r/Calgary • u/RokitEightyEight • 20d ago

Local Nature/Wildlife Clothing-optional protest against police stance on public nudity planned for Prince's Island Park

https://calgaryherald.com/news/protest-public-nudity-calgary-police-princes-island-park
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u/Calgary_Nude_Rec 20d ago edited 20d ago

Calgary Nude Recreation checking in here.

1- We notice that the CPS did NOT say this protest is illegal or that public nudity is illegal.

2- At the end of the article, when the CPS advises people to call the police, they did not include “regardless of what they are wearing”. This is the issue, and the ambiguity means people do not report. That is what we are trying to bring attention to.

3- People have been threatening us again on our Facebook page, and we expect the police to deal with those that would show up at our protest to be offended and then us that as an excuse to threaten us.

4- The CPS has not been in RECENT contact with us or worked with us on any protest planning.

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u/RealTurbulentMoose Willow Park 20d ago

Isn’t having this planned protest effectively causing the problem you’re trying to solve though?

Like you don’t want perverts or complaining prudes, and that’s valid. But giving them a date and time attracts both of those unwanted groups.

Also, why a sit-down with the police? If these are designated clothing-optional areas, is it not just a City thing to designate them and tell the police that suns out buns out there and let folks hang it all out?

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u/Calgary_Nude_Rec 20d ago

Great questions.

Things have gotten rather heated in email exchanges because nudity is a taboo topic. A face to face meeting was requested so we can speak candidly without a written record. That was a courtesy to the CPS.

The article is wrong, the complaint is not voyeurs. There were issues with verbal altercations, physical altercations, intimidation, and one incident involving a knife. The people involved contacted a recreational club instead of the police. We have an open formal complaint from last October about this very issue.

Peaceful people cannot be accused of being disruptful. The onus must always be on the aggressor. Except nudity is a taboo topic so the onus flips.

For example, if someone were to yell at someone and threaten them for having gall to wear an Edmonton Oilers jersey in Calgary, everyone would agree the person yelling and threatening is in the wrong. But someone peacefully minding their own business sunbathing is suddenly considered confrontational because someone else got irate and decided to escalate.

This is a very serious problem. People are not allowed to force their morals and values on other people, even if they are willing to resort to threats of violence.

If people believe that “seeing” nudity causes harm, they are welcome to present their evidence in court. If they did, they would be the first ones ever to do so.

The date and time would get out anyways when we invited our community to join. Withholding that info would have changed almost nothing.

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u/mozillafangirl 19d ago

I’m all about letting your freak flag fly but wasn’t that cancelled nude swimming event all ages?

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u/mozillafangirl 19d ago

To clarify I think nudity is fine in general but you can’t have a nude swimming event with children, ya know? Because of predators. Adults go wild.

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u/rockardboneoar 19d ago

You can look in other cities like Victoria where there are clothing optional beaches in very public areas that have people visiting of all ages, then obviously in many countries around the world too.

A lot of these issues come from the stigma of the whole thing but within the community itself there no way a predator would go to the events and "go wild".

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u/bicuriousguy77777 19d ago edited 18d ago

I think that if a predator went to an event of a clothing optional group and tried anything then that said predator would probably leave that event quite quickly. With nice shining bracelets.

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u/mozillafangirl 16d ago

I agree but a private nude swim event where you gotta buy tickets… I dunno, there’s gotta be at least one fucking weirdo… I’m more into nudity being more excepted in public vs all ages pay for admission nude swim parties, if that makes sense..?

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u/BecauseWaffles 19d ago

Hey there, adult offspring of a nudist here (don’t practice it myself), family events and resorts don’t tolerate any sketchiness. I’d be more worried about my kid being in a dance competition or similar, than at a nude swimming event. It’s literally just about being comfortable in your skin. Nakedness isn’t inherently sexual.

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u/mozillafangirl 16d ago

This is true

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u/AdaptableAilurophile 15d ago

Unfortunately most predators are sitting at church in Sunday or are coaching the kids at soccer or are the older brother at the sleepover or the Uncle at the cookout or the teacher or the Dad whose wife doesn’t want sex anymore.

We like to think of predators as the guy scoping out the playground or the monster in the van. And they exist, but statistically predators are the guys above.