Hot Potatoes: Overcoming Clothes-Mindedness

As I’ve said before, most people don’t look good nekkid. If you don’t believe me, poke your head into a health club locker room (being careful to be gender-sensitive, of course). Clothes cover a multitude of pounds, stretch marks, scars and wrinkles. Yet, people keep shedding their inhibitions to appear nude in public. Regionally, we have the Sun Meadows nudist resort, near Worley, Idaho, and Kaniksu Ranch, near Loon Lake, Wash., which sponsors the Bare Buns Fun Run. When I interviewed Bare Buns runner Shenelle Kraack, of St. Maries, for my Huckleberries Online blog this month, my overriding question was: “Why?” Why flop around for some three miles in the buff with hundreds of sagging Baby Boomers? Shenelle explained the phenomenon. But I still don’t grasp the concept. However, I understand why a fellowship of worker bees and friends of Ponderay’s Stitchin’ Sisters yarn and fabric shop have banded together to bare almost all for a 2008 calendar. Sorta. They want to raise money for three charities. The calendar comes with this warning from owner Audra Mearns: “This is not your Grandma’s quilting calendar.” It’ll sell, perhaps better than the Coeur d’Alene Library calendar fundraiser featuring local celebs. We like to be titillated. Most of us should be air-brushed, too.

Full Hot Potatoes column here

Question: Would you pose nude or semi-nude for a worthy cause?