Question: Are you decent?

[Centauri4]

How would you answer this question from someone entering the various places you go nude?

Is there a difference if it is somewhere traditionally considered "private" such as a bedroom or bathroom, versus a living room, pool area or dorm room?

Does the person's advance knowledge of your interest in, sometimes practice of, or complete dedication to nudism make a difference? (Yes/No)

In other words, if they are AT LEAST potentially aware of the fact you may be wearing less than they are, does it make the situation more comfortable. I suppose this question carries the essence of some previous threads along the same lines, but I have never read replies of the type expected.

The more practice everyone, both nudists and non-nudists alike, has in answering these questions the more "rational" and "legitimate" a belief in non-sexual, social nudism becomes.

I was going to make this a poll but I rather enjoy reading peoples' free form answers.

[nacktman]

I always answer "Yes", because I am always decent.
It is that simple.

[Nude and Tanned]

I feel just as the answer that was given in the movie the Goodby Girl, when this question was posed by Marsha Mason to Richard Dryfess (sp). Yes I am decent but I am also nude.

[Rick_42]

I always answer "Yes", because I am always decent.
It is that simple.

Agree. I'm always decent, regardless of what I'm wearing or not wearing. And I love that line from The Goodbye Girl.

Regardless of where I am nude, there's no embarrassment on my part. If someone walks in and finds me nude, I don't make a big deal about it. If they're uncomfortable I'll casually find something to cover up with. Again, no big deal.

[Home Nudist]

We all know that the question implies, "Are you dressed?" The word "decent" (conforming to the standards of propriety; proper) is really is inappropriate and misleading, in my opinion.

I've always objected to the term "indecent exposure." What is indecent about the human body?

Having always been interested in nudism, I recall reading of a case some 30 years ago about a man accused of "indecent exposure" for simply lying nude on the lawn, reading a book.

The judge dismissed the charges because he said there was nothing indecent about what the man was doing. The man was conducting himself in a non sexual way, exactly as he would had he been dressed.

As a matter of fact, I am quite "decent" as I write this. ;)

[JeepNude]

The word 'decent' is being misused.

I argued this with one mf my wife's friends once. She saw me (in my own home) nude and said I was indecent. I got angry and told her, I have NEVER used my body for anything indecent, unlike you. I was a virgin until my wedding night, unlike you. I have never cheated on my spouse, unlike you. And, I have never done anything unnatural to my body, unlike you (she used drugs). Then, in a louder than I should voice, I said, who the F are you to tell me I am indecent??!! YOU are indecent, I am simply unclothed!!!

Wife had eyes the size of saucers! Her friend might have actually understood because she shut up about it. Although, I didn't see her much after that either.

[Boreas]

I believe I am decent nude or not. So is someone nude near me. It is a matter of what they are doing with the body that counts.

Believing I am decent and feeling that way sometimes is different for me. I have been chosing to go brafree lately, and have struggled with the "decent" issue or the "good girls do....." issues. While I do believe that my breasts are mine, and I can chose whether to bind them or not, I still have some old training to ditch! :) I am currently fairly obviously brafree with a sweater. I feel comfortable and yes, decent. It is a growth experience.

[Stu2630]

While I don't believe on getting too hung up on dictionary definitions, the term decent does have a lexical sense relating to an absence of sufficient body covering:


decent > adjective 1 conforming with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behaviour: appropriate, fitting...: not likely to shock or embarrass others...: sufficiently clothed to see visitors.

Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd Ed. 2003, page 449

Stu

[MoonShadow]

LOL ... amazing

One minute you denounced dictionary meanings and then in another, this one, you accept it.

Go figure!

[Stu2630]

One minute you denounced dictionary meanings and then in another, this one, you accept it.

Go figure!

You never miss an opportunity to take a swipe, do you?

I have always said that dictionary definitions have their place, but they indicate only a crude lexical meaning and should never be used as though they were definitive and semantically complete: they very rarely are. That's one of the main reasons why they haven't yet managed to create artificial intelligence that is capable of language acquisition - or, to put it more simply for your benefit - it's why you can't have a proper conversation with even the most advanced computer which is equipped with an electronic dictionary. To make a machine conversational, it must be adept in the full range of semantic interpretation, contextualisation through the application of pragmatics principles, presupposition, deixis and a host of other linguistic tools. So if you tell me that X means exactly Y because that's what it says in Websters, then you are talking nonsense. That's what people here have tried to do in the past and it's what I have taken issue with. But if you tell me X can be used to mean Y, because Websters or some other dictionary says so, then that's a legitimate proposition because all dictionaries actually do is report known usages.

