Steve Gouch update - he's out

[Greenbare Woods]

Good article.  As he points out British Naturist organizations have studiously avoided public advocacy of support for public naturism all these years.   Factory naked farms generally oppose public tolerance of nudity.  If people could just go naked we wouldn't need nude farms.  They would have to compete with other resorts for travel and vacation business.

Its time, folks.  We all must start complaining to our elected representative and demonstrating support in public.  If nudists are not willing to speak out in favor of free range naturism then we are all subject to similar punishment. 

[eyesup]

I think it  is no issue, it is just a stupid power play!

As jaydee observes, this has crossed over into the absurd.

I have issues with Mr. Gough that have nothing to do with his naked rambling.
Based on what I read here from those living in the UK, he isn't breaking the law. The Law appears to be trying to break him.

Leave him be.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

I think it  is no issue, it is just a stupid power play!

As jaydee observes, this has crossed over into the absurd.

Based on what I read here from those living in the UK, he isn't breaking the law. The Law appears to be trying to break him.

Leave him be.

Duane

I think that absurd slipped out of the accurate applicable descriptive long ago. We are now into cruel, inhuman, draconian. Come on, this has been nearly indefinite solitary confinement. He is doing Coolhand Luke, The Longest Yard, and Papillion time. He has shown the authorities to be just as sick, maladjusted and reprehensible as they actually are. He has stripped the system of its dignity. He is not the criminal doing harm, it is the medieval people who do these things to him that are the criminals. It is disgustingly immoral. You can't justify torturing a dog to train it like they are doing to train him. Would you put a dog in a solitary box for ten years to make it wear pants? He can't back out now. He would loose his whole life of sacrifice for nothing.

Like the fore mentioned movies, people rally, are inspired and admire the characters for their fortitude and defiance against injustice for merely the sake of freedom. But here, Gough gets very little of that. You have pigs making up laws, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." They are out to break him, make him an example, and suppress us all in a fundamental way. No matter what they say. No matter if there is no whip, "My name is Kunta Kinte." They leave him no choice. This isn't just about injustice for body freedom, it's about accepting outrageous illegitimate rule. This is what would happen in the Kingdom of Saudi, where they behead people for free speech and still want to cut off hands. They would throw him in a dungeon until he changed.

He has done no harm. If you accept that he alarmed an ignorant mother, he still has paid and been harmed infinitely more than 1000 ignorant mothers. What about his kids? Have they suffered without a dad? Perhaps, but he didn't choose to leave them, he was taken away from them. He has done nothing to warrant anything close to the abuse these creeps have done to him. He hasn't actually broken an explicit law to date and he has gotten this. It is beyond reason. The law hasn't just been an embarrassment to all of decent Britain, it's repulsive.

Here, they would lie and label him a sexual predator as an excuse. It is time to write some letters, organize, and write as an organization. Demonstrate. Educate. Bring it up in public election discourse. If you kidnap the judge and lock him in your basement for an undetermined couple of months telling him to get naked, or else, would that really be that different from these criminals? There are very sick people out there that shouldn't be running things.
Rant, rant rant....
Jbee

[reubenT]

you know how people so easily let their ego and emotion take control.    Those supposed to be administering the laws are not immune.   They meet someone who they can't intimidate,  can't control,  he won't do what they tell him to,  and so they lock him up,  even though his "crime"  is not a crime at all.    The best solution is public protest.   But here we have a problem.   Not enough people willing to take up an issue of someone else and make it their own,  especially when it's that embarrassing topic of nakedness.  The issue between Steve and the authorities reminds me of childish squabbles,  just a  grown up version of it.

[nuduke]

like your literary references in last post, jbee!!
John

[Davie]

It is unfortunate that some magistrates are narrow minded. There is the story of a magistrate sentencing someone who then let off a stream of oaths. A magistrate to one side of the chairmen voiced her opinion that he should also be dealt with for contempt of court. The chair a wise old bird suggested that they should take it on the chin as the prisoner got his anger out and would now be a calmer person to deal with and the type of reaction they'd heard just went with the job. Some magistrates are wise, I've met quite a few, but it seems a number of naturists have indeed come in front of the other type!

Davie 

[nudewalker]

The last case around here that involved anything near a naturism slant was thrown out of court after the it was determined the only way the gentleman in question could be seen naked would have meant a trespass by the children's mother who brought charges. I could assume that either there are few nudists around here or they are very good at hiding. Everyone has heard the stories of heavy hand judges and magistrates but I have no experience to go by if anyone was charged with anything like indecent exposure.

