Do People Have the Right To Offend Others With Their Nudity?

Actually, I wondering about the general right to offend. But this thread is mainly about nudity.

I know in the past, people have made the argument that people have a right to not be offended by having to look at people who are or look different than them. Some people are genuinely offended, and upset, by this. But we all know that's a horrible argument.

But some people think they have a right to walk around naked, basically offend others with their nudity. And I am not sure there's a clear answer to this moral question.

I mean people say that you shouldn't expose people, children in particular, to sexually explicit material. And some parents just don't want their children exposed to that, or to other people's nudity. So parental rights may be important here.

Plus speaking of the right to offend in general. In Europe they have hate speech and holocaust denial laws. We consider that protected free speech here.

So what about nudity?

 

I think nudity and sex are two different things. There's nothing sexually explicit about someone streaking or just being naked like the famous John and Yoko photo.

 

- Nudity: you can see nude humans (parts), including nude genitals, without sexual intentions.
- Sexuality: partial or total representation of humans engaged in sexual activity
- Porn: specific representation of sexual parts or sexual actions of human bodies intending to arouse your level of sexual excitement.

 

There is nothing wrong with the nude body, unless you were brought up, being told there was. Puberty is when things start changing.

 

I think this thread raises a few interesting points, firstly nudity in general, now i read an article recently where several people had been arrested for taking nude pictures of them selves by some trees which were considered by the native people to have some religious and spiritual importance. they clearly took offence at the naked poses, which were illegal in that particular country and the offenders were arrested, and in my opinion quite rightly so.
Now while I have no problem with nudity per se, I do have a problem with where it takes place a lot of the time, there are nudist camps and nudist beaches and thats all well and good, but there are times when people decide to get nude in 'public' areas and that in my opinion is wrong. I remember being on a public beach once and walking thru the sand dunes, something i like to do, all of a sudden i came across a couple and the female was sunbathing topless, I was made to feel like a pervert for stumbling across them in the dunes, almost like i had no right to be there. This brings us back again to respect, and sadly there's not much of that left anymore,
its like when you see women on holiday in muslim countries and they wander around in bikinis and skimpy dresses yet the local culture doesnt allow this, its so offensive not to respect the culture, when in rome and all that.
but then again i also think its wrong when we have people from other countries settling in a country with a different culture and trying to make it like their own country, look at the uk for instancem we're a Christian country yet for some reason we are being bombarded by muslims wanting to live here and wanting a mosque on every corner! Imagine going to a muslim country and demanding a load of christian churches, i dont think you'd get very far.
However the biggest thing that offends me with regards to being offended is the people who think they have the right to be offended on your behalf, the number of times someone i know will say something to me as a joke, and i know its a joke, any you get someone saying 'oh how dare he say that to you, its not acceptable' . Well if truth be known i find there interference far more offensive than a jocular comment made by a close friend.
i think its all too easy to offend people these days, but then again there are far too many people out there just waiting for a chance to be offended, you only have to look at the comments made when they show a film or comedy show from the 1970's and you get loads of people phoning the tv station complaining, why? I mean times have moved on and a lot of what went on back then doesnt happen any more and we know it doesnt, so why get all upset when it gets broadcast again. I mean, we had the holocaust, millions of Jews were hunted down and killed by the Nazi's. now the Nazi's were German people as we all know, and the persecution of the Jews was one of the major reasons for the second world war, yet when they show a movie or a documentary about what went on, we dont all go and start a war with Germany again do we? No because its past tense, all we can do is make sure it never happens again, its the same with stuff that was portrayed in programmes from the 70's, a lot of it was wrong, and thankfully things have changed over time, but lets just remember it, not get all upset,offended and start screaming about it.

 

Part of the issue here is there are laws prohibiting nudity. The laws essentially imo represent what people can reasonably expect when they’re out and about. It’s what is socially acceptable. Right or wrong. Once we have this agreed upon standard, deviation from it will reasonably be responded to with offense. That’s not whining imo. There’s lots of good reasons for nudity to be more accepted, I’d be in favor of that. But at the moment it’s not and that should be respected.

