Nudity!!!!

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

Standards for offensiveness vary....
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/radiofreeeurope.jpg
Once upon an earlier blog, this image offended somebody, who (photo-?) shopped me to Photo$ucket.
Herself chimed in (http://www.caityquilter.com/blog/2007/06/11/he-is-an-evil-genius-thats-why-i-love-him-so/) with some fine info (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_d%27Estr%C3%A9es_et_une_de_ses_soeurs) about the original picture and its subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_d%27Estr%C3%A9e). There’s a wealth of history and symbolism underneath what initially appeared to be merely a bit of softcore for the lads of the French court: an arts education must ruin a lot of comfortable illusions.

Of course, I got my revenge, and the following piece of naughtiness is still hosted Where Fotos Haz Bucket.


http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p116/rynosseros/Pr0nz0r.jpg

Late Edit: Oops. Quoted from elsewhere without the updating stuff I intended. Thanks, Davo, I will wear the Llama Of Confusion with pride.

[davo]

ok I have to think about this one for a bit, as currently I have no idea what you are saying, and out of politeness, will refrain from posting :

http://www.sonadorfarm.com/ChileanAuNaturale.jpg

[davo]

I was however hoping for more than a nipple tweak ....

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

I was however hoping for more than a nipple tweak ....
http://thethoughtfulspaz.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/hairless-cat.jpg
There ya go. Always a crowd-pleaser.

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

I used to do a bit of office cleaning by night. Reason? A geeky person with an access pass and severe addiction to expensive technology goes a-scrubbing in restricted areas.

While I mainly stuck to the round of grotty bathrooms, I’d occasionally get rerouted to do an office level or one of the other routine runs. This tended, for some reason, to coincide with Special Requests, like the senior chappie’s office where the monster asparagus fern grew.
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/asparagus-fern-infestation.thumbnail.jpg (http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/asparagus-fern-infestation.jpg)
I use the past tense advisedly, as Senior Chappie had been absent for a couple of months, and the fern had died, all six feet wide and drooping from chest-height to the floor of it. Little needly leaves had been shed, and had hooked themselves into the carpet beyond the strength of the crappy little backpack vacuums we used.
Yeah, get Muggins (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/muggins) in.
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/divider.gif (http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/divider.gif)
And so it was, I found myself on another night, polishing the corridor near an office where engineering drawings were done, and some grotty black stuff had recently been introduced to the nasty-coloured vinyl flooring.


I may have mentioned that one of my fellow moonlighters was a fairly senior office-type, and rumour had it that cleaning was part of a crazy spin cycle that involved “Weight Loss -> exercise -> strenuous second job -> lack of energy -> lines of speed -> helped with listlessness AND weight loss -> cost a lot -> made second job a necessity” or something similar. What I failed to report was that she was a pain in the arse by day or night, could talk the legs off a fire-station pool-table, and was To Be Avoided…


In those unreconstructed days of yore, Ye Olde Pinups were rife. Many of the workplaces in this particular area had been blokes-only since the place was built, and were decorated accordingly.
I remember the storeman in another establishment, a small, red-eyed and grog-raddled creature who revelled in the nickname of Ewok.
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/ewok2.jpg (http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/ewok2.jpg)
He was instructed that the arrival of female personnel meant that his Very Large And Indubitably Explicit Pinup (It was the Oz Penthouse one featuring an actress named Cheryl, for those of palaeopornographical bent) was no longer acceptable for display on the stores reception area wall, and that he should cover the offensive material.


Ewok complied. I did mention that it was a Very Large pinup, did I not? Two regular-size Band-Aid strips, running vertically, placed side-by-side, were added, and he duly reported that no offensive matter was now visible.


But for Ewok being born Gentile, and a few centuries too late, Maimonedes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides) missed a great pupil.
But I digress.


There is a Zen in floor-polishing that almost equals the state one can attain walking behind a lawnmower on a long, straight, flat patch of grass. All the problems and distractions of the day job and daily life were gone, and in their place was the laboured whine of the motor, an ostinato rhythm on which I could improvise. Songs could be written; business ideas could form; stories and jokes could be created, and all the while my screensaver-brain was doing the polishing and earning me a few extra spondoolicks to spend on more Black Boxes and Blinky Lights.
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/divider.gif (http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/divider.gif)
The jabs to the shoulder came as quite a surprise. All the monks in my head leapt from their zafus (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Zafu-soto-zen1024.JPG), and my inner Goffin and King (http://www.history-of-rock.com/carole_king_and_gerry_goffin.htm) wadded another sheet of manuscript, slam-dunking the waste bin.


