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BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) - Some have appeared naked in
a downtown parking lot. Others rode their bicycles or simply
strolled the streets in the nude.
Teenagers in the quaint Vermont town of Brattleboro are
raising eyebrows this summer with brazen displays of nudity.
So far they haven't been arrested or ticketed: public
nudity isn't illegal in the town of 13,000 people, unless
it's done to arouse sexual gratification.
Vermont has a live-and-let-live tradition, allowing
skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing. Brattleboro, the first
permanent English settlement in the state in 1724, is home
to a community of writers, artists and musicians as well as
transplanted entrepreneurs from Boston and New York.
When the weather grew hot this year, a couple of dozen
teens took to holding hula hoop contests, riding bikes and
parading past the shops wearing only their birthday suits.
Nobody, including the police, seemed to take offense
until one local, Theresa Toney, went before the town
government in August to complain about a group of youngsters
naked in a parking lot.
"The parking lot is not a strip club," she
said. "What about children seeing this?"
Town officials asked their attorney to draft an ordinance
to ban such displays for the Select Board to vote on in
September. When the teens heard about it, some staged a nude
sit-in.
"I don't see why it's such a big deal," said
Alec McPherson, a recent high school graduate as he sat at a
coffee shop table, browsing a thick volume of artwork from
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Everyone's naked in
this book."
His companion, Jeremiah Compton, a high school junior who
plays in a local metal-and-punk band, agreed. "It's
just that we're bored and expressing our right," he
said.
"We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and
a ridiculous war in the Middle East, countries getting
bombed," said Ian Bigelow, a 23-year-old who had
gathered with some of his friends outside a bookstore.
"So why's it such a big problem if we chose to get
nude?"
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