Creepy? No, not in the least. Stupid, yes, but not creepy.
But you’d be better dressed than half the customers.
I was in grad school when it started, in the middle of Illinois, and IIRC it started when the temperature finally got a few degrees above freezing. I always thought the cause was the celebration of the return of some degree of warmth. Never saw any streakers, and maybe stupid but not creepy.
The president and his (female) secretary of a small liberal arts college in Salt Lake City streaked a formal event at the University of Utah back in the 70s. Apparently this cost them their jobs and he said something to the effect that it was an idea that sounded better when they were planning it than how it turned out.
I think most people saw it as silly, prank behavior. I’ve never seen an actual streaker but I imagine it would add a little humor to the day.
I stumbled across something awhile back that talked about San Francisco’s nudity issue.
What a quote:
In 2012, the city passed an ordinance requiring any person engaging in a public display of nudity to have obtained a parade permit first.
Nothing to do with creepiness, but sadly coincidental, both the Oscars streaker and the Berkley Naked Guy came to bad ends, as do many initially light-hearted California phenomena for some reason.
Another issue with the Berkeley naked guy is that he was sitting in desks naked and thats a bit unsanitary.
Perhaps this is appropriate here:
That Berkeley naked guy showed up at an SCA event I was at and proceeded to do a whole shit ton of naked yoga and it was a little much. Somebody went over and asked him nicely to put on a tunic or something and he did comply but it wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t the nakedness, per se, it was all the contorting and buttholiness and flopping junk, it just got to be a bit much after the first 45 minutes or so.
I don’t see streaking as creepy because it involved a lot of running and silliness. I also don’t have any inherent objection to strolling in the park and finding someone sunbathing in the altogether, because that’s a perfectly sensible place and time to be naked. I frequent nude beaches myself and have very few objections to the naked people around me, so long as they aren’t being overtly sexual because that’s just rude. What I do find creepy at a nude beach are the line of guys wearing shorts sitting up at the tree line drinking beer and watching people, and the guys strolling up and down the beach naked but with straps around their junk putting it all out there like it was on a tray or something. THAT is definitely off putting. And they all know that, and that’s a big reason why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Don’t even get me started on the watermelon guy.
One of the things i really enjoy on my annual vacation to a lake in NH is skinny dipping every morning before breakfast. I try to book a cabin where no one will see me, and the social norms at the place are “don’t look at what your neighbors are doing in the water before 7:30am”, so it’s not about being seen. It’s about the feel of masses of water against my naked skin.
Running naked is probably nice, too, although I’ve never done it.
Thinking back, isn’t the entire concept of people streaking in public innocent and child like?
I don’t equate child-like and creepy, but, as they say, YMMV.
BTW those people need correcting, as we have done repeatedly in here in SDMB, to the effect that no, you do not “get put on a sex offenders list” for anything and everything that’s even remotely related to public nudity.
As I’ve read elsewhere, there are jurisdictions that treat ‘streaking’ as ‘exposure’. With ‘streaking’ offenses likely to be handled by addition to public order offenses at public events, rather than on summons for offences at home, or by stake-out for offenses in public parks.
I can’t see how it makes any sense as a protest against the nudity taboo. If you feel you have to run away, then you’re not showing how dumb the taboo is, but embracing it being taboo. The thrill of it is the fact that it is taboo, and the risk that you will be caught. The reason it works as a form of hazing is due to the fact it is taboo.
I’m not sure I would describe it as “creepy.” But I do regard it as something that is done primarily to try and make people uncomfortable for a laugh, or to draw attention to oneself. There’s a reason why it is primarily the realm of teenage boys and young men, during the same parts of their life where they often do risky things for attention and enjoy provoking others.
I’m all for stuff like skinny dipping, nude beaches, and just trying to get over the nudity taboo in general, but I don’t think streakers are really a part of that, any more than mooners or pantsers are (as in pantsing others).
The good thing is, if I’m right, then reducing the nudity taboo will also decrease streaking. But, if I’m wrong, then it will continue unabated, and I would champion it.
But it really seems like it’s becoming less and less common as people stop making a big deal out of it.
Nitpicking: Not sure that getting tragically murdered at age 39 in one’s own successful photography studio during a break-in by violent robbers counts as “coming to a bad end”. That phrase IMHO connotes one’s own behavior being in some way predictive of, complicit in or responsible for the bad outcome. And AFAICT there was nothing in the life of the apparently happy, successful and principled Oscars streaker Robert Opel that specifically led to his murder.
I grant you that the suicide while in police custody of the “Berkeley Naked Guy” Luis Martinez, following years of mental illness, substance abuse, run-ins with the law, etc., definitely sounds like the sort of thing that the phrase “coming to a bad end” seems to imply.
To me, “coming to a bad end” is pretty much anything that is not dying peacefully in bed at a ripe old age. I’ve never known it exclusively as a result of one’s own actions, but it could include that.
Wow, thanks Sam. Do you know how rare it is for anyone to intervene on another poster’s behalf?
I definitely misunderstood the post. I read that both subjects had mental breakdowns, substance abuse or police problems – probably all of the above, but maybe just tertiary syphilis.
Fwiw, that’s how i read it, too.