Opinion
Australians are the keenest nudists in the world. I want in
Kate Halfpenny
Regular columnistWe’d been at the party about an hour when my boyfriend disappeared into the kitchen of the South Yarra flat. It was 1986. Jane had invited us. She’d been fearless leader of the arty crowd at school and I loved her to pieces, but geez the night was pretty slow.
By our standards anyway. Both cadet journos, we loved seeing The Church at Chasers and the Gurus at the Palais fuelled by Jim Beam and Coke, fried rice and the belief we were cool.
The Meredith Gift is held each year at the end of the annual Meredith Music Festival.Credit: Jason South
So the arty crowd’s more sophisticated vibe – including at one stage a small group loungeroom performance of a madrigal followed by The Sounds of Silence – needed shaking up a bit, my beau decided.
Without fanfare, he reappeared, gently sliding through the murmuring crowd. On his travels he’d picked up a platter of roast chicken and lost his clothes. Nude, the gap in his front teeth flashing in a genial Mine Host smile, he proffered the chook.
Nobody knew what to do. Or where to look. Not many were keen on the chicken. A few game sorts made light bon mots as Paul completed his circuit. “Babe,” he said. “I think that’s the high point of the night done. You fine to go?”
Tropical Loveland was kicking off on the CD player as my fella scooped up his clothes and we showed ourselves out. He got dressed on the landing. Neither of us could stop laughing as we headed back to Carlton.
Decades later, the memory still makes me laugh. Something about Paul’s unflustered glittery charm while he broke established social norms. Seeing someone nude in an unexpected context created a sense of both surprise and incongruity.
The episode this week when a nude man caused the turnaround of a Virgin flight from Perth to Melbourne took me back to the party.
Has me wondering about the psychology behind getting your gear off. Whether public nudity is funny, alarming, offensive or all of the above. It’s especially pertinent to Australians, I found: we’re the keenest nudists in the world, according to a 2023 survey that cross-referenced population size with search data for nude sunbathing.
The man on the plane “suddenly went bananas”, a caller told 3AW. He allegedly ran amok, knocking into a flight attendant before being restrained by air marshals. Definitely no laughing matter, a naked bloke at 32,000 feet, although at least there was no threat of concealed weapons.
So far, not much has been said about why the fellow nuded up – anxiety, off his gourd or off his meds, a dare, a protest, for fun – but the fact he did it has me fascinated with the thinking of those among us who have a thing for going au naturel.
Or those who wouldn’t mind giving it a crack but are too scared.
I’m in that cohort. Despite being wowed long ago by a video screened by our friends Nikki and Leigh that showed the social activities at a nudist camp in the Dandenongs – think nude tennis and a nude swing dance where the nude piano player hammered out Ruby Baby – the furthest I’ve gone is topless sunbathing.
Our eldest son Jack is an avowed nudist. He came a creditable second one year in the annual Meredith Gift, the famous nudie run at the Meredith Festival. Near the end of his brother’s 21st, Jack danced with me. I turned my back to boogie with someone else for a minute or two. When I turned back, Jack was grooving away in nought but a neon headband.
“I feel it’s a universal thing to want to get nude but there’s that taboo aspect. It’s socially subversive,” Jack says.
“From birth, we’re told we have to wear clothes and what type of clothes. Smashing that boundary can be incredibly freeing on a psychological level. I relish it.”
Any long-ago party goer who was traumatised by the juxtaposition of nude man and roast chicken, I apologise for not being more sensitive. But it will always tickle my fancy.
Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.
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