By Nato Green
This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a ban on public nudity on a party line vote. By “party line,” I mean the Supes voting against nudity are the ones who never go to parties with lines of coke or conga lines. I’m not saying every single one of the progressive supervisors could be found in the naked suntan lotion massage yurt at Burning Man, just that it’s conceivable.
The ban was proposed by District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, and supported by the “moderates,” who are Very Serious about sensible governance. First of all, anyone who ever made fun of Supervisor Eric Mar’s happy meal ban owes him an apology. Second, obviously all other problems in the City have been solved, which has freed up the Supes to kowtow to the whims of the gayeoisie.
People are worried about the effects of aggressive nudity on children, but fortunately we’ve gentrified all the families out of the City. Now we’ll have to export nudists to Solano County if we want kids subjected to them. At any rate, during a nippy San Francisco winter it’s vitally important for children to learn about shrinkage.
Nudity doesn’t necessarily harm children. I grew up in San Francisco. In the ’70s. Naked people were everywhere, bare and unshaven. I didn’t see a fully-clothed adult until I was nine. I didn’t see nakedness as sexual, so much as simply covered in naked. Partly because then, as now, the specific naked people were not easy on the eyes. Not to promote normative body images, but if Christina Hendricks and Ryan Gosling showed up naked, the ensuing celebration by all sexualities would make the Giants Victory Parade look like a tupperware party.
Worst of all, nudity was banned in the Castro. If there’s one neighborhood that arguably draws its spirit from the brandishing of genitalia, it’s the Castro. Harvey Milk did not march so his grandchildren could sequester the penis. It’s almost as if the City wanted to abolish hippies sitting on the sidewalk in the Haight-Ashbury. (Damn you, sit/lie.)
If we’re going to ban sitting on the sidewalk in the Haight and nudity in the Castro, here are more options for possible legislation to achieve the goal of draining our neighborhoods of their distinguishing features.
We should also ban:
-
Bernal Heights—dykes with dogs.
-
Mission—fixed-gear bicycles, ironic mustaches, and salvadoreños.
-
Marina—entitlement.
-
Richmond—Irish pubs with actual Irish people.
-
Noe Valley—strollers and handmade baby food.
-
Western Addition—Black people. Whoops. Too late.
Comedian Nato Green (writer for “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” on FX) headlines the San Francisco Punchline December 19 and 20. Tweet him @natogreen