Clothing-optional Town Decides to Ban Public Nudity

[skygazer]

Well, not exactly. :eyes:

The town in question is Brattleboro, Vermont. My home town. It has never been a "clothing-optional" town but if you Google it, you'll find numerous articles about the place that make it sound like the residents all wander around naked to do their grocery shopping.

Jesus christ on a pogo stick. :banghead:

Vermont has never had a public nudity ordinance. A few towns throughout the state have enacted their own but on the whole, the state doesn't really give a shit. People have been sunbathing and gardening and swimming in the rivers naked forever. No one cares.

Then last year, someone got pissed off because a few locals were sitting around a downtown parking lot naked. Well, they lived in one of the buildings, it was hotter than hell and they were trying to cool off. It's not something that happens often but it wasn't illegal (or any big deal to the great majority of people there).

But all it takes is one.

So this person starts a campaign to stop public nudity, the local newspaper picks up the story and runs a "cute" little article, the nationals discover it, the story is transmitted nationwide, growing in leaps and bounds and suddenly, Brattleboro, Vermont is transformed into a place where people gallop around naked all the time. Yesterday, my boyfriend found a reference to the place on a porn site.

I spent 38 years there and never once saw anyone nude anywhere but at the local swimming hole. ~sigh~

So now idiots have decided to go to Brattleboro for the sole purpose of - you guessed it - wandering the streets naked. Some old guy from Arizona elicited complaints when he was bouncing around Main Street in nothing but a fanny pack - he said he decided to vacation there after reading about it on the Internet.

Great. We import loonies.

So now the town has been pretty well forced to enact a ban on public nudity because A. the MSM has to leap all over a (non)story that they think is titillating and B. some fucking idgit has to make a big deal out of it in the first place. :banghead:

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. Isn't modern communications technology wonderful?

:bounce:

[bicentennial_baby]

2. I'm pretty surprised by this as well...

I'm from Greenfield, just down the highway, btw.

[skygazer]

3. Howdy, neighbor

I didn't know that. Yeah, it just boggles my mind how things get so blown out of proportion so fast. And I hate it when it happens to my little corner of the world.

[Vinca]

4. I live across the river from Brattleboro. The straw that broke the camel's

naked back happened around the first of the month during "Gallery Walk," a festive affair held on the first Friday of every month and featuring arts, crafts, food, wine, antiques, etc., etc., etc. It was that 68 year old man you mentioned who arrived in Brattleboro on vacation from Arizona because he read it was a "nudie" town. He paraded his wrinkled carcass up and down the main drag as well as here and there along Putney Rd., particularly bothering the fine folks at Staples. Primarily it bothered people out on the town with their little kids in tow. Who wants to spend an evening explaining to Jimmy about the old guy with the shriveled wiener? The whole thing is pretty amusing. The local radio talk show guy has dubbed the new ordinance the "Dick Law" after one of the selectpeople. And now Brattleboro is on a porn site??? That's really funny. :rofl:

[skygazer]

5. Well, it's funny and it's not funny

It's just really annoying to me that something that has been just a common local thing has to get so blown up out of proportion that it's ruined for the perfectly respectable and innocent people who enjoyed it.

I mean, Brattleboro is not a nudist colony by any means. But it's nice to live somewhere sensible enough to realize that people who like to sunbathe or garden or hang out on their front steps naked are not posing a threat to anyone.

I remember last year when the first article showed up in the Reformer (I read the Reformer online regularly - sometimes I miss home :) ). I showed it to my SO and predicted the whole thing would blow way out of proportion. And so it has.

The selectmen are sensible enough to make the ordinance limited to the main drag - route 5 and 9 - only and to allow people to do whatever the hell they want on their own property. They also included an exception for women breastfeeding. But it just strikes me as so riduculous to have to do that just because some people see "town with no nudity ordinance" and start packing their bags for a vacation. :eyes:

[Kat45]

6. I was going to go there to see the strolling of the bovines this year

But I couldn't make it; maybe next year. That's when I read something about the issue you're addressing. And you're right about the media: they gave the impression that you always run into someone strolling naked up there. Shit, in Vermont most of the year it's too cold to go outside without lots of layers, never mind naked.

[zanne]

7. If that was going to happen somewhere....

It would be Brattleboro. I lived there for two years in the early 70s. A town that size doesn't usually have that many characters in it, but Brattleboro is an exception. Nothing is "usual" there.