It was the Speed Queen: she’d been doing wastepaper and spot-cleans in the offices along this corridor.


“There’s something disgusting in here. I’ve got to show you!” she hissed. In the cartoon version of my life story, her head will be surrounded by little stars and some models of Saturn, all spinning erratically…


With no further ado, the crank-addled harridan grabs me by the wrist with a grip I’ve only encountered elsewhere in the company of the phrase “under arrest”, and drags me into the draftsmen’s den.


This is a long room, and one side is all window from waist height upward. There are jumbo venetian blinds to control the light, and these are currently down and angled to shut out the view.


Thanks to the depraved ingenuity of the drafties, unfurling the venetians does far more than exclude the glaring light of day. A couple of years of Playself and similar pub(l)ications have given up their staples for the celebration of Blokes Behaving Badly.
As my lovely assistant Norma Jean will show, what isn’t terribly obvious by day with sunlight outside
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/monroe_venetian2a.thumbnail.JPG (http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/monroe_venetian2a.JPG)
is more readily observed when backlighting is absent.
http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/monroe_venetian1.thumbnail.JPG (http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/monroe_venetian1.JPG)
Moral relativism (http://www.moral-relativism.com/) aside, let’s remember I’m merely a cleaner here. What’s more, I’m a cleaner who’s just been jolted out of a polisher-induced reverie, and subsequently squawked at by this amphetaloon, who is now pointing at the horizontal segments of a collection of undressed lasses, many of whom are also horizontal, and often demonstrably bifurcated low down.


“This is terrible! It’s exploitation and something has to be done! Doesn’t it make you sick?” quoth Ms Yippee-Beans, becoming more and more strident as I waited in vain for a geyser of steam from her earholes.


“You’re right. It’s exploitation and an abuse of power.” As I spoke, her Rabid Indicator dulled to a mere cherry-red.


“These blokes have no defence against this, and look what happens! As Pet Of The Year, she gets thousands of bucks, travel, clothes, cars… I’m scandalised! How dare she use her looks to lead fellas astray like this!”



It worked. I got to finish my polishing uninterrupted.

[davo]

But!! on the subject of nudity, I have no problem, however, I have a problem when someone feels they have to push nudity, if that makes sense. I suppose you have to be there. Nudity is beautiful, however when nudity is made as a statement, it becomes something else, a denial of the beauty, the statement becomes something that is a coercion ..

I love women for instance, but get kinda turned off by the demoralisation of women. Now that's kinda hard to define in itself, and not (however much I have been told, by ladies included) up to the woman in the photo. I have seen stuff with women agreeing and fully participating with what they are doing, however inside me, I might see something they don't wish to project, and see it as demoralising.

Saying that, again .. I love seeing art that is of the naked body. Of course, with men, I feel as tho I am inadvertantly competing, so can understand women feeling the same.

It's a hard question, the concept of pornography/naked monkey love/naked people .. which is a coupling of the way it is projected, and the social attitudes that abound.

Supposedly, as a male, I am supposed to be visual, which I suppose to a certain extent I am, but most all of the women I have been with have been visual too. On the other hand, they have also been highly emotional, and able to differentiate between the two, whereas myself, someone being visual to me, brings on the connetations of emotional response. I see it as an emotional thing (she was able to open herself to me etc etc etc)

weird stuff ... considering I have met quite a few women more 'agressive' for want of a term over sexuality than many of the men I know, I think a lot of it has to do with women not feeling as tho they are as restricted socially than men, in expressing their feelings. A woman can 'socially hug another woman for comfort', whereas a man doing the same is seen somehow as being wrong, or at least 'suspect'.

