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Sunday, October 31, 2021

Halloween

Halloween

Several cities in the U.S. have held naked pumpkin runs on Halloween.  Today's photos are from the run in Boulder, Colorado in 2008.

Participants run through the streets wearing only shoes, socks, and a hollowed-out pumpkin on their head.

150 people participated in the Boulder naked pumpkin run in 2008.

Participants carved their pumpkins in a variety of designs.

The pumpkins above have been shortened a bit, making it easier to see who's inside.

This guy took a minimalist approach to the pumpkin.  However, he was faithful to the naked part of the naked pumpkin run.

Unfortunately, in 2009, the Boulder pumpkin run was squashed by local police, who threatened participants with arrest for indecent exposure and registration as a sex offender.  The run does not seem to have been held in Boulder since then.  However, naked Halloween pumpkin runs have been held in other cities, including Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

Happy Halloween!

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Hippies - Part 2

Bob Fitch

Bob Fitch (1939-2016) was not a hippie.  He was a photographer best known for covering the civil rights movement.  Above, he is perched in a telephone pole at the Mississippi Meredith March Against Fear in 1966.  But he also photographed the hippie movement.  Today's photos of hippies are all by Bob Fitch.

Fitch produced a 1967 photo book called "Hippie is Necessary."  Each photo had a title beginning with "Hippie is."  This one is called "Hippie is a Fillmore Auditorium Celebration."  The location, known as The Fillmore, is a historic auditorium in San Francisco.

Another photo also called "Hippie is a Fillmore Auditorium Celebration."

This is a different hippie celebration of some kind on Mount Tamalpais, just north of San Francisco, in 1969-1970.

This is Morningstar Commune in 1969-1970.  The hippie commune was founded in 1967 by Louis Gottlieb, in the center of the circle, on his ranch in Sonoma County, California.

Following a Time magazine story about the commune, its population swelled to 150, and a neighbor complained about open nudity and sex on the property as well as health hazards (the hippies were peeing in the creek that ran onto the neighbor's property and using the outdoors as a toilet).

The county ordered Gottlieb to disband the commune.  When he didn't, he was held in contempt of court and fined.  In a ploy to avoid the fines, Gottlieb went to the county clerk's office and deeded the property to God.  A judge ruled that God was not proven to be a person, place or thing, and therefore couldn’t take possession.  The county sent in bulldozers to level the hippies' structures, and by 1973 the commune ceased to exist.

When Morningstar Commune started running into trouble, Gottlieb's friend Bill Wheeler offered for the hippies to come to his ranch, which became another Sonoma County hippie commune.  This photo is called "Building a cabin," 1969-1970.  I cropped the photo to show detail.

This photo at the Wheeler's Ranch commune is captioned "David, an inveterate climber, on tree lookout."  But having a lookout couldn't stop Wheeler's Ranch from running into the same legal problems as Morningstar Commune after neighbors complained, and by 1973 it suffered the same fate.

In July 1973 a large group of hippies calling themselves the Rainbow Family of Living Light held a gathering in the Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming.  Bob Fitch photographed the event.  The guys on horseback are local cowboys, who are no doubt wondering what these naked people are doing.  But their initially hostile attitude changed when they found the hippies to be peaceful and friendly.

A hippie at the Rainbow Family gathering provides some flute music.

A Rainbow Family couple embrace.

Some Rainbow Family hippies engage in a group hug.  

Since then, other Rainbow Gatherings have been held in different places around the world up to the present day.  I will cover those later in my series on Events.

Friday, October 29, 2021

Photographers - Part 12

Alvin Baltrop

Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004) was a black photographer whose work was virtually unknown during his lifetime.  This is Self-portrait looking away, which uses a mirror to show his face as well as the rear view. 

He took photographs while he was in the Navy, but he subsequently became fascinated in documenting the abandoned Hudson River piers that were taken over by gay men in the 1970s and early 1980s.  Some of his photos on the piers are similar to photographer Leonard Fink's work, which we have already seen, such as Baltrop's  The Piers (man looking in window), above.

Men hung out and sunbathed naked on the piers.  Above is The Piers (three men on dock)

But the piers were also a place to cruise.  This is The Piers (two men).

Unlike Leonard Fink, who photographed plenty of naked men on the piers, including himself,  but rarely photographed sexual encounters, Alvin Baltrop was a self-confessed voyeur, interested in what the cruising led to.  Perhaps a quick handjob (above) ...

Perhaps a blowjob ...

Perhaps making out and more.

Some of his photos showed sex at a great distance.  This is The piers (exterior with couple having sex).  Click on the photo for a larger view, but even then, the figures are tiny.

But Baltrop also produced a second version of that same photo, cropped and enlarged to show the action a bit better.

We'll end with another distant view of sex.  Baltrop's work became known in photography circles after his death.  This photo is now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.  What I like about this photo is its title at the Whitney Museum: The Piers (collapsed architecture, couple buttfucking).

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Boys and Their Balls - Part 10

Women in the Locker Room

My friend Pat (check out his blog Big Whack Attack) posed this question after my last post about vintage athletes:

"When did the nudity end in sports teams' locker rooms? When they began allowing female reporters in?"

That question deserves a detailed response.

First, nudity never ended in sports teams' locker rooms.  Players still get naked, and reporters and photographers are still there.  In this this 2012 interview of Atlanta Falcons player Matt Bryant, quarterback Luke McCown is seen stripping in the background, and at the end of the clip he walks off to the right, naked.  There are many other other cases where players have been seen naked in locker room photos or videos.  I may have to start a new series on locker room sightings.

