be completely naked, to prevent voyeurs. Women must at least go topless.

“Our culture is really uptight,” said Jeff.

“Our culture demands that people be ashamed of their amazing bodies. It’s not healthy. Social nudity is a great equalizer and it’s liberating.”

Jeromy Farkas, councillor for Ward 11, where the Southland Leisure Centre is located, says he has received more than 300 calls from people, though not necessarily all Ward 11 constituents.

“It’s really not my business what people choose to do on their own time on private property, if they are not harming others,” said Farkas.

“But given that this is a public facility with at least some taxpayer support, I think some of the concerns and questions coming from the public are worth looking into.”

Farkas says he has asked the city’s legal department to determine whether taxpayers “will be on the hook if a child or another person is assaulted or victimized.”

“The issue for me is not the nudity between consenting adults, it’s just the combination that some of their materials are sexualized, and them adding children to the mix, I feel like there is an extra threshold for due diligence,” added Farkas.

Fair enough. The city opens itself up to liabilities with every park and recreation centre it builds and maintains.

As for the sexualized content on his website, Jeff correctly says the image Farkas objects to — of a side view of the bottom half of a shapely woman with lacy pink panties being stretched between her feet — is just a link to an event held by “empowered young women” called Naked Girls Reading. You honestly can’t make this stuff up!

As I grew older in Vancouver, I was invited by a friend to “have the best sushi in the city.” We walked down the uneven stairs and my girlfriend bought me a couple of really delicious rolls made with freshly cooked Dungeness crab. We sat on a log in our bikinis and ate our lunch, which we washed down with a cold beer, bought on the beach. There were families on blankets having picnics, some wearing bathing suits, others not, kids splashing in the water under their parents’ watchful eye, naked vendors selling cool drinks and warm food. The scene was not offensive at all.

So, here’s my raw opinion on what should be a non-issue.

If you don’t like social nudity, keep your clothes on and don’t attend the planned events. It’s a solution as obvious as a bare bottom.