All the nudes that’s fit to print

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/06/2020 (2285 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Close the curtains and put your cellphone’s ringer on silent, because it’s time for another instalment of something I like to call Naked People in the News.

This is the semi-recurring feature wherein I provide in-depth coverage of people around the globe who are determined to obtain maximum exposure.

It is also one of the few chances I get as a crusading newspaper columnist to activate the caps lock feature on my keyboard and repeatedly write a single word — NAKED! NAKED! NAKED! — in a sincere and humanitarian effort to attract more online eyeballs.

Our first unclad news item appeared in Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper under this intriguing headline: “We looked for love while completely naked.”

For this hard-hitting yarn, the paper interviewed three people who were taking part in the latest matchmaking trend on the other side of the pond — naked speed dating, which is apparently just like regular speed dating, except you take part without all the bother of having to wear pants, or anything else.

One participant quoted in the story was a 36-year-old guy named Nolan, who had no problem doffing his duds, but refused to take off his hat because, and I will quote him directly, “I wear it every day so it’s like my identity.”

Here’s what hat-wearing Nolan said of spending three minutes on a series of naked dates: “I found it more relaxing than normal speed dating. You had nothing to hide. You’re not being judged. I feel we’re normally judged by what we wear and we try to guess what people do.”

Speaking of intriguing headlines, we found it impossible to ignore a story on CNN’s travel website that appeared under this gem: “I was trapped naked on a German fire escape.”

In a nutshell, it was a travel writer’s tale of visiting a German resort town with her boyfriend, attempting to find her way to the sauna au natural, and ending up on a fire escape in the altogether. We’ve all been there at one time or another.

Fortunately, this tragic tale had a happy ending in the sense the woman’s modesty was rescued by an elderly pool-goer who offered up a large inflatable pool float, which just happened to be shaped like a lobster with (Whew!) oversized claws.

We assume she did not come out of her shell until she got back to the safety of her hotel room.

You might not think being naked would be a major pastime during a global coronavirus pandemic, but it turns out you would be completely wrong.

We base that on a Reuters news report stating that a group of Russian restaurant owners, angry about being stripped of their income by a prolonged coronavirus lockdown, are campaigning for their businesses to be allowed to reopen by posting nude pictures of themselves on social media.

It might be more accurate to say these Russians were “sort of naked” in the sense that they and their employees have been posting photographs of themselves in the buff with carefully positioned plates, cups, saucepans, bottles, bar stools and napkin holders to hide what we family newspapers typically refer to as their “jiggly bits.”

Not to be outdone, Ontarians sick of being cooped up by COVID-19 are shaking off the shackles of quarantine by shaking off their clothes, according to a CTV News report stating that naturist resorts have been welcoming more visitors this year than prior to the pandemic.

“There’s something about taking your clothes off that makes you feel like you’re really finally losing all the shackles of society and all the rules,” Stéphane Deschênes, owner of Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park near Newmarket, Ont., said.

“You almost feel cleaner because your body is breathing and you can feel the sun on your skin. Makes you feel very alive. We were unusually busy. I think people had a ton of cabin fever.”

Our next item involves an incident we are surprised did not happen more often during the lockdown because most of us do not have a clue what we are doing when we take part in those (bad word) Zoom conference calls.

What happened was a Mexican senator issued an apology earlier this month after she was accidentally caught topless during a government Zoom conference.

Martha Lucia Micher, 66, was unaware her camera was still on when she started to get changed during the live meeting with a bunch of bigwigs discussing the impact of the pandemic on the economy.

She apologized for the wardrobe malfunction, which she blamed on her lack of digital expertise, and bravely tore a strip off the online jerks who posted stupid remarks mocking her appearance.

In an effort to leave you on an upbeat note, we are delighted to report that, according to forbes.com, sensational photos purporting to show U.S. President Donald Trump getting a spray tan in his birthday suit are, in fact, bogus. It was part of some off-the-wall art project featuring celebrity lookalikes, which is far less disturbing, right?

Which, sadly, is all the naked news we have room for today. But we promise that if anyone in the future does anything in a revealing manner, we’ll be there to cover it.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca