Amid fears, taboos, morbid curiosity, and even visual harassment, especially toward women, for the fourth consecutive year, Guadalajara celebrates its “Naked Day,” seeking to promote the normalization of seeing the body au naturel on the streets of a city considered conservative.
Morelos Park was the venue for this gathering of nudists seeking to promote and promote their lifestyle. Due to strict social rules and the risks of being arrested by the authorities, they practice their lifestyle in private spaces, but once a year they take to the streets and shed their cobwebs, fears, and prohibitions.
With various activities such as nude yoga and a picnic starting at eight in the morning, they arrived to prepare the scene for their gathering. This time, the streets were not visited, there were no minors, and everything took place in a peaceful and cool atmosphere thanks to the clouds that covered the space.
Héctor Martínez, one of the main promoters of this activity, mentioned that this park was chosen because they wanted to hold a demonstration in the heart of Guadalajara, and this is a busy space.
“The goal is to highlight the prejudices we have attributed to the body, such as general beauty standards, objectification, hypersexualization, among many others. We are here with different nude activities so that people see that just because we are naked doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing,” he explained, adding that next week they will be in Mexico City, where they will hold a similar activity at the Teatro de Bellas Artes.
Thus, they carried out their activities at the kiosk in the center of the park amidst dozens of onlookers who took videos, photos, or remained motionless while the nude yoga exercises were performed.
“People come as spectators, curious, but in general there hasn’t been any disrespect or aggression, and it’s because Guadalajara society is more open than it’s given credit for,” and the conservative and puritanical taboo has lessened.
Meanwhile, Ana, one of the participants who sensed the men who gathered to watch were too morbidly attracted to the event, asked them to move a little further away from the area if they weren’t going to participate, as they felt invaded.
“This event isn’t for you to be here as morbid people looking at bodies with an erotic mentality. The idea of this demonstration is precisely to normalize the naked body and for you to learn to be in a normal social setting, in a normal situation but completely without clothes,” which somewhat inhibited some attendees, who put away their phones and left. Others didn’t and continued taking pictures, especially of the women.
“We’re still exactly the same. The body is still being sexualized, and unfortunately, people are still ignorant about the issue. Let’s say we’re doing a job, but people still think we’re going to see people naked, to record them so I can use that content at home and do things,” she indicated, and she’s sure that most of those who recorded them use the images for those purposes.
Source: oem
