American Association For Nude Recreation

There is a piece of problem legislation in Ohio. AANR and AANR Midwest are working closely with NAC to monitor Ohio SB245. For information on SB245 and details on how you can help if you are an Ohio resident, read the NAC alert.

Nude Parties Emphasize Diversity

The Bowdoin Orient, the newspaper of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, reports on a new trend there--naked parties. The annual tradition began in 2004 as a novelty idea that was attended by only 12 people. Now more than 80 people attend each year. Although the parties started as a curiosity, attendees now agree that the nakedness is not awkward as it might have been the first time around.

This year's party, held in November, required everyone to strip down before entering. A "disrobing room" outside the party made it easier for everyone to keep to the "no nudity, no entry" motto without freezing in the cold Maine weather. Because there is an acceptance of everyone's nakedness regardless of body type, diversity is embraced. Vanessa Lind, one of the party's founders, has done interviews about the growing trend in naked parties with Canadian nudist magazineAu Naturel and The Daily Free Press, Boston University's independent student newspaper. Read more at Naked Parties.

State, Beer Distributor Butt Heads

In other Maine news, the Maine Civil Liberties Union (MCLU) has sued the state's Bureau of Liquor over the agency's refusal to let a distributor sell three imported brews because their labels were deemed "undignified and improper," reports the Bangor Daily News. One label features Santa's (clothed) butt while the other two feature artwork that includes women with their breasts exposed. The MCLU feels the issue raises First Amendment concerns because "the illustrations have expressive value distinct from the beer they advertise." All three labels were approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which forbids labels to contain any statemnt that is obscene or indecent.

The Santa label was intended as a humorous pun. It shows Santa from behind looking over his shoulder holding a pint of beer in one hand and a Christmas list in the other while sitting on a barrel, which appears to hold about 126 gallons or a "butt" of beer. One of the other two labels features a bare-breasted woman holding the French revolutionary flag in one hand and a rifle in the other, and is a replica's of Eugene Delacroix's famous 1830 oil painting,Liberty Leading the People. The painting from which the label was taken, used to illustrate the blond French ale, has been hanging in the Louvre for over 100 years. The artwork on the third label of a Belgian beer is from a watercolor by Raymond Coumans, a renowned Belgian artist, and depicts a King of Flanders who is strongly associated with beer and brewing with a nude female.

The MCLU is asking the federal court to overrule the agency so the beer can be sold during the holiday season. Read more at Butting Heads.

NAC Campaigns For Nude Beaches

Here's a campaign we can really get behind: during the recent elections, The Naturist Action Committee found a novel way to draw attention to their Nude Beaches YES campaign. According to N magazine, holding red, white, and blue signs NAC members hit the trail to further their cause to affirm the skinny-dipper call for more clothing-optional beaches.

NAC board member Mark Storey and Body Freedom co-director Daniel Johnson came up with the idea to design signs that look similar to the campaign signs seen before an election. Signs were shipped to NAC Area Reps who held them up (clothed) at busy intersections alongside political campaigners.

Nude Calendar Protests...Potholes?

Residents of Leader, Saskatchewan, were so fed up with the state of their main road that they decided to draw attention to their plight by creating a nude calendar that shows them posing nude in the potholes, according to MSNBC.com. The town of Leader, a farming area with 1,000 residents, says it cannot afford to fix the roads. But these aren't just ordinary potholes: some are many feet across and up to a foot deep. One resident is shown sitting in a canoe that is perched in a pothole. Read more at Pothole Protest .