The difference from the "good old days" seems to be that starting in the 1970s, photographers have tried to avoid including naked players in their photos or videos, so a video like the one above is a happy accident.  In the 1960s and earlier, photographers routinely took pictures of naked athletes in locker rooms.  They avoided taking pictures of frontal nudity (although they took some anyway), because family magazines wouldn't publish frontal nudity, but rear nudity wasn't a big deal for the photographers, the athletes, or the magazines.

Was the change in attitude due to allowing female reporters in locker rooms?  I don't think so, though both happened in the 1970s.  American magazines, and society in general, seemed to get more prudish about naked men, even rear views.  But let's look at how women got into locker rooms.

In the good old days (or bad old days) it seems all the sports reporters were male.  But by the 1970s, there were a few female sports reporters, and they had a problem.  Male reporters went into the locker room after a game.  They got quotes and reactions from players fresh off the field.  They got to see players celebrating a victory and pouring champagne (or beer) over each other.  Female reporters had to wait outside.  By the time they got to talk to the players, the celebration was over, the players had already answered questions and might be getting tired of reporters, and coaches or management might have told players what not to talk about.  So, the female reporters were definitely at a disadvantage.

By the way, if you think I'm taking the women's side, I'm not.  I'm presenting their argument, which had valid points.

The first inkling of change happened on January 22, 1975, when two female reporters became the first women allowed into any professional sports locker room.  It happened at an NHL all-star game in Montreal.  The coaches may have allowed the women in partly because, at an all-star game, there is no single coach in charge, so no one had to take responsibility.

The photo above shows one of the women, Marcelle St. Cyr, interviewing Montreal Canadiens player Guy Lafleur after the game.  It's hard to tell, but it looks like Lafleur might be naked but holding something in front of him.

The photo above shows the other of the two women, Robin Herman, a reporter for the New York Times.  I don't know whether this photo dates from the 1975 NHL game or later.  Although nobody's naked, the guy next to her has stripped down to his jockstrap.

The 1975 NHL game did not change much.  A few other teams, mainly in the NBA, started allowing female reporters in, but mostly, women were still barred from locker rooms.

At the end of 1977, for the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, both teams granted access to their locker rooms to Melissa Ludtke, reporter for Sports Illustrated.  Then baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn overruled both teams and banned all female reporters.  Ludtke, supported by Sports Illustrated, sued Bowie Kuhn and various other officials, including the mayor of New York, on the grounds that her 14th amendment equal protection rights had been violated.

As I said earlier, the women had a valid argument.  Those opposing the women also had a valid argument: the players had a right to privacy in places such as locker rooms where nudity occurred and the opposite sex was traditionally not allowed.  Whose rights were more important?  In such cases, it's up to the courts to decide.

On Sept. 26, 1978, the court ruled in favor of Ludtke, and women reporters were allowed into men's locker rooms.  The 1978 photo above shows Kristi Witker interviewing Yankees player Ron Guidry shortly after the ruling.  He seems to be taking off his pants.

 

Another 1978 photo shows reporter Erika Weitzner interviewing Yankees infielder Willie Randolph, who is stark naked and making no attempt to cover up.  Some players reacted to having women in the locker rooms by flaunting their nakedness: "You want to see naked men?  Then look at this."

But for the most part, players seem to have gotten used to the idea.  There are still naked men around, because, well, it's a locker room.  The video above is an undated interview in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room.

But, try as we might, the idea of of having women in the men's locker room is still a bit disquieting, as evidenced by this clip from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire, in which Gale Hillman, interviewing a naked Cuba Gooding, Jr., is distinctly awkward after she drops her microphone.  Don't look there!

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Weighing In - Part 13

Ben Hall

This is 23-year-old English super welterweight boxer Ben Hall weighing in for a 2016 bout against Carson Jones at Wembley Arena, London.  The official was trying to screen Ben from our view with a T-shirt as Ben picked up his shorts after weighing in.

As an added bonus, we have a video from another angle as Ben puts on his shorts.  The announcer tells the official, "You need a bigger T-shirt, Eddie."

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Beach Bums - Part 9

Fire Island

Fire Island is a barrier island off the south shore of Long Island in New York.  It has miles of beaches, including Lighthouse Beach, which is next to this lighthouse.

Lighthouse Beach used to be clothing-optional.  It drew up to 4,000 nudists on summer days.  Unfortunately, after Hurricane Sandy damaged a boardwalk in 2012, forcing lighthouse tourists to detour through the beach, authorities decided to ban nudity on the beach.

Here's a group of friends on the beach.  Fire Island has long been a Mecca for gay men in New York.  The village of Cherry Grove on the island calls itself America's first gay and lesbian town.

This is Andy.

And this is Super Freddy.  Three guesses what his superpower is.

This guy let his friend bury him in the sand.

And now his friend can take advantage of his helpless condition.  Somehow I don't think he minds.

Made in USSR?  Perhaps, but now he's all-American USDA prime.

Altogether, Fire Island is a beautiful place.

We end with an extract from an Active Naturists video showing the late Kirill Tokarev, one of my favorite unashamed males, playing in an "Aquaball" on Lighthouse Beach with some friends.

Monday, October 25, 2021

Calendars - Part 12

Leeds Rhinos 2013

The Leeds Rhinos are a professional rugby team in Leeds, England.  Like so many British organizations, they put out a yearly naked calendar.  The 2013 calendar, which today's photos are from, was a testimonial calendar for player Danny McGuire (second from left).

Here Danny is about to strip ... a piece of wire cable.

Please serve yourself.  I know what I'd pick.

This guy is high-voltage.

Here's something tasty.

Anyone want some nice buns?

When they're not playing rugby, there are always other games.

But it's all good clean fun.

The End(s).