I wasn’t talking about unrestricted nudity being legal or not, rather the concept that streaking might be considered creepy. In most of Europe, it would be regarded as a bit of a giggle, or an annoying disruption at a football match. Not clutched pearls and shouts of ‘pedo!’
At the time, streaking was just a prank by college students, like swallowing goldfish or stuffing people into a phone booth. A bit of harmless silliness.
Tell that to the goldfish… 
Put me down for another vote saying “normally clothed squishy bits” <> “automatically creepy”. But then, maybe I’ve drank (drunk? dranken?) the naturist kool-aid that says nude does not/should not equal sexual. And furthermore, recognizing that everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the subject, I certainly don’t want the pearl-clutchers dictating their views on everyone else. Instead, I want to dictate MY views on everyone else. 
Now, a flasher—a guy who went around wearing a long overcoat with nothing underneath, and exposing himself to women in order to shock them—was always considered creepy and pervy and sex-offender-ey. But maybe also a bit silly, judging by how often they were mocked or parodied or alluded to in pop culture.
I went to a baseball game a few years back - M’s vs Yankees, in Seattle. Whenever Yankees play there, the fans go nuts. I swear everyone drinks more and is just overall crazier. During this particular game there were not ONE, not TWO, but THREE streakers throughout the game. And in our section (King’s Court), we saw an attempt at number FOUR down below but the security nabbed him before he could get his clothes off and out on the field.
I think the concept of streaking at this game was too much alchohol.
Also, on the way out of the game we saw a drunk guy pissing as he walked down the steps in the concourse, not even try to hide what he was doing.
But even this overstates the position surely? “Encounter a nude person” could encompass anything from a flasher deliberately confronting someone for their own gratification through to someone sunbathing naked with no intent to impact upon you at all.
I can certainly think of “lovely walks“ I have been on that have been made no less lovely by “encountering a nude person“. Rather significantly the opposite in some cases!
When supermarkets started 24 hour opening, there was a little flurry of people making the news because they went there in the middle of the night in pyjamas and dressing gowns. I remember hearing exactly the same sort of puritanical complaints about that - about how inappropriate it was. People need to lighten up. Streaking is weird, it might even be a bit shocking, but most of what it is, is goofy nonsense.
Eh, context is important. What’s creepy in one context might not be creepy in another.
It works really help me to understand how people feel about this is if someone could give a clear definition of ”creepy”.
True generally, but there had to have been at least a few perverts who figured that going around showing their junk to one girl at a time would get them arrested as a pervert, but running naked through a football game would let the show their junk to thousands of girls, and everyone would write it off as a prank.
John Waters, take it away:
By definition they were running away.
It was partly a statement that people shouldn’t be so worked up about nudity. As LHoD says,
The taboos about nudity are kind of silly, at least in a society in which people routinely wear on the beach and in advertisements bits of fabric that cover only a few square inches, and those sometimes tightly enough to show the underlying shape.
I think we’re using entirely different definitions of the word “creepy”.
Streaking wasn’t sexual; it wasn’t aimed at anybody in particular; and it didn’t carry any implicit threat of further undesired action.
Depends on the park.
Yup.
And he looked even sillier to people who went in for casual nudity. You think you’re showing me anything I haven’t seen before?
But that is creepy: partly because yes it is sexual; partly because it’s done specifically at people, usually specifically at women or girls; and partly because while flashers were often seen as rarely progressing to anything else they do nevertheless pose an implicit threat – partly because that particular flasher might be an exception, partly because they generally make a point of flashing at someone they’ve caught alone or at most with others perceived as vulnerable, and partly because they’re by definition doing something unwanted. The whole point of flashing is that it’s supposed to shock and upset the person(s) flashed.
Did the above help any?
Most of the streakers I remember did it on a dare or a bet, or some sort of hazing. It wasn’t necessarily something they got any kind of particular enjoyment out of. At most they did it for the notoriety.
Yeah–streakers, in general, expect and want cheers and laughter. Flashers want disgust and terror.
Are people still streaking? It was big when I was in high school. I remember that streaker running past David Niven at the Oscars ceremony, and Niven mentioning the guy’s “shortcomings.”
Yes, through the Quad to the gymnasium!
Not for us. We streaked (struck?) a mall because we were teenagers and thought it would be cool. There was probably some pot involved as well, but sex never entered in to it. As a matter of fact, when we were stripping (2 girls and 3 boys) we turned our backs on each other.
I’m not a flasher but I’m thinking that the “appeal” is the targeted shock to an individual that you make them look at your junk, probably for several long shocked seconds as they register what’s happening, while you enjoy their reaction. There’s a good chance you’re alone when it happens so the shock is compounded by fear and perhaps helplessness.
Conversely, if I’m sprinting across a ball field, evading security, I’m not going to get to see you or your reaction, you probably won’t get a good look at my junk (even if you wanted to) and there’s nothing targeting you – you’re just someone who was there when it happened and you’re surrounded by people while the naked guy is getting chased by rental cops. I can’t imagine that the “creep” payoff is the same.
Yeah, I don’t remember it being viewed as anything sexual.