Benncool, you got yer pants on?

[Noel Murdough]

What's up with the nude youngsters in Bennington?

Very Interesting......

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/12...eut/index.html

BENNINGTON, Vermont (Reuters) -- Students occasionally parading buck naked around Vermont's Bennington College campus has been a tolerated, if peculiar, part of the university's student culture here since the 1960s.

Now Robert Graves, hired this year as Bennington's dean of students, has embarked on a crusade against public nudity -- one that has run afoul of the school's free-spirited students.

Students have long enjoyed an informal policy allowing them to go naked on campus. Whether it was as a topless sunbather lounging on the lawn or students running naked at an annual bonfire party, college officials turned a blind eye.

But when a student strolled around campus naked this summer during an orientation session when parents were visiting campus, the new dean reprimanded him.

More than 200 students, a few of them naked, marched across campus in October to protest against what they saw as a crackdown by the administration on freedom of expression. While the impending onset of the New England winter has put a temporary pause to the dispute, students are preparing for a springtime assault.

Lindsey Gage, a Bennington senior leading the fight to preserve what she concedes is an unwritten policy, said she has grown accustomed to public nudity since enrolling here.

"It is never lewd but a natural sight," she said.

American liberal arts colleges do not get much more liberal than Bennington. Nestled in Vermont's Green Mountains, the school has a nontraditional approach to education in which students draw up their own curricula.

"Bennington does not expect students to conform, but to transform," the college's Web site proclaims.

A little respect?
But Graves has drawn the line at being naked.

"Bennington College is not a clothing-optional campus and we don't live in a clothing-optional society," Graves told Reuters, adding he realized he had "ruffled some feathers" by going after unclothed campus denizens.

"There is not a nudity policy and we don't condone this behavior. We are a public campus," he said. "There has to be a level of respect here."

Respect has nothing to do with it, countered sophomore Allison Zoll. As someone who has taken part in events with the college's nude activities club, which hosts clothing-optional picnics and outdoor games, Zoll was adamant that there was nothing wrong with going bare.

"It's not hurting anyone," she said.

Bennington students are not alone in their undress. Streaking -- that is, running naked -- has long been a staple of American campus life.

Recently, students at Hamilton College in New York turned the pastime into a sport by forming a varsity streaking team and traveling to rival schools to cavort in the buff.

The Hamilton team streaked a dozen colleges in the Northeast earlier this fall and posted results on its Web site.

Despite being banned from Wellesley College, an all-women's school near Boston, and escorted off the grounds of Connecticut College, team members declared the tour a "massive success."

Back across the border in Vermont, there's nothing competitive about nudity at Bennington. Students are too busy trying to preserve what they think is a right, and that suits some local residents just fine.

"Oh to be in college again," sniffed Stuart Hurd, Bennington's town manager. "More power to them. We are too uptight about public nudity in this country."

[spotts]

we want pictures!!

[simpleman]

I'm with spott...It sure is a funny thing that Mr benncool
has never mention this.

Talk about holding out.

[spotts]

I bet he's got a book full of co-eds.

[Roscoe]

"Oh to be in college again," sniffed Stuart Hurd, Bennington's town manager. "More power to them. We are too uptight about public nudity in this country."

RIGHT ON Mr Hurd !!!!!!!!!



Respect has nothing to do with it, countered sophomore Allison Zoll. As someone who has taken part in events with the college's nude activities club, which hosts clothing-optional picnics and outdoor games, Zoll was adamant that there was nothing wrong with going bare.

"It's not hurting anyone," she said.


What do you think does Allison looks like??????????

[Green Mountain]

Bennington College is one of our customers. Yes you see an occasional sunbathing co-ed on the lawn. Face down-no top. But the kids were showing off for the newbies and the sh!t hit the fan. Which of course started the protest. There is nothing like winter to keep the protest under wraps.

The bigger brouhaha was over in Wilmington on the reservoir.
The town fathers voted to close down the nude beach. Well the packers and the naturalist got together and had the order overturned in a referrandum. A fishing trip on Somerset just is not complete without cruising by the nudie beach.

[Roscoe]

"Bennington College is one of our customers"

you dog you:

and we don't care about the "packers".

whoops sorry decorum and all that stuff.


I'd like to have that account

"Yes you see an occasional sunbathing co-ed on the lawn".

on "the lawn"

[air of honesty]

In Austin, Tx is probably the only public place in America with the word 'hippie' on a highway sign.

Hippie Hollow is a cove on Lake Travis that was adopted by the freer generations before us a place to hike a mile or so the secluded cove and sunbathe on the large limestone shelf-rocks and swim, au naturel.

Many years later, it was turned into a public access park with paved roads and toilets, which pretty much ruined the place. That the explosion of boats on the lake, none of which seem to have anywhere better to cruise. Used to be an all day commitment just to get to the place and enjoy it, with no better view of sunset at any price. Now its a driveby for the crude and rude, hardly any but the hard core nudists put up with it anymore.

Worst of all, the stupid gates lock at sunset, which pretty much limits the enjoyment of the place. If you stay to watch, you're locked in. If you park anywhere withing 2 miles, you get towed. Progress...

[Diceman]

Reminds me. When our kids were very young we were at a beach/park on the tip of NJ. Ya can see NY city from it, forget the name. But it is owned by the feds, a national park. The one we were at happenned to be one that many nudist come to after work.
So, we had a nice day there and all of a sudden at 4pm these people start comming in, put their blankets down and start undressing. My kids eyes got real big, "look mommy, look at that." It was pretty funny. In my opinion some of these people were exhibitionist not true nudist, not that I would know the diff. And none of em were worth looking at either....
Many think nudist colonies are full of hot, model types.......ahhhhhhh, I think most of em are full of people who make ya want to eat dinner alone somewhere.

[Green Mountain]

That's been my theroy thoughtout my life Dice. I figure when someone gives me some cash to show off my hot bod in public then I'll do it. 60 years old and still waiting.

[aircooled53]

Originally posted by benncool
That's been my theroy thoughtout my life Dice. I figure when someone gives me some cash to show off my hot bod in public then I'll do it. 60 years old and still waiting.

Ok, Benny I am going to send you a DIME by UPS.. I want it for a recuitment poster in Texas..LOLOL

[Boiling Point]

Guess I know where my kid is going to go to college now.

[CityHvac]

is not against the law in Ontario, Canada. A few years back the government passed a law that said it's OK to bare your breasts in public....but like anything that you are allowed to do, you don't do it because it's no big deal. The women that do bare their breasts you wouldn't want to look at anyway.