portland's naked bicycle ride

this past saturday was portland's (in)famous naked bike ride. over 10,000 people showed up and was an overall good time.

when bringing this up to a soon-to-be roommate, he talked about how inappropriate it is for the children/teenagers that happen to come across the naked bike ride.

being there on the ride and seeing some younger folks (some with and some without their parents), it didn't really bother me. to be honest, the nudity was only awkward for the first 5 to 10 minutes being there.

i imagine that my soon-to-be roommate was concerned being the sexual aspect of being nude, but i didn't feel like my nakedness nor anyone's nakedness felt sexual at all. i quickly felt that maybe the world was better off without clothes because while i was being naked, i could only feel that dicks, boobs, cunts, and asses were about as sexual as wrists and ankles.

okay at this point i haven't fully connected the dots, but i felt that with the normalization of human genitalia that somehow it could reduce sexualized violence.

i'm certainly not saying that acceptable public nudity would end sexual violence but i do think that teaching and talking to your kids and teenagers about the human body and not being ashamed of it nor exotifying other people's body parts is beneficial for the foundations of teaching them about sexual violence.