* New Book Project *   Naked and Active   * Photo Request *

The images here are from advertisements of various kinds. Some are politically motivated, others are simply after your money. All of them use nudity to get your attention, and most of the images are of course female , (which may be no bad thing in itself). However, at the time of writing, in the year 2005, it is clear that naked female bodies are acceptable to entice the public to buy something, like an Elave - Nothing to Hide product, or a subscription, and at the same time, male nudity appears to be generally unacceptable in a public context. This is clearly sexist and therefore, one might assume, illegal, or is this yet one more morally justifiable exception, perpetuated by the ever-present apparently moralistic yet capitalist corner?

Ah well, enough of all the strident stuff. Here are the images, some are sweet, some are sexy or bold, some are gruesome. Most are, I hope at the very least, interesting. In fact some are downright excellent. Gathering them together here, allows us to see some of the publicly acceptable face of nudity, if only via the implicitly authorised medium of the media itself - enjoy!

     

© Wired Magazine

© Gladiator Cycles

© United Colors of Benetton

     

© Vodafone UK

© Nike

© Vulva Original

     

© Velvet

© Velvet

© Easy Jet

     

© Brill

© Blue Fly

© No Stuff

   

© Yves Saint Laurent

© Scholl

Please don't take me wrong here, I like female nudity just as much as the next man, possibly more actually, and I think the nude-in-public site refered to above is actually quite fun, albeit somewhat naively one-sided. But either we have a true ban on all nudity: compulsory blindfolds in the shower and bathroom, total covering of people at the beach and swimming pool with potatosack-like costumes to the wrists and ankles as in the Victorian age, and hats, etc. or we need to accept that nudity is ok for everybody, young and old, thin and thick. Not compulsory perhaps but at the very least acceptable, in public as well as in private, no more and no less, and then let it go at that. This is not really a very complicated issue, it is just made out to be so.