This just in via Google NewsAlerts:
Nudist German flights scrapped
BERLIN (AFP) — Despite being fully booked by naturists wanting to take off and strip off, a German travel company said Thursday it has decided to scrap a special nude flight that had been scheduled for this summer.
The July 5 flight was due to be the first of many and was aimed at east Germans nostalgic for the naturism that was authorised and extremely popular under communist rule.
But OssiUrlaub.de, the firm organising the service to a picturesque Baltic Sea island, said it has had second thoughts after "moral objections" in the media and from visitors to its Internet portal, a spokesman said.
The 50 people with tickets would have boarded the flight in the eastern city of Erfurt fully clothed, but once on the plane would have been free to undress and enjoy the rest of the journey as nature intended.
They will now receive a full refund as well as a voucher for other products offered by the company, whose core business caters to holidaymakers who keep their clothes on, it stressed.
# # #
There's a lot that intrigues me about this story. First, that "naturism (nudism to us non-Europeans) ... was authorised and extremely popular under communist rule." Really? Wonder why? Perhaps the powers that were figured out that if they let their citizens run around in the nude, they would forget how truly bad life was under an authoritarian regime.
Then there are the "moral objections." Please. It's not my thing personally (and won't be until I develop a bod like Charles Atlas), but I have a hard time seeing what is immoral about being unclothed. What you choose to do while you're larking about in all your glory may be immoral, but that requires a bit of imagination now, doesn't it?
Perhaps some people need to get their minds out of the gutter.
Finally -- and this is truly a niggling point -- the writer notes that after the plane is airborne, the passengers would have been "free to undress and enjoy the rest of the journey as nature intended." 'Zat so? Being enclosed several miles in the air inside a large metal cylinder with wings seems to go against nature.
Then again, what do I know?
There once was a handsome young dude
who liked to fly in the nude ...
Oh never mind.
Posts