Go and read what I said again: "the term decent does have a lexical sense relating to an absence of sufficient body covering". In other words - one of the ways in which the term 'decent' can be used is with regard to clothing or the lack of it.

Stu

[Pete Knight]

I think what Moonshadow was referring to was your habit of picking and chosing the dictionary definitions that fit your views and ignoring those that don't.

Hypocrite!

Pete Knight

[OZJames]

I think that one should present oneself to others in a way that does not offend against the situation you are in. It is not a decent thing to do to attend a funeral dressed only in shorts but it is decent to attend a beach BBQ only in shorts. However to some the tolerance levels are far too low. It's not that long ago that some restaurants would not allow people to enter without a tie on.

I would agree with everyone who states that the body is NOT indecent and that at a beach where clothing is mostly minimal it is ridiculous to have to wear anything.

At my farm people know that we are often nude and if anybody arrives and catches us nude then they have no right to suggest that we are indecent. If they walked into our bathroom and caught us nude that would be accepted as an accident and no body would say it is indecent to be nude in a bathroom. We have just expanded our nude area to the whole farm.

[nudebushwalker]

Down here in Australia, one common/traditional answer to that question is:

"Who wants to know ?"

(remembering that the person asking is usually on the other side of a closed door..).

In a similar vein, if that person follows up with something like: ".. Can I come in ?"

a suitable answer could be: "If you're game !!" !!! *


};->


* [ For anyone not familiar with the lingo - in this context "game" translates as bold or brave..].

[Stu2630]

I think what Moonshadow was referring to was your habit of picking and chosing the dictionary definitions that fit your views and ignoring those that don't.

Pete - both you and Moonshadow, and also others here, have made the mistake of thinking that dictionaries are authorities in that their "definitions" are definitive explanations as to word meanings. That shows profound ignorance as to what dictionaries are and how they are written.

A dictionary does not give a full and exhaustive explanation as to the semantic meaning of any word. What it does do is to report examples of current usage and cite words which are generally regarded as having some degree of synonymity. So I will always challenge anyone here who tries to tell me that a word "means" something because a dictionary says so - but that doesn't mean I can't cite a usage supplied in a reputable dictionary.


Hypocrite!

No, it's called being educated.

Stu

[boatsteve]

Believing I am decent and feeling that way sometimes is different for me. I have been chosing to go brafree lately, and have struggled with the "decent" issue or the "good girls do....." issues. While I do believe that my breasts are mine, and I can chose whether to bind them or not, I still have some old training to ditch! :) I am currently fairly obviously brafree with a sweater. I feel comfortable and yes, decent. It is a growth experience.

You may want to try this website which a friend of mine belongs to.

http://www.brafree.org/

[Centauri4]

Thank you all for replying to this thread!

The question was motivated by an incident a few years ago when my girlfriend at the time fell ill and was hospitalized. Her mother who knew of my interest in going nude came to stay at our apartment in southeastern Virginia, and she still had the presence of mind to ask, "Are you decent?" when stopping one evening. I am certain I replied, "Yes" and was most likely standing in the kitchen in shorts and a t-shirt having just arrived home from work.

There may have been a follow-on conversation regarding the fact that I "could" have been completely naked and would still have answered, "Yes" and would this have bothered her, but if that conversation happened I can't recall it as clearly.

I really love the Australian version of "If you're game!".

The issue of bra freedom is an important one because I recently learned how badly a poorly fit bra can effect a women's physiology; mainly my wife. She went to a "bra whisperer" from France working at Macy's here in Virginia Beach and got properly fit; it makes a world of difference in her day! Both the inches and cup size were incorrect and causing her discomfort and a constrictive bra may also interfere with the lymphatic system of the body and actually contribute to illness (I am supposing this based on additional recent Health Channel shows).

If we only knew.

[Boreas]

Thanks boatsteve, I have that site bookmarked already. I am also a member of another brafreedom website and it is great.

[MoonShadow]

Pete - both you and Moonshadow, and also others here, have made the mistake of thinking that dictionaries are authorities in that their "definitions" are definitive explanations as to word meanings. That shows profound ignorance as to what dictionaries are and how they are written.
Stu


Say what?