 

So-called "rights" are malleable. Whether you have them - or one in particular - depends on whether there's anyone or anything that can and will prevent you from exercising that "right".

This can differ greatly from one area to another, one culture to another, one person to another.

So, the answer is - yes, you have the "right" to offend others with your nudity if you can get away with it - and right up until someone puts a stop to it.

If you're beaten to death for doing it, did you really have a "right"?

 

You have the right to offend people, that’s not really the question. Public nudity is generally illegal aside from certain places. So, no you don’t have that right. That doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to offend people though. You just don’t have the right to do it any way you want

 

Should you have the right is a real question. Do you have the right is a straight no.

 

You make a lot of sense, i like you, i remember seeing a sign somewhere a while ago in a shop or bar it was

' You have the right to be as offensive as you like, but please remember others have the right to be offended, this may result in you getting a smack in the mouth'

I often wondered about that one, did any offended person ever smack the offender in the mouth?

 

lol not to be nit picky but there is no right to offend people. You have free speech rights, which generally ensure your right to be an ass hole. You are also not protected from consequences. It’s true the government can’t arrest you for being an ass hole, but you can be fired, you can be banned from online groups, you can be kicked out of bars, etc. None of that violates your free speech or rights to offend

 

We do not say offend to this, but indecent behavior (scandalization). There's an amusing story about that. The situation triggers an excitement on one person. This means that she feels something at the sight of a naked person. If no differentiation is made between sexual and non-sexual excitement, it is similar to sexual excitement. So in this idea, it's similar to a sexual excitement. Now imagine that the person who is excited by the sight of a naked person gets a wet vagina or a hard penis instead of bad toughts. Now the naked person can say: I don't want you to get excited on me! So she can say that whenever another person accuses her of exciting them in the situation of a indecent behavior (scandalization). (is that understood?)

 

Anything can be construed as offensive to someone. People should have the right to "offend" someone - after all, any disagreement with someone else could be interpreted as offensive to some belief or notion they hold to be true. A society that doesn't tolerate any form of disagreement is necessarily a regressive, autocratic society.

The more interesting question would be, what exactly does it take for us, a society as a whole, to declare that some offense has "gone too far" and, as such, warrants to be prohibited. Whether something is or isn't considered a crime or misdemeanour is a reflection of the values a particular culture holds true. What values should our society seek to protect - personal, political, religious - and to what extent are we willing to protect them? What punishment should be levied against such offenders as to discourage them? And should we seek to protect some forms of offense as free speech, and not as hate speech, even if they are obviously intended to bring offense to a certain person or an entire group?

Nudity is not inherently offensive - and neither is sexuality, for that matter. However, they can easily be used as means of delivering messages that are clearly intended to be obscenely offensive. One such example that I've recently learned about through the Hip forums is that of a female art student who "dressed up as the pope from the waist up and paraded naked from the waist down - her pubic hair shaved in the shape of a cross". There's surely no shortage of further examples of indecent acts intended to represent some form of protest that could very well be protected as free speech - but could also be deemed so offensive that they also represent some form of legally punishable hate speech.

I'd say one doesn't have the right to "not be offended" by something - even if that happens to be a public display of the naked human body - although there's also (at least for now) certainly no such thing as a blanket right to offend anyone and anything just for the sake of it. Nudity, in particular, seems like an act that progressive movements could work to promote as generally inoffensive behavior, even in a public space - at the very least, in such a context that avoids attaching explicitly sexual connotations to it.

 

this is not a question of rights but of cultural norms. the question could be flipped around the other way too.
do people have a right to be offended by seeing what "god and nature" gave their neighbors?

we're not all beautiful to be sure, if anything, humans are somewhat less then the most attractive of living creatures.
almost all, of the primates, with the possible exception of limurs, are less aesthetic looking then nearly of felids, canids, and mustalids.

we are all, each offended, by many things in many ways. none of which give any of us a right to harras ANY one. a right that does not exist anyway.
i'm offended by the hatred of logic and by the lack of universal consideration.

