Louisville's War on Nudity

Do I have my finger on the pulse of the timespace continuum or what? Just days after waggishly dissecting Kentucky's ludicrous anti-nudism statutes, the Louisville Metro Police have made a formal announcement of their intention to crack down on strip clubs, by invoking the city's nudity ordinance.

According to WAVE-TV:

For years, it has been the subject of a court battle. But starting Feb. 8, Metro officials say its inspectors will begin monitoring Louisville strip clubs to make sure nude dancing is a thing of the past.

The city ordinance will stop all nude dancing, eventually cut out alcohol sales and force employees to pay licensing fees. Touching and direct tipping of dancers is out, no lap dances and there's a 6 foot distance that must be between dancers and patrons.

Okay, so the powers-that-be don't like strip clubs. That's fine. I understand these twinks, bears, chickenhawks, and nellies are grossed out by naked women, and obviously, we have to like what they like. And if we have a problem with that, we can always leave, right? I mean, it is their city, after all, not ours, right?

So pray tell, what about nudity in theatrical productions? Riddle me that, Batman. Nudity in the theatre has been a long-honored tradition, hallowed by usage and consecrated by time, right here in Louisville. There was peek-a-boo nudity and see-through costume nudity in my play Toulouse-inations which was staged at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, and it is my intent to have full nudity in my upcoming play Son of Grimaldi. (I also wanted some near-nudity in my play Patrick Amsterdam, but the lovely and talented Sarah East ultimately chickened out on wearing a red thong microbikini as called for by the script.)

I guess my Jefferson County Confidential nude art exhibition a few years ago, which was also a clothing-optional event for guests as well as the art itself, would also be frowned upon in the new regime. The majority of my nude photo work is shown in art galleries in Europe, where people are less squeamish and less superstitious in general. (I'm always seeking models - anyone interested, contact me at jshpaint@gmail.com for more information. Both males and females are welcome, and your age, weight, appearance and body type are absolutely not an issue.)

So, Louisville, maybe this is the night I called it a day. Maybe it's time I gotta travel on, like the old Bill Monroe song says. Between the corrupt cops, the idiotic arena, the smoking ban, and now this, I'm running out of reasons to defend Louisville from its detractors and naysayers. I really am.

I hear Interzone's nice this time of year.

Kentucky's Nudist Society Act

Here's a real blast from the past. A Time magazine article dated July 15, 1966 - when Hector was just a pup - about how Kentucky's nudist society laws were overturned:

When police arrived, Kentucky Farmers Clarence and Benjamin Roe were holding family religious services in their unfenced backyard. Unfortunately, the assembled Roes of all ages and sexes were not wearing clothes. The Greenup Circuit Court fined Clarence and Ben jamin $1,000 apiece for violating Kentucky's Nudist Society Act, which required all nudist colonies to pay an annual license fee of $1,000, register all members, and segregate the premises with a solid masonry wall 20 ft. high. Unreasonable and unconstitutional, ruled Kentucky's highest court as it voided the Roes' convictions and stripped the nudist law from the books. Calling the wall "prohibitive" and the fee excessive, the court scoffed at the law's definition of a nudist as anyone found naked before "persons of the opposite sex, not his husband or wife, at their solicitation or with their consent, for religious or health purposes." Construed literally, ruled the court, the law would penalize even "a female patient who undergoes an examination by a male physician."

Problem is, two years later, they went back and rewrote the law to allow an exemption for medical professionals, and the flawed law has remained on the books in Kentucky ever since.

How does the state of Kentucky define "nudist"? I bet you've always wanted to know that, haven't you? Provider of Rare Services that I am, here's your answer.


Don't you just love the male-centric language of it? And how it fails to define what "any part of his private person" means? And how it leaves no allowances for nude modeling in the arts? This law reads like it was written half a century ago. Oh, wait, it was.

So, to this very day, you still have to have a license to operate a "nudist society" under these insanely vague definitions? That's right. And wait, it gets better: it specifically states that it makes no difference whether nudity is part of your religion or not (and it is part of several religious belief systems), you still have to get a license to take off your clothes in the private company of other like-minded individuals.

And exactly how does one apply for a license to take your damn pants off in the woods? You must petition the local county judge, who can turn you down based on your "character".

It's not at the top of my list of civil rights issues to crusade for, granted; but it is primitive, it is backward, and it is irksome on many levels.

Nude Statues in Gratz Park

The fountain (which hasn't been running the last few times I've gone by it) in Lexington's Gratz Park features these two semi-nude figures frolicking eternally in bronze.


Given the modern-day prudism regarding the human body in public art - consider John Ashcroft's covering the bare-breasted Spirit of Justice statue, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli censoring his own state's seal, and Republican delegate Robert Hurt's mission to censor all nude art in Washington D.C. - it's surprising that some squeamish sorts haven't already crocheted some clothes for these skyclad splashers.




The fountain and statuary were donated to the city of Lexington by the great novelist James Lane Allen, a graduate of Transylvania University. Allen was part of the growing "Local Color" movement in literature in the late 19th century. Rather than writing in a generalized setting and style that everyone could easiy relate to, the "Local Color" or "Regionalist" writers sought to use their stories to document the dialect, the people, and notable places in a specific locale. (Another Kentucky example: Annie Fellows Johnston's Little Colonel series of books.)

Nude Sculpture at the Coleman-Layman Home

The Courier-Journal has a great new gallery of images of the historic Coleman and Layman home in Old Louisville. This nude sculpture on a sidecase near the entrance hallway especially caught my eye.

Naked Civil War Battle

An interesting historical anecdote about a nude combat skirmish involving John Hunt Morgan, from the Washington Times:

"The Union pickets didn't know what to think of soldiers fighting as naked as jaybirds," Confederate Lt. Bennett H. Young wrote in an unusual report to his superiors about a skirmish between Union and Confederate forces on the Cumberland River in western Kentucky on July 2, 1863.

In late June, Morgan's men scouted the rain-swollen Cumberland River marking the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. The normally placid river was now half a mile wide, choked with floating logs and other storm runoff. Anxious to get his raid on the road, Morgan began crossing his men on July 2 when the river was still overflowing its banks. He had more than 2,500 with him, 1,000 more than his orders authorized.

The impetuous Morgan should have waited for the swirling river to fall, as it was an impediment to keeping his men together, but because of the flood conditions, the Federals on the Kentucky side had relaxed their patrols. The Federals believed no one would try such a dangerous crossing.

Morgan's men carefully wrapped their cap-and-ball weapons and paper cartridges in rubber blankets and tossed them into make-shift rafts and leaky boats. Many forgot modesty, stripping off their clothes to keep them dry. They jumped into the river, literally swimming bareback or holding onto their horses' tails.

It is hard to hide 2,500 men, scores of wagons and hundreds of mules swimming a river. Union patrols discovered the crossing and rushed to the bank to start shooting at the men in the boats that they could see. What they could not see was that hundreds of Confederates had already landed and were now hidden from view by the bank's slope and trees.

Nineteen-year-old Lt. Bennett Young of Morgan's command, who would gain fame the following year for leading a raid on St. Albans, Vt., remembered: "Those who had clothing on rushed ashore into line. Those who swam with horses, unwilling to be laggard, not halting to dress, seized their cartridge boxes and guns and dashed upon the enemy. The strange sight of naked men engaging in combat amazed the enemy."

Nude Statues with Doves

This visually stunning statue of a nude male (many people assume it's a female without getting up-close to it) releasing a pair of doves can be found in the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

Interestingly, a duplicate of it has been on display at Atchison's Monument Company in Lexington for many years now. Presumably, this is where the Louisville one came from.