Amazing, you make such a statement.

So, Stu, what is your definition of what a dictionary/dictionaries is/are?

[scubare]

My wife and I were talking to her mother one day. She knows that I work as a nude model for college art classes. We told her that an instructor made a quick sketch of me and let me have it, and that it was really cool. We asked if she would like to see it, and she asked "Are you decent"? I said "Of course, I'm a very good model"! :D

[Ken Palmer]

Hello Home Nudist, I have a question for you. Regarding this man that was arrested for reading a book on his lawn nude, where did this take place? Was it in America or another country? I am asking this question because as we all know, there are obviously laws against being in the nude in public in our country unles a specific law(s) allows it. Was he cited for basic indecent exposure? Just wondering.

Ken Palmer





We all know that the question implies, "Are you dressed?" The word "decent" (conforming to the standards of propriety; proper) is really is inappropriate and misleading, in my opinion.

I've always objected to the term "indecent exposure." What is indecent about the human body?

Having always been interested in nudism, I recall reading of a case some 30 years ago about a man accused of "indecent exposure" for simply lying nude on the lawn, reading a book.

The judge dismissed the charges because he said there was nothing indecent about what the man was doing. The man was conducting himself in a non sexual way, exactly as he would had he been dressed.

As a matter of fact, I am quite "decent" as I write this. ;)

[Home Nudist]

Hello Home Nudist, I have a question for you. Regarding this man that was arrested for reading a book on his lawn nude, where did this take place? Was it in America or another country? I am asking this question because as we all know, there are obviously laws against being in the nude in public in our country unles a specific law(s) allows it. Was he cited for basic indecent exposure? Just wondering.
Ken Palmer

Hello Ken:

As I stated, I read that maybe over 30 years ago, and I don't remember all the specifics. I think it occurred in the US.

But, I remember it because the judge's ruling made so much sense: "The man was simply reading a book -- and just happened to be naked."

Judges can seem to rule any way they please. Was the judge right? Was the ruling appealed and the charge brought again? I do not know.

Sorry I can't tell you more.

[Stu2630]

So, Stu, what is your definition of what a dictionary/dictionaries is/are?

Moonshadow

Thanks, that's a fair question and I'll answer it as best I can. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (which, by the way, is by far the most comprehensive English dictionary on the planet and comes in 20 volumes), a dictionary is:


'A book dealing with the individual words of a language (or certain specified classes of them), so as to set forth their orthography, pronunciation, signification, and use, their synonyms, derivation, and history, or at least some of these facts: for convenience of reference, the words are arranged in some stated order, now, in most languages, alphabetical; and in larger dictionaries the information given is illustrated by quotations from literature; a word-book, vocabulary, or lexicon.'

So you see, even that highly esteemed dictionary doesn't claim to supply full semantic definitions. The publishers also state:

Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, when defining a word we combine our understanding of how it is used in the language with an analysis of resources such as the Oxford English Corpus (http://www.askoxford.com/oec/) and the Oxford Reading Programme. This should result in a definition of how a word is actually used, rather than how we think it should be used.

For your information, a 'corpus' is simply a vast database of language actually in use, and can comprise conversations, novels, text books, menus, adverts - in fact, anything. I have used a corpus called Co-build in some of my work and they are really amazing things. It's used for statistical sampling so that, for example, they can find out what percentage of times the word "mouse" relates to a computer mouse as opposed to a squeaky animal, or how often the word "textile" appears in the same sentence as "beach" (that's called collocation analysis). I digress. :o

You can see from that statement and the earlier definition that a dictionary reports how it has found any particular lexeme (word root) actually being used rather than stipulating what 'it' thinks is the correct usage, and that it is certainly not exhaustive.

Believe it or not, but I actually have to train my students how, and when, to use a dictionary. Many of them have fallen into the trap of thinking that a dictionary 'definition' is 'definitive' - and it certainly is not. No court of law in the UK will ever state that a word means something exclusively because one dictionary says it does - but a court can have regard to any reported usage that is shown in one of the more authoritative dictionaries like Oxford (or, in the US, Websters).

Hope that helps. :)

Stu

[luvnaturism]

How would you answer this question from someone entering the various places you go nude?

My response is similar to that given by others. Typically I reply cheerfully, "I'm always decent. I'm just not dressed." However, depending on who it is and what the circumstances are, sometimes it's fun to respond with a question of my own: "Why do you ask?"