Lady God1va http://ladygod1va.wordpress.com/ says she’s just a normal girl who was introduced to naturism at an early age. “NO I am not an exhibitionist!! … An exhibitionist does it for the thrill and does not expect adverse repercussions.” She runs an IT company and has a busy life style.
One day she happened to catch the show OneAndOther. The host, Clive Anderson, asked viewers to sign up for a place on the Plinth (A month long forum for artist on top of a piller). “When asked what was I going to do, since I have no ‘Artistic’ talents… “She remembered one summer a year or two ago when she swam in Trafalgar Square fountains “just to say I’ve done that and to test whether it was against the law, no one complained, in fact one chap actually told another off for looking!” She decided, “So what about being a live nude statue on the Plinth, that thought didn’t stay in my mind for too long as I would not be able to stand still for 10 mins never mind 60!” She finally came up with the idea to be Lady Godiva and use a rocking horse.
Her plinth hour was set for 5-6am on 30 Sep. “I have no idea why I did not reject the 5am slot, the only reason I can possibly give is my pig headed attitude that I must finish what I started.”
She discussed it with her family and friends, “What will my clients think, what will my employees think? I decided that, any intelligent person would recognize that I want to do it because it’s something I believe in, not because I want to flaunt my body to the public in the Trafalgar Square or indeed the world.” Anyone who can’t figure that out is too deep into their own views and she is not likely to convince them anyway. “…does it really matter? I will have to face the consequences… In my effort to get involved in this debate, I have opened up my home, soul and laid out my life on a table for people to judge and comment… So if I can do it with all the risk associated with my action, then why don’t you consider it?” She says, “You are invited to; Support me, Ignore me, Assassinate my views/character because it does not fit in with your thoughts, or give it some thought and maybe give it a go…. try it, you don’t know… you might actually like it.” She might not like my putting her on my web site, but I do it out of respect. I have included other nude activist like Terri Sue Webb. It is my intent to cover all aspects of nudity in public. To delve into the lives of the women and really paint a true picture of the reasons and situations that motivate them.
She says, “How did we ever get to the point where we are comfortable getting nude and running around the night clubs, the beach or even streaking across the sports pitch, but when it comes to the house, we don’t feel comfortable in doing the same and I don’t mean for mums to streak across living rooms with their T Shirts in the air! Maybe this has something to do with the fact that we are brought up to believe that nudity means sex, lets enjoy the nude as natural as we did when we held the newborn baby in our arms.
“Having the freedom to be nude when it feels right is very important in my life… It is not my intent to attempt a change in the attitude of the world towards nudity, rather it is my hope to engage in a public debate with the help of those that already believe in the power of nudity and explore the possibility of understanding why those that believe nudity helps them in some way, cannot be allowed to enjoy the natural life.”
So “with a combination of an attractive Rocking Horse, little bit of Nivea cream to give my skin some shine, doing my hair and a touch of lipstick is all I had to offer to make myself look attractive enough for the ‘Art’ of Plinthing.”
“When my time came, I had already informed OneAndOther that I would be going up in the nude… This was my dress, my artistic display, my statement and my decision.” She said, “As I arrived on the Plinth, the outgoing Plinther, who had been ‘beer tasting’, basically drinking lots of beer… was probably far too confused to say anything sensible, I suspect he was wondering whether he’s had one too many!
“As soon as I had arrived, there were a group of young lads, aged between 16- 20 something, they got very excited as soon as they saw a naked girl, could not believe their eyes I guess, to see someone naked at 5am. I have no idea what they wanted to see at 5am or what they were doing in the square at that time. But I learned that most of them were either visitors or not long moved into this country.” So the history of Lady Godiva was lost on them. “The comments made by the intoxicated lads were probably milder than those experienced by some other plinthers (nude or otherwise). However, I felt strong and in control and enjoyed the experience.
”They were very loud but I could not see them very well, so I set my music up and went about my plan as mentioned above.” Her idea was to communicate the message through the visual of her being comfortable in the nude and through placards and discussion.
By some fluke, the weather was nice the Trafalgar Square. “I felt warm enough to be doing what I was doing and of course a little bit of excitement helped to keep the body temperature up.
“I was expecting some naturist people there who I was going to engage with and to do this, I had brought with me an extra wireless mic, this was on the ground and I didn’t know that there were only 4 naturists there and they had no intentions of being in the nude as the intoxicated lads were little too excited.
“When I did try to engage with them, they were shouted over by the young lads, who would not wait their turn to talk with me. Initially, the lads’ excitement was about how beautiful I was, they made lots of comments about my body etc then started asking questions as to why I was in the nude. I tried to explain the reason, but the communication was very bad, I could not understand them and through their own shouting, they could not understand or hear much of what I was saying.
“I could have muted their mic and increased the music volume to drown them out, but decided against that because the whole idea was to engage with people. I had not planned to engage with 10/20 intoxicated overexcited lads, but I was there now and so were they, so thought best thing to do was to continue with the plan and talk with them.
“This seems to work because couple of them that I could see volunteered to strip, not because they were being rude but because they wanted to do what I was suggesting, however their nudity lasted only a few seconds as you can probably see on the video. There were a lot of nonsense calls why are you doing this, why are you not hairy and why are you wearing boots. In the heat of things, it is difficult to communicate the reasons and educate these lads who obviously were not familiar with a lot of things.
“I guess some of them found my message little too much to digest at that time of the morning particularly with their brain cells having received some alcohol abuse! One lad was particularly confused by the whole thing and could not understand how I one could be natural in the nude. To him, nude=sex, so I was sexy and therefore I must be doing it because I want sex. He found the boots sexy, which is ok as far as my view is concerned because it illustrates my argument that clothing is more sexual than just pure nudity.
“I managed to get my message out successfully in all the 3 ways that I had planned;
“My approach to nudity is with pure heart, in that I know what I like and why I like it. It is NOT for sex as is the case for almost all the females who I have met through naturism. I am not fazed by anyone, I can quite happily walk down the high street naked and not feel that I have no clothes on. I don’t look at myself, so why should I worry. Over the years, my confidence and belief has grown. I am not afraid of people because I know that in most cases they mean no harm.
“At the end of the day we know there are people we cannot have sex with and our sexual desires are automatically suppressed. As soon as anyone realises that they have no chance of being sexually involved or they should not be involved based on specific personal relationship, the sexual desires are either automatically suppressed or we have to learn to control them… People watching the video world wide who have no idea who I am but just see a young attractive female, they may very well be attracted to me. I don’t have a problem with that. It is a natural reaction and it is going to do no harm to anyone. There is no difference between that and anyone being attracted to or aroused by someone they see walking in the street or at the swimming pool or the beach.”
I work with a guy who get on my nerves because we’ll be working and a woman comes up to talk with us about something and after she leaves he’ll look at me sheepishly and say, “You undressed her with your eyes didn’t you.” Actually I did nothing of the sort, I might have found her attractive even sexy, but I saw her a complete person, one who has eye color and may be dressed nicely. These are guys who would never get God1va’s message because they view women as nude and sex objects even when they have clothes on.
As for me I am guilty of going into a strip club and spending my hard earned money just to see women get naked. I wonder if God1va’s philosophy caught on, and people routinely walked around nude, would strip clubs still exist? And would I still desire to go to them?