Hi, newbie here curious about people's opinions/experiences of nude protest. I took part in a PETA demo in central London in May, protesting against the slaughter of Canadian bears to provide ceremonial headgear for Her Majesty's guards. It was surreal and yes, empowering to go naked in the centre of London, but I wonder how much impact it really had. Press coverage of the event was limited to the inside pages of a couple of tabloids, and there's no sign of any change in the use of real bear fur for the Guards' caps. Has naked protest lost the power to shock?
Thanks to TV, movies and advertising, nudity has lost most of its shock value, period. If you want to be effective you'll have to think of something new instead of doing what has already been done.
I'd turn the question round and ask why we should tolerate any animals being slaughtered for no reason? It takes the entire skin of a bear to provide one of those outsize hats for HM's guards. I can't help being reminded of the primitive belief that a warrior acquires the strength of a great beast by wearing its skin - the Guard's red tunic evokes the blood that would have streamed over his torso. Surely we're past such superstitions in the 21st century?
Back in Lady Godiva's day, public nudity was not only shocking, it was shameful. By stripping off her clothes, Lady G. was also shedding her aristocratic dignity, and all the social privileges that came with it. That renunciation was a courageous act, and a show of solidarity with society's downtrodden. Appreciating the symbolic content of her act, the churls of Coventry rallied to support her cause. Things have changed since then. Not only is public nudity too common to shock anyone, it's also well known to be fun. Protestors who strip down aren't sacrificing anything; on the contrary, they're having a blast. Onlookers aren't likely to think anything but "What lucky bastards -- getting to walk around naked!" or "What a dumb bunch of attention whores."
