The Naked Rambler and the Sociology of Deviance

As I stated in my Friday 10-12-12 post on the Ramblers, in Scotland they have something called Scotsway, alternatively referred to as rights of way, which allows the Ramblers and others to, generally speaking, walk free. There are, however, limitations to the Scot's tolerance of rights of way.  Turns out, they draw the line at clothing.  When engaging in a right of way, you need to wear your cloths.  That's right, you read that sentence correctly.  A right of way is not clothing optional.

Why, you might ask, would I be mentioning such a legal limitation?  Because of the NAKED RAMBLER.  The Naked Rambler, as they call him in the press, is actually a gentleman known as Stephen Gough.  (For a complete overview, see this Guardian story--click here)

Gough made the papers the weekend I was in the lower borders, as he was passing through the area, on his way to England--unfortunately or fortunately, depending upon how you look at it, we did not cross his path.  Gould, who considers himself an activist, sees the world "sans vêtements."  More to the point, he seems to have a real issue with people's need to wear cloths, including wearing cloths in airports and courts of law--in which, I might add, he has appeared numerous times naked, resulting in, when combined, over six years in prison.  It might even be more, but you get the point.

So, as a sociologist traveling in the UK, how am I to make sense of this? 

Easy enough, I turn to Goffman's book, Stigma or, more broadly, to the sociology of deviance.  There is so much going on here, from body politics and gender issues to the difference between lightly enforced folkways (which are tolerant of eccentricities such as sagging, which I discuss below) and more strongly enforced mores (protecting people from harm).

So, you might ask, what were the views of Brits and, more specifically, Scots, in the newspapers and magazines?  They, of course, ranged from the quite serious to the utterly absurd, having a got at it with the type of British humor I remembered as a child.  Back int the 1970s I enjoyed a regular diet of Mad Magazine, Saturday Night Live and Monty Python.  In fact, I attribute the absurdist, sarcastic, 'look how dumb adults are' mentality and wit of these creations as crucial to me becoming a sociologist later in life and to my joy of pathetically stupid humor--as me mates, family and students know.  (A side note, one student comment made about five years ago said, "This cat is not as funny as he thinks he is."  point painfully taken).

The serious points made in the papers ranged.  For example, one writer made the argument that people have a problem with the human body and that naturalists are rational, not irrational for their joy of nakedness.  Point taken.  Another author argued that people reacted similarity to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and its wall of naked bodies.  Again, point taken--although, i admit i was a bit lost on this one, as Michelangelo wore cloths when hiking.

And, in yet another article, the author pointed out that teenagers, today, walk around with their low-rider pants barely on, derrière sticking out in various unattractive ways, and people say nothing.

For women--as shown to the left--such a look is called Whale tail: the habit of revealing one's underwear outside of low-fitting jeans (photo and terminology from wikipedia).

For men, it is called sagging--as shown below. (Photo and terminology taken from the New York Times) 

In fact, one day, in the states, my wife, daughter and I were out for a drive in our hometown of Willoughby when our daughter, about ten at the time, yelled, 'hey mom and dad, look at the penguins!'  I thought, what penguins, where?  She was pointing to two young lads desperately trying to get across the street quickly--all the while painfully trying to remain hip--with traffic approaching fast, walking like penguins, with their pants down to their knees!  I could not stop laughing and we have referred to this look ever since as, "going out penguin... 

Humor aside, the issue of sagging or public nudity does go to the point: social norms are always a matter of accepted convention.  When lots of people do something and when the structures of power--be they teen culture, corporate fashion, government, media, etc--support it, something can quickly become normal, okay, not eccentric.  Closer to the issue of gender: Men could not wear earrings in the 1980s in the states without being considered gay or deviant; then you saw the same homophobic people wearing earrings several years later.  Then there was the hip-hop approach to earrings and so forth.  Bottom line: norms vary from culture to culture, sub-culture to sub-culture and so forth and most of it, as Michel Foucault, the French philosopher points out, has to do with power: who has the right to define who can do something and when, where, how, and why they can do it.  Important caveat: Foucault's point does not conclude with the idea that norms are therefore little more than power-supported whim.  Increasing human rights, for example, for women, minorities, gays and lesbians, different religious perspectives, etc, are hard won and important, slowly increasing the freedom of people throughout the world.


Still, going back to the naked rambler--and I am having a bit of fun here--while I tried as I could to have an open mind, in the end I just couldn't.  I know that sounds small minded and anti-C. Wright Mills for a sociologist.  But, the whole time reading the various newspapers articles about this guy I just kept thinking of that famous Seinfeld episode--The Apology--where Jerry tries to be a nudist for a while to keep his girlfriend at the time, and it just does not work.  Some sociological rules of daily life, Seinfeld concludes, exist for a very good reason.  And, wearing cloths on hikes is one of those rules I strongly support.