"Free As I Want To Be"

"Essentially this is about individual freedom and people's tolerance to other people being different. If you compromise your truth, you compromise yourself.
"It's not about nakedness at all. Freedom has to be expressed somehow, and society is not allowing me to be as free as I want to be."
"Stephen Gough, "Naked Rambler", U.K.

One can only guess that Stephen Gough considers himself exceptional and as such, entitled. The fact being that 'society' does not allow any of its members to 'be as free' as they would like to be. There are generally-agreed upon social constraints protecting the public weal. There is a general societal unspoken agreement that there are certain issues around which it is preferable that all of society's members conform. Being clothed while out in gentle society is one of them.

Mr. Gough, 53 years of age, old enough to understand that he doesn't have the freedom of a child to pout and do as he wishes, should know better. On the other hand, rather than the attention he has received from a mostly amused public and a certainly bemused police force all around the United Kingdom, for the courage of his convictions as he claims, is considerately noted as yet another one of those fabled British eccentrics.

Britain is proud of her eccentrics. They tend to do off-the-cuff things, antics that would not normally occur to most adequately brain-celled people to pull off. There was the story once of a man who was proud of the fact he never needed to purchase meat for his dinner table, being able to pick up more than enough road-kill off British highways and byways. Doubtless there is no end of cute stories.

Mr. Gough was at one time living with his family; girlfriend and their two children, a normal life. "One day I was walking and something happened. I realized on a fundamental level I'm good, we're all good, and you can trust that one part of yourself." So, went his unique logic, if he is so good, obviously his body qualifies as well. (That unfortunate decision ended his pedestrian family life.)

How that inspired him to display his body wherever he went, is another thing altogether. "The human body isn't offensive If that's what we're saying as human beings, then it's not rational." That's his version of rationality but most people would simply prefer not to see other peoples' bumps and warts, protrusions and hairy excess flab; clothing nicely covers that all up, so we needn't avert our eyes in conversation.

Mr. Gough has managed to acquire, through diligent flaunting of his lovely naked body, over twenty convictions for contempt of court. For the thing of it is, there are no laws making going about naked illegal in the country. Still, he is taken into court, and sternly reminded that the human body does require protection from the elements, if not from others' curious gaze. Ordered to cover his fine body, he ignores the order and is taken into custody for contempt of court.

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It may seem unreasonable for Mr. Gough to pledge himself to his vow of nakedness and stay faithful to his argument of the body as a thing of natural grace which should be available to anyone's curiosity, but it surely is not reasonable that this man who poses no harm to anyone other than himself -- deigning to don only a hat and boots/socks normally, and conceding during winter months to add mittens -- should be placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time.

Obviously, Mr. Gough is an extrovert and such people require the company of others. Locking him away in such conditions represents truly cruel and unusual punishment, hugely disproportionate to the absurdly alleged crime. Crime did I say? "What I am doing isn't about me. I'm challenging society and it must be challenged because it's wrong."

"I [walk naked] because I want to. I don't know why the police and authorities have such a problem with it. I'm not hurting anybody", he explained in an interview with the Daily Mail.

Quite so, my good man.

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