Naked party

A naked or nude party is a party where the participants are required to be nude. The parties have become associated with college campuses and with college-age people and have gained prominence in recent years, particularly after naked parties were organized at Brown and Yale.^[1]

Attendees of a naked party often report that they stop feeling awkward after just a few minutes, since everyone disrobed before entering the party, and since everyone's nudity was accepted, regardless of body type.^[2] According to reports, most naked college parties are sex free.^[3] At Brown University, the nakedness is "more of an experiment in social interaction than a sexual experience."^[4]

History

While the roots of naked parties come from the nudism movements and campus streaking, the modern "naked party" movement appears to have its roots at Brown University in the 1980s.^[4] The student group The Pundits are anecdotally credited to reviving this on a wider scale at Yale University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wesleyan University, and Columbia University have been known to have student groups host them as well.

Naked parties have been noted as rather polite events, where sexuality and sexual overtones are often frowned upon. Even with these unwritten rules in place, there have been problems with alleged sexual assault. With this noted, even some more notable names, such as Barbara Bush, George W. Bush's daughter, have been linked to parties at Yale.^[5]

Controversy

The spread of naked parties has sparked international controversy. Some students do not like the idea of their school being associated with them, and these concerns have been discussed in different works of literature, such as Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, and Natalie Krinsky, who turned her on-campus sex and relationship column into a novel, Chloe Does Yale, where the main character remarks that "Yalies shouldn't be naked. That's what the University of Miami is for. We are smart. Smart people are not attractive people."^[6]

Religious groups have attempted to have the parties banned in some municipalities,^[7] and an oft-cited column appeared in Christianity Today called "What to Say at a Naked Party," which cited concerns about sexual assault and objective morality.^[8]

See also

Nudity portal

• Toga party

References

1. ^ Gershman, Jacob (2005-11-22). "At Columbia, an Invitation to a Night of Nakedness". New York Sun. http://www.nysun.com/article/23347. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
2. ^ Abbruzzese, Kelsey (2006-12-01). "Naked parties: an expose". The Bowdoin Orient College Paper (Brunswick, Maine). http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?section=3&date=2006-12-01&id=5. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
3. ^ Russell, Angela (2007-02-13). "Naked College Parties". CBS3 (CBS Broadcasting, Inc.). Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20080822085757/http://cbs3.com/specialreports/College.Party.Naked.2.307373.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Aviv, Rachel (2007-01-07). "Black Tie Optional". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/education/edlife/07nakedparties.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
5. ^ "Ms Bush goes for skin". The Sydney Morning Herald. October 9, 2004. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/08/1097089562671.html. 
6. ^ Elsworth, Catherine (2006-02-03). "Naked parties... very odd, unnatural". Telegraph UK (Telegraph Media Group). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/03/02/ftyale02.xml. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
7. ^ "Call to ban 'naked' party". BBC News. 1 October 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2289466.stm. 
8. ^ Mathewes-Green, Frederica (2005-01-21). "What to Say at a Naked Party". Christianity Today Magazine (Christianity Today International). http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/002/14.48.html. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 

External links

• College Comment: Black Tie Optional by Darrell Hartman, April 2003