That being said, I think my stance is clear. Wear what you want out and be proud of it (as long as you're not naked like someone else here mentioned).
I wonder about public nudity. My stance on it is still formative at this point, but at the moment, I'm not entirely sure it should be impermissible. I'll collapse some thoughts with tags, since it's slightly tangential to the thread topic.
[collapse=On Public Nudity]
All (or most, I suppose) people have heads and arms and legs and chests and buttocks and genitals. There should be no shock as to this fact -- and thus, no scandal, at least not on that point alone. The act of witnessing a breast or a penis or a vagina in itself has no potential to harm or endanger anyone (unless whatever psychological hang-ups you happen to have cause you to go into mouth-foaming shock at the merest glimpses of such things).
I'd surmise that much of the opposition to public nudity comes from sexualization. Or perhaps, to reveal parts of the body usually held to be "sexual" -- the breast, the genitals, the buttocks and pelvis. You don't want to show these off in public to strangers, lest...
...Well, lest what? That passersby might sexualize you or those parts, or view those parts under a sexual lens? There isn't much one can do about finding people attractive or unattractive, as this is a reactionary response. However, those aforementioned parts need not be viewed as strictly sexual things. A penis can be viewed as a dongful of manmeat, but it can also simply be a urinary appendage. A pair of buttocks can be seen as tight piece of ass, but they can also just be a pair of gluteal muscles.
By walking out in the nude, you necessarily invite the risk of such sexual appraisal. Some may simply look your way, but others might leer or ogle. If, for whatever reason, such a potentiality bothers you or makes you uncomfortable, then you should reconsider going out nude in public. You can't blame people for unconscious, biological responses such as deeming a given public nudist or other as being attractive. You
could take issue with a person who sexualizes everyone they see, or sees a certain sex or group purely as sexual objects, but that's a different issue and a different discussion.
If the concern for public nudity is the potential risk in predators, harassment, molestations, or any other violations of personal space or autonomy, then the fault clearly lies with the transgressor, and not the public nudist. Any conceivable sex-gender combination should be able to walk around naked without any transgressors groping or fondling them or whatever else without their consent. You can Look, if only because a nudist is necessarily naked, but you can't Touch (unless they give express invitation).
As for the relationship between children, sex, and nudity, this seems to be more about social mores than anything else. Should we be exposing prepubescent children to nude adults (or other children) walking around streets or in parks or at the mall? If not, why not? Is it to prevent the exposure to sexuality, or sights of sexual organs, at such a young age? Well, if we're consistently teaching that ta-tas and bum-bums and weewees and froofroos are strictly sexual things, and are private, and shouldn't be shown off, and that they're "too young" to be seeing such things, then naturally, there might be a problem for the child (since you're teaching them that nudity is "wrong").
What if children were taught that everyone has a body? That everyone has parts? That these "private parts" are just parts, pure and simple? Just because a person, child or otherwise, witnesses a wang, doesn't mean that their minds will suddenly be corrupted by pornographic images and thoughts. And if a child asks questions -- a daughter, for instance, asking their mother why all the boys have little tails -- then as a parent, you could tersely mutter to look away and lament for their innocence when they don't, or you could answer or address the question in a mature, honest way in terms they as children could understand. You could also teach them such values as the importance of personal space and autonomy, and discourage going up to people and groping them (just as we presently tend to discourage the groping of clothed people). To instill the idea that people can choose to wear as little or as much as they wish, and that the nudist deserves no less respect than the person wearing Abercrombie & Fitch than person wearing a turban than the person stuffed in a winter coat and snow pants at the beach in July.
None of this is advocacy for pedophilia, ****, or any other manner of sexual predation or pathology, on children or otherwise. The fact that there are people who exhibit such pathologies can't be helped. A pedophile, for instance, can't help being a pedophile. In a scenario where you have some people going nude in public spaces, including prepubescent children, there's not much you can do if a pedophile is discreetly observing from a distance. The issue would come if the transgressor tries to touch/abduct/molest/grope/etc. young people who are in public spaces, at which point we're seeing clear legal and personal violations, and so legal and social reprimand should ensue.