 

Phil you make some interesting points and I shall go through each that piqued my interest.
Preamble:
There's a clear distinction between causing offense and a person feeling offended. If I want to offend someone, I shall.
Usually jokingly but, yeh, sometimes I have enjoyed doing so, to trigger a debate where they can learn that what they said was incorrect and/or delusional or just wrong or stupid or offensive in itself.

1. I think that to do something like nudity on a sacred site, of whichever religion, is wrong. Inconsiderate at best; possibly just ignorance and possibly deliberately offensive. All are wrong, imv.

2. Stumbling across toplessness;
I wonder what made you feel like a pervert. Was it their reaction? Was it your own emotion because you felt embarrassed? Or was it something else.
In my opinion; if anyone stumbles upon someone nude/topless in a public place, there's is no need to feel embarrassed. They will have chosen to do so (nudity/toplessness).
If you feel uncomfortable, it's easy to look away, and work out for yourself how you will react of such a situation were to arise in the future. There's nothing wrong with looking at someone nude if they have done so in public.
Don't stare, though.
I know sometimes when we've seen something it can't be 'unseen' and if that sight were (in your opinion, ugly), that;s your issue, not theirs.

3. Respect not being around any more.
I wonder if you may be reading too much online 'news' and social media? I know it can give a distortion to the perception of reality because seldom, in the real world, have I seen such disrespect shown by one to another.
Certainly, whereas almost every item on SM (news aggregators, Twatter et al), seems to be based on disrespect, (not HF lol), nowhere in real life do I see anything like that level of disrespect. In my experience, one is the inverse of the other.

4. There's a tolerance of visitors culture in some countries where that visitor' culture (I don't include drunkenness etc) that breaches their own customs/culture. That's a matter for them.
An example from the 80s is Greece which didn't allow toplessness back then but which didn't enforce that rule if the person was respectful.
Any standing up, whilst 'performing', (eg she squeezing her own boobs, swaying them around, tweaking her nipples ), that would get a response from the local police who were walking along the coastal path; the spine of the beach/rocks.

5. Sorry Phil;

That is absolute rubbish and they do not want a mosque on every corner. I suggest that indicates the type of stuff you're being fed online and it doesn't meet with reality. That's my issue with SM, more than with you Phil.

That's my 2c.

 

what about a sacred site of a belief that holds nudity to be a sacred sacrament?
to deny this possibility is to deny universal consideration. no?
at the very least it is a failure to ask the next question and consider beyond the familiar.

the ritual of dancing sky clad, does come to mind, as it is not uncommonly believed to be of some ancient celtic beliefs.
i claim no expertese on the matter, but i have known a number of people who believe this to be and or have been the case.

there is nothing that has not been considered sacred at some time in some place.
we can each judge for ourselves as to ourselves, but it is not anyone's place to do so for others.

no one KNOWS the will of any god, whatever may be written in any book nor scratched on any stone.
we do not live in a universe that owes anything to our egos, nor what we feel ourselves to be familiar with.

if it did, nothing outside of what we each believe would ever happen to ourselves.
i know of no one who has lived beyond childhood who has not experienced things contrary to their beliefs.

taking offense i believe to be the problem here, and a matter of choice on the part of those doing so.

 

the only right is what you can enforce or litigate, for or against. recently there was a case of a neighbor standing naked in full view on their own property and the court found that he was in the right. Police say it's legal to pose nude in doorway of home this just one case. there are many others. to wit, if your eyes is offended then pluck the motherfucker right out. you cannot control other people's behaviour.

so yes you have the right to offend people with your nudity. at least in some states of the usa. and as for the rest of the world. probably you will get lynched or beheaded

 

How do you arrive that notion? A person was deemed right, to stand nude in their own property.
That means nothing in terms of right to offend.

I think it confirms that people may take offense but that doing so will not change the right of the first one to be naked.

That demonstrates quite a narrow view of the rest of the world.

There's 194 countries in the world outside of the USA. How many permit beheading, lynching or flogging?

 

I remember years ago sitting by a pool in a resort in Cozumel listening to two fat snow-White Americans loudly castigate the waiter over a woman in a distant lounge chair sunbathing topless. I wish the sight of cruelty, exploitation, poverty, and war tweaked some folk's consciences as painfully as the passing glimpse of a woman's nipple.