It seems to have become more of an ego thing as it applies to Stephen. Although he poses no threat, means no harm and has become a burden to the penal system the judicial system refuses to admit it made a mistake. All I can add is that there is a fear that in letting this pass more civil disobedience will arise and upset the apple cart so to speak? Perhaps the lunatics are running the asylum?

[Peter S]

As many here can testify from experience, and Steve found on many occasions, appearing naked in front of others is rarely an issue - a TV documentary on Steve's Land's End to John O'Groats walk featured several instances of people lining up to have their picture taken with him, and his using shops and pubs and receiving only smiles and cheers in response. We've also recorded (I think lost on "the old site") instances of someone in authority taking it on themselves to prosecute a naturist on behalf of "offended" others, unidentified and unknown - in other words, making it up. I think Steve's big mistake that led to his latest problems was to appear naked close to a school, and of course no one can let that go unpunished, the poor little children (who, if they had seen him, would have just laughed their heads off!!)

In other words, most real people have no problem with nakedness, it's only a few with an overdeveloped sense of their own importance who cause us problems.

peter

[Davie]

One of the problems we have is people being victims on other people's behalf.

I can easily see a situation were a elderly person sees a naked person, tells her daughter who then complains although our elderly Mum was not fazed at all having had a wonderful time naked in her younger days

Davie 

[Greenbare Woods]

I think Steve's big mistake that led to his latest problems was to appear naked close to a school, and of course no one can let that go unpunished, the poor little children (who, if they had seen him, would have just laughed their heads off!!)
peter

The students these days are all busy sending nude photos of themselves to each other.   Seeing an old naked man would just cause them to laugh.  No child has ever been hurt by the sight of another member of his or her own species.   Children are a convenient excuse for up-tight control freaks who can't allow freedom.

Bob

[John P]

The facts aren't quite right there. Steve Gough was on his march south after his release in Scotland, and he passed by a school in Oxfordshire just as the children were getting out for the day, in view of plenty of parents. He was arrested and charged with "outraging public decency"; he wasn't granted bail, so he spent two months in jail and then the charges were dropped. (I thought at the time that the charge was some piece of medieval law that hasn't been heard of since 1850, but not so--apparently it's used hundreds of times a year, though it was undoubtedly misapplied to Steve Gough.) But this happened over Christmas 2012, so you can't say that it "led to his latest problems" except if you see it as adding to his notorious reputation.

Steve Gough's friends and supporters have a Facebook site, which you can find if you look for "Free the Naked Rambler Stephen Gough". That's assuming you're willing to deal with Facebook.

[jbeegoode]

The facxebook page hasn't been active since 2013 apparently. I did get this out of it. "Public reaction to Gough, in the flesh, is overwhelmingly positive. He is stopped all the time for handshakes and photographs. Few understand that he regards himself as a martyr for personal freedom, or that he sees public nakedness as a vocation. Rather, he benefits from a British taste for eccentricity and sauciness. Walking near Penicuik, Gough passed a village hall where a bake sale was being held, and nodded to the middle-aged ladies who came out to greet him. "I'm just damned disappointed," said one, "that I didn't have my glasses on." It was the same the whole time I spent with him – smiles, waves, honking car horns."

A small minority may object, others just haven't thought it through, or been given real information. There is the the fallacious myth, "What about the children." That's it. It is a social mores, harmless and nothing more. There is no justification for these laws, there is justice in removing the laws and upholding body freedom as a Right, a health issue and also, a spiritual imperative for many. The world upside down.
Jbee

[John P]

I think you must have seen Bernard Boase's pinned post from 2013 and not looked any further. What I see right now directly below that is "Gill James shared Jillian Tigerlily Davis's photo. 7 hrs".

But I have to admit, it's one of those pictures with writing on them, second only to pictures of cats on the scale of uselessness. Oh, it says "It's easy to judge". Well how about that.

The next post is relevant though--dated Nov 8.

[JOhnGw]

The "what about the children" syndrome is actually advocating the exact opposite of the effects of adult nudity on children which is suggested by such meagre evidence as exists.
This indicates that children brought up in societies which have a more relaxed attitude to nudity than the principal anglophone countries have a better self image, a later age of first sexual intercourse and a much lower rate of teenage pregnancy.

[Greenbare Woods]

The "what about the children" syndrome is actually advocating the exact opposite of the effects of adult nudity on children which is suggested by such meagre evidence as exists.

All children are engaged in the process of learning everything they need to know to be normal functional adults. That learning is their full time jobs.  Most of their learning is done by observation, not by listening to lectures.

Children have a fundamental need and right to learn about themselves by observing other members of their own species.  Depriving children of opportunities to learn is abusive to children, so depriving children of opportunities to observe a variety of their own species is abusive. 

Bob