Re: Naturism

Wizard,

You have my sympathy over this entire situation. You should not have to go through this because you are a wonderful dad and because our society should not have this attitude. As you have all pointed out an open attitude towards our human body is beneficial for your children. By the way SycamoreLaughing, if you still have a copy of the study you did, I would love to get a copy if that is possible and OK with you.

Many of you ask on what grounds would they try an arrest Wizard. I know that it is true that there is no law against public nudity in Federal Land. As that is the case they would try an resort to local regulations agressing, lewd conduct, indecent exposure or even lewd and lacivous acts with a minor, all of which are far fetched and the authorities would likely know that the chances are they could never get them to hold up in court. Most likely scenario is that they arrest the person only to later release them and never file charges. However why should an innocent person be subjected to this harrasment, and this would be enough to get CPS involved and they are on their own agenda. The law requires them to proceed under "reasonable suspition" based on the previous experience of the investigating social worker. As there past experiences are filled with horror stories, and based on the general misconception that associates nudity with sex, the mere nudity is reasonable enough suspition for them and they find the justification to intervene. From then on they will exagerate whatever they need to on their reprorts and the judges in the Juvenile Court will always choose to err on the protecting the children side never mind how disruptive it is on the family.

Ironically the right to bring up your children in the Naturist lifestyle is protected by the 14 Ammendment of the Constitution and on The Naturist Society's legal branch you can find a case where this was upheld by the appeals court in it's considerations. However, the CPS and Juvenile Court has so much power that they are imune to this. To start with all cases are confidential in order to protect the identity of all children involved, but it also protects the unfairness and abuses of the system. In addition the burdon of proof is not "beyond a reasonable doubt" but only "preponderance of evidence" which in most cases they will not even need to prove. It is a system that will consider you guilty until proven inocent (the opposite of the Constitution) and there is no chance of a fair trial. Many lawyers do not even want to deal with it. And due to the confidenciality, and the nightmare that people that go through it suffer, everyone wants to just forget about it, so it continues with its abuse.
Wizard, unfortunatelly you and your wife need to think of your children first and your violated civil rights second. I know that this is hard and unfair but you need to find other ways to deal with this.

One way to change this is to support groups like The Naturist Society and AANR, speak up for your rights when your kids are not in the middle. Educate your friends and family of these issues. Technology has nothing to do with being uptight about your body. The American Society has a more closed attitude about nudity than all the rest of the industrialized world. We should not have to prove that a positive body acceptance attitude is beneficial for the children, the rest of the American Society should have to prove the contrary, and I have not seen one study in the regard. Unfortunatelly, Naturism is something you need to experience in order to break the nudity equals sex equation that we receive from the movies and the media. I find many Naturist that are open to the idea is because they had opportunities to be exposed to non-sexual nudity growing up, and therefore experienced the benefits first hand. Unfortunately, due to the threat of CPS less and less of our children now have this opportunity that just makes the situation worse. This is a catch 22, a vicious circle that needs to be broken, but not at the expense of a good family like Wizard's.

Society uses sex to promote many products and they are not intrested in changing this. There is alot of money in this industry. They don't want to recognize that clothing did not save the little girls that were kidnapped and murdered. As Sycamore points out, a more positive attitude towards our bodies in general probably would reduce this kind of crime in the long run. Lastly, I am a Christian, as many proclaim to be, how can we be ashamed of the body the Lord created for us? Unfortunatelly, we are in the quite minority on this issue. We should become more vocal about these issues.
Wizard try checking out The Naturist Society's web site as well as AANR.