Perhaps one might propose that people being nude in the open might increase the risk and prevalence of sexual crimes in public areas (harassment, abductions, molestations, etc.), but it's not like clothes or the lack thereof has stopped such predators and transgressors in the past -- certainly not in our present society where public nudity is disavowed -- so this doesn't appear to be a strong point in opposition to permissible public nudity.
Thus far, we can infer that a world where public nudity exists would, ideally, not be dissimilar from where it's socially maligned. If you work for a company, or enter a privately-owned space, then you must meet the standards of dress for that place, as set by the owner. If you, as a nudist, step foot in a
No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service environment, it's the prerogative of the establishment to extend or deny you service. If you work for a company in which nudity is disallowed during work hours, then you can't do much about it. And so on.
If a nudist gets harassed or groped or whatever in the streets or on the bus or in the subway or in public washrooms, it's still reprehensible behaviour -- since these acts are violations
whether you are clothed or not. People having sex in public spaces, or engaging in lewd conduct (public masturbation, egregious flashing or flaunting of your bits, etc.) would still be discouraged acts (and in many jurisdictions, such acts carry legal repercussions). The presence or lack of clothing won't deter criminals from committing crimes, sexual or otherwise. Children wouldn't be forevermore tainted or corrupted by realizing and witnessing that people have bodies that have certain parts, and that some sexes have different sets of bits than others. They wouldn't even be scarred or traumatized for life if they were aware that sexual organs are used for sex, which is the mechanism for reproduction (though a five year-old, for instance, may not be mentally sophisticated enough to understand the full extent of how it all works)***.
The only thing that would be different in a world where public nudity is permissible is that, in public spaces, some people, whatever the age or race or sex or gender, would choose to enter those spaces with little to no clothing, for whatever reason(s) they might have. The only real opposition to public nudity that exists seems to be social mores (which change and can be changed over time), concerns of sexualization (which appear to be baseless), concerns of sexual predation (which happens either way, and is a separate issue from public nudity), and a Save the Children! mentality (which may be an invalid concern, depending on the actual relationship between children, nudity, and sex).
So, after this assessment, it would seem that there's no real reason for public nudity to be impermissible in public areas and spaces. In the Western World, public nudity is mostly disavowed. Will this ever change? Potentially. But opposition to the concept doesn't appear to be rational, as it presents no evident harms or dangers to society. So ideally, societies will eventually progress to a point where public nudity is permissible, if people do want to engage in public nudity.
***This is all cause-and-effect musing on my part. At a glance there doesn't seem to be a connection between having a prepubescent mind, and becoming psychologically compromised the moment said minds become aware of how babies are actually made. If there exists data on how children exposed to sexual ideas and topics at a younger age negatively impacts how well they function as adults (or even as post-pubescent individuals), then I'd invite you to direct me to this data through links and sources.
[/collapse]
That ended up being pretty long. Geez.
I guess that these are my view on public nudity, said as one who has never been nude in public, and doesn't have the inclination to ever engage in public nudity as a consistent fashion choice.
It also seems that my view of public nudity is basically similar to crossdressing:
-There is no innate danger -- physical, psychological, or social -- in witnessing people who crossdress or are nude;
-The fault always lies in those who transgress against other people, and simply crossdressing or being nude is in no way an invitation for trangressions against one's personal autonomy;
-Sexual predators and people with criminal pathologies will target those they target regardless of how the target is clothed (or not clothed at all), and the permissibility or non-permissibility of public crossdressing and/or nudity won't change that;
-If children who witness crossdressers or nudist are psychologically scarred for life, or are later unable to properly function as adults and citizens, then the fault lies in how they were raised to view gender roles and nudity, and/or the result of social mores and values instilled into them from a young age onward (through media, culture, role models, and so on);
-The erosion or dissolution of a given set of gender norms and/or roles doesn't matter in the scheme of things. We should place value in trying to be good people (as per the agreed definition of "good"), more so than trying to adhere to a set of otherwise-arbitrary rules, norms, and expected behaviours.
So yeah. Party on, crossdressers and nudists (and clothed people and everyone who isn't a jerk and/or actually dangerous).