These boundaries confuse me a lot, many of my friends etc I hug, etc, but the more I am out of the particular social group I was in, the more I consider my interactions with other males. I never used to do this, I mean, I've always been sure of my sexuality, and it's never been an issue anyway. However the more I have involved myself in mainstream social situations, the more I have become aware of myself possibly been seen as affeminate in certain ways (again here I go, defining what I mean by that.) I have always been totally open with my innermost feelings and never had the problem of people prejudging sexuality, and therefore their interactions with you, based on it. I could cuddle with a mate pissed at a party, and none of the girls or guys could care, it was a great emotional support, but nothing more. Try that now where I am hanging out with shearers, and it's something totally different. HOWEVER, there are still many that are comfortable in their own sexuality that it doesn't mean anything to them either. Be it shearer or not.

Weird.

Where am I going with this? not sure, however I think as males, there is a lot to be said for opening up emotionally to others, hugging and caring for your mates.

So, full circle from nudists to this, and back now to nudists. Would I hug another male while naked? hmm no .... but I wouldn't mind seeing two females do the same .. weird huh.

Social conformity? learning? religious conformity or teaching? .. I lean to the idea that religion has taught us to be afraid of each other. It makes us think we are somehow crossing boundaries that aren't there, and even the most atheistic of ourselves, or the more 'enlightened' are still subject to this, definitively us males.

[davo]

since you posted the last piece before I could read it, and post my last piece ....

.. I have no problem with admiring the human body, for either sex, I think however as mentioned, there are social issues that make things social issues.

I'm learning that a lot. and kinda think it sad :|

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

As far as being on the naked end of the taboo... yeah, I can identify with being objectified a bit.

Many moons ago, when Joh still walked the earth and nudity was waaaaay forbidden in newsagents here in the land of Cane Toads, there was a nude beach.

It was not a legal nude beach. Granite Bay, in the Noosa National Park, just was. Because of the reasonable distance from car parking, and because (I suppose) there was usually a crowd of people there, it appeared there was no problem with creeps.

One of my mates was on holidays with a week overlapping mine, and he suggested we head up the coast for a week. Well, you couldn't hear about Granite Bay and not go there... so off we went.

The most beautiful sight of the trip wasn't any chicky without her swimming gear: it was the clifftop view, on the walk to the bay, of waves breaking in a deep, glassy (and probably hard to reach by foot) bay, and more than twenty dolphins surfing as the waves started breaking.

When we got to the beach, there were literally hundreds of people there, with a couple of all-comers games of beach cricket goings, and, man, it was like Woodstock without mud... complete strangers offering us a cold drink from an Esky, it was like a bloody great family picnic.

The only real jarring note I saw was Mrs Grumpy in her black one-piece, keeping her arms crossed and her frown fixed as her hubby and kids were part of a mass sand-castle dig.

We swam, body-surfed (looking out for the dirty great rocks just under the water - it is GRANITE Bay for a reason) and eventually went to sun ourselves on some of the rocky shelves just up the beach. We were lying there chatting to a big English bloke, when about three busloads of Japanese tourists arrived, following their three banners along the track from the parking zone.

Suddenly the arrival of these clothed gawkers seemed to change the perception. I felt like I was being observed as part of a seal rookery, or something less than people anyway.

It mustn't have been only my perception either. I hadn't spoken, but the big Pommie said. "The first one of them takes a photo of me, he's going straight in the drink!"

(Fortunately, they left fairly quickly.)

By the way, everything peels. Never laugh at a nudist with a dob of zinc cream on his....

[davo]

lol see I would still be embarrassed whether the tourists were there or not :) conditioning is weird huh, for some people it's not a big thing, for others it is.

One time I went skinny dipping with some girls at bondi, late at night in the fenced off sea swimming pool. I was so self conscious!! :)

But other times I have been at confests etc in the good old years, mucking about starkers, rolling in mud etc .. (but then again, the chemicals could have helped)

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

lol see I would still be embarrassed whether the tourists were there or not :) conditioning is weird huh, for some people it's not a big thing, for others it is.

One time I went skinny dipping with some girls at bondi, late at night in the fenced off sea swimming pool. I was so self conscious!! :)

But other times I have been at confests etc in the good old years, mucking about starkers, rolling in mud etc .. (but then again, the chemicals could have helped)

It's all a contextual thing, I guess. The perceived attitude of the tourists peeved me, not having my tackle and none-too-shapely tum on display for all the other naked peoples.

Mind you, I didn't own pyjamas till I went to boarding school.