The naked truth about why streaking’s good
Kids think it’s a hoot so let’s embrace the fun and run with it
Iwas sitting in a caravan at Eden Park the other day when out of the blue a completely nude man came running towards me at pace across the field. He stepped past an overweight security guard or two and was going great guns until he tripped on an advertising hoarding and slid along the concrete on his naked thigh before being taken down by several event staff. It was funny, horrific, then funny again.
Luckily the man was okay and later was rightfully let off with a warning.
But the incident raises two hugely important questions for all New Zealanders.
Firstly, why is running naked through a stadium so funny and secondly what’s wrong with being nude?
My two young boys watched the streak from the second tier of the West Stand. They thought it was the best thing that happened all day. Laughed all the way home. They talked about it more than they talked about the Black Caps’ close victory. We don’t need to protect kids from streakers. They love ’em.
Adults love them too. The crowd was cheering and when the Alternative Commentary Collective posted footage of the streaker it was viewed hundreds of thousands of times. 100 per cent positive comments.
For some reason high speed naked people are hugely popular. The only ones with a problem are prudes and ground officials.
But why the problem? If you think about it, being nude is perfectly natural. It should be normal. The weird thing is clothes. Why the hell do we have to wear bits of material all the time? What are we hiding? Are we that freaked out by what other people’s downstairs operations look like?
It was a million degrees at Eden Park, everyone should have been nude. Yet they hire security guards to take down anyone who dares to strip down to their natural state? Were the bits of this man so terrifying that he needed to be violently scraped across the concrete? Of course not. Most people have genitals. I do, I see mine most mornings in the shower. Most of us have partners whose bits we see regularly too. So who is offended by high speed nude people? No one sane. Especially in the case of the man at Eden Park who was running what looked like a well kept situation.
I don’t, however, support the Eden Park streaker’s timing. The Whakamana Express Lockie Ferguson was steaming in and had to stop his run up. That’s not cool.
There are plenty of drinks breaks, change of ends and ball collections for people to streak in, so pick your moment.
But whether a person running on the field is nude or not is irrelevant. If anything the naked people should be treated better than the clothed pitch invader. At least the nude Sweeney Alone, and yet person provides the crowd with entertainment.
Let’s look at it logically. There’s nothing wrong or offensive about being nude. It is more natural than being clothed. People generally find streakers funny. Therefore if a streaker hasn’t interrupted the game, event staff have no reason to slam them on the concrete.
Instead officials should use the phenomenon for the good of all. How about a couple of designated streaking lanes at ODIs. One along the boundary from fine leg round to long on. The second on the off side from third man round to long off.
At any time during the game, anyone who wants to can get nude and go for a run along the track in front of the crowd. Win, win, win for stadia. The game doesn’t get disrupted, the crowd has a laugh and conjuring up images of how he might wield his deadly snickersnee. “Ko-Ko is the character who’s responsible for breaking the fourth wall in the show, continually talking to the audience, all night — and his famous patter song is the one Gilbert and Sullivan number that simply must be updated.” Maunder may not divulge any of these updates but perhaps one or two might take into account the parlous goings-on in the White House at the moment. That aside, he’s optimistic NZ Opera’s 2017 season — five wellbalanced productions from Gareth Farr’s The Bone Feeder to September’s Katya Kabanova — will be well received. He’s looking forward to working in the new ASB Waterfront Theatre, too.