PRESENT TENSE:THERE WAS a point in our recent history – until two years ago, to be precise – when it was a matter of widespread understanding that public displays of nudity were not something we were comfortable with. Much of Europe might have treated nakedness as coolly unremarkable, but we were a people who kept our shorts on in the shower. And we would then get dressed under a very large towel. With our backs turned. While our friends, perhaps the helpful and equally nude-averse British, held another towel up as a screen.
But now? Hardly a week goes by without at least one gaggle of Irish – their skin puckered by the cold, all four cheeks ruddied by the wind – gathering somewhere or other, chucking their robes to the ground and yelping their delight at this liberation. And then they go home to see if they can spot themselves on the Six One News. And, more importantly, to see if their neighbours can spot them.
“Look, Mary, that’s me. You can tell because I tripped over the cameraman.”
It began with Spencer Tunick, the photographer of nude bodies massing against various landscapes, whose arrival here was preceded with a paradoxical mixture of coyness and wild abandonment. It was a subject of great, giggling discussion beforehand and great maturity during the experience. Hundreds applied to be naked props at Blarney Castle, in Cork, and South Wall, in Dublin, where the morning greeted them with howling gales.
The results are online for all to see – both the artistic and journalistic snaps – and while videos reveal a giddy, whooping crowd, the Dublin pictures reflect a misery that, taken in 2008, looks quite prescient now. Misery, of course, whose pallette was dominated by Paddy pink.
The inhibitions were cast off. Now it’s nudes galore. A couple of weeks ago we had Sligo’s second early morning Dip in the Nip (for the Irish Cancer Society), where the women and men were segregated, so the next day’s papers featured striking pictures of only pale female flesh against dune sand and grimy sea.
On Monday there will be a naked bicycle ride through Cork. Hundreds, according to reports, are expected to show up. It will also be an early-morning affair, for reasons of logistics and, perhaps, modesty; it is to be preceded by body painting and will include a photoshoot at an as yet unrevealed Cork landmark (the Elysian Tower would be too phallic; too obvious of a once vigorous and fecund Celtic Tiger).
The naked bike ride – an environmental protest – is a global movement. They’re talking about having one in Dublin next. Let’s just say that, afterwards, you’ll want to wait for a heavy shower of rain before you use the city’s rental bikes again.
And there's more. Dublin Fringe Festival is inviting 50 or more women to join in an upcoming show, Trilogy, the first part of which ends with a "high-energy naked dance performed by all volunteers. It is a powerful and emotive time, presenting the female form in a different and empowered way . . . The process and performances leading up to this one have been exhilarating, transformative and incredibly fun".
I haven’t seen the show, and it has no doubt been an interesting experience for all of those who took part, but it’s curious how quickly the very concept, this idea of liberation, of celebrating the human body’s beauty and imperfections, is certainly becoming banal as much as empowering. At this rate the Women’s Mini Marathon could be an all-nude affair in a couple of years – and it will seem somewhat hackneyed.
Such words – empowered, powerful – are the same as those used by Gok Wan, who on British television has pioneered the popular notion that for women, in particular, to feel comfortable with themselves they should aim to streak along a catwalk in a local shopping centre; strut naked between Poundsaver and Dixons while half the town gawps on. As they appear naked in public, they are cheered on by you-go-girl crowds of women who celebrate this rebellion against the tyranny of the beauty myth spread by the magazines and then pick up a copy of Cosmo on the way home.
Anyway, back to us and our sudden interest in mass nudity. We’re not exactly at a stage when we’ve gone entirely European, where the naked sauna will be commonplace anywhere other than through a bolted door, up a staircase, above a shop on a side street. But these mass nude events are quickly becoming a trend.
It was bold – still is for the participants – but it’s become so common as to be in danger of becoming just another fad, a predictable grab for PR attention dressed as courage and novelty. Flashing mobs have become this year’s flashmobs.
