Nude teens raise eyebrows

For those of you who know me, I find the following article both pleasing and troublesome.
Pleasing, because some people are enjoying life how it was meant to be enjoyed - nude.
Troublesome, because one person has a problem with it so the city decides to try and make a law against it.
Why can't people be nude, what is wrong with that. The people aren't going around jiggling their bits at little old ladies or children, no they are letting the warm air hit them rather then roasting in some clothing (which is bad for you I might add).
Now about the one person who complained, ""The parking lot is not a strip club," she said. "What about children seeing this?"" well let me answer these two things:
1) Strip club reference - at a strip club, people go in to see people take off their clothes - their clothes were already off (how I read the article anyway). Also in a strip club, people go in to see shake their bits - as I said earlier, this is not the case.
2) The children. This is what people always say when they want to stop something (the Simpson's have made fun of this more then once). Studies have shown that children who are exposed to non-sexual nudity tend to be better socially adjusted then children who are taught that any kind of nudity is bad (taught to dislike their own bodies).

Okay, I'm done with my rant. Now on the the article:

Link
Nude teens raise eyebrows
Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:10 AM ET

By Scott Christianson

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) - Some have appeared naked in a downtown parking lot. Others rode their bicycles or simply strolled the streets in the nude.

Teenagers in the quaint Vermont town of Brattleboro are raising eyebrows this summer with brazen displays of nudity.

So far they haven't been arrested or ticketed: public nudity isn't illegal in the town of 13,000 people, unless it's done to arouse sexual gratification.

Vermont has a live-and-let-live tradition, allowing skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing. Brattleboro, the first permanent English settlement in the state in 1724, is home to a community of writers, artists and musicians as well as transplanted entrepreneurs from Boston and New York.

When the weather grew hot this year, a couple of dozen teens took to holding hula hoop contests, riding bikes and parading past the shops wearing only their birthday suits.

Nobody, including the police, seemed to take offense until one local, Theresa Toney, went before the town government in August to complain about a group of youngsters naked in a parking lot.

"The parking lot is not a strip club," she said. "What about children seeing this?"

Town officials asked their attorney to draft an ordinance to ban such displays for the Select Board to vote on in September. When the teens heard about it, some staged a nude sit-in.

"I don't see why it's such a big deal," said Alec McPherson, a recent high school graduate as he sat at a coffee shop table, browsing a thick volume of artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Everyone's naked in this book."

His companion, Jeremiah Compton, a high school junior who plays in a local metal-and-punk band, agreed. "It's just that we're bored and expressing our right," he said.

"We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and a ridiculous war in the Middle East, countries getting bombed," said Ian Bigelow, a 23-year-old who had gathered with some of his friends outside a bookstore. "So why's it such a big problem if we chose to get nude?"