Getting Naked for Peace

Getting naked leaves you vulnerable. Think nudists and thistles. Strippers and stalkers. Streakers running past, dangly parts swishing. Even professional nudists or strippers lay themselves open to criticism and ridicule, not to mention self-doubt, every time they toss their panties and Y-fronts to the wind. All of which gives you an inkling of how much courage and determination it took for 26 adults to take it all off for peace at Bonny Doon Beach in the middle of the worst winter storm this year. Yup, with the ocean raging mere yards away, and rain pissing down at times, 26 brave souls -- not to mention two very loyal dogs -- came together at the edge of the continent, where ocean meets sand, to form an international peace sign with their naked bodies.

Was this extreme act just a cute way of saying "Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth?" Or something much more powerful and desperate? In the past few months, thousands have marched against a war on Iraq, even as President Bush's trigger finger has gotten increasingly itchy. Weapon inspectors have yet to find any conclusive evidence to support claims that Saddam really is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, yet Bush and his hawks talk only in terms of assassination, regime change and first-strike nuclear attacks -- attacks that would, it might be a good time to remind everyone, likely cause millions of deaths and possibly trigger the beginning of the end of life as we know it on Earth.

Yes, clearly, extreme acts are necessary, as our Karmageddon-crazed leaders prepare for war and the rest of us prepare to celebrate the holidays. Christmas and Chanukah and Kwanzaa are here, but peace on Earth is not -- unless people around the world start taking some pretty radical steps. And like generations before them, activists in this newest wave of the peace movement are discovering that adding nudity to their public relations arsenal is one way they can get themselves major media coverage in an otherwise violence-obsessed world.

Santa Cruz is of course no stranger to naked actions. The former home of the Bare Breasted Bandits and the Mud People, this politically charged town was invaded in July by the Areola Rebel Forces, who brandished the Mammary Manifesto as they removed their shirts at a Santa Cruz City Council meeting to protest ordinances that were supposed to target drugs, violence and harassment, but also affected street performers -- and topless women.

"Naked people and artists are not the problem ... Drug addicts rarely shoot up naked ... The only time women go topless is to make political statements," declared one topless ARF member as she addressed a red-faced council, who subsequently decided to hold off enforcing said ordinances until at least January 2003.

That same month, thousands of miles away, hundreds of Nigerian women threatened to disrobe -- a local symbol of shame -- and brought production to a halt at Chevron Texaco pipeline facilities. In the past, actions against Nigerian-based oil and gas companies have taken the form of kidnapping and sabotage, but the women managed to strike a deal with Chevron without resorting to violence, a deal that hopefully will bring jobs and funding for schools and hospitals to their desperately poor region.

And this November, 50 members of the group calling themselves the UnReasonable Women of Marin bared all in Point Reyes Station to spell out "peace," an action that got international attention and inspired the naked peace sign in Santa Cruz, with rumblings of similarly indecent actions in other activist hot spots in the future.

Making Peace with Our Bodies

Can we be frank? Some of us who participated in the naked peace sign you see on the cover had a bit of performance anxiety about our naked appearance prior to the event. If only we'd known, we'd have laid off the doughnuts and started doing sit-ups months ago, some of us complained, while others wished this all could have happened a lot sooner -- and certainly before gravity took its inevitable toll.