Moth Radio Hour

[Mosquito_Bait]

I thoroughly enjoyed the first segment of the Moth Radio Hour this afternoon, which tells the story of a girl's friends learning that her mother had won the Miss Nude Universe pageant at the Treehouse Fun Ranch.

[usuallylurk]

Her mom must have migrated back and forth from the west/east coast. Treehouse Fun Ranch was in California, yet the bulk of her story was based in New York City.

Pageants used to be very common at mainstream nudist parks, prior to 1980. Treehouse was "mainstream".

For a number of reasons, they were (correctly IMHO) discontinued in the 1980s. There is one midwestern park which conducts an x-rated "nudist pageant" weekend - thus, the park is no longer affiliated with either of the two "major" national organizations.

Pagaents were phased out for a number of reasons. One, probably a secondary reason - around 1980, the Naturist Society sprang up and one of their philosophies was the teaching of personal body acceptance. So, as its influence rose, the idea of pageants just faded away. A primary reason - there was a rise of these contests run as sexually-oriented ones, and adopting the term "nudist". It was a good reason for the ASA to divorce themselves from the concept - QUICKLY.

As much as Ms. Salazar's mom was proud of her win in the contest, the old ASA and its regions held these pageants at their conventions - and included classifications for teens, children, and senior citizens. Some people who were children or adolescents at the time have been embarrassed by these contest pictures now floating around the internet today.

I might add - CBC Radio has a couple of interesting programs similar to "Moth Radio Hour". One is "Definitely Not the Opera", hosted by controversial actress and former Much Music VJ Sook Yin-Lee. Usually the show takes the format of interviewing people, but once in awhile, she takes the show "on the road" and has people do stand-up storytelling. There is another one , which I think airs on some U.S. non-commercial stations called "The Vinyl Cafe", although it's a one-man show.

And some say the NPR show "All Things Considered" is somewhat of a copy of a CBC radio news hour called "As It Happens".