Distorted Images:John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Nudism, Stereotypes and the Establishment

First Published March 2015

In November 1968, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released their debut album titled Two Virgins. This album was controversial to both the public and their record company because it featured Lennon and Ono naked on the album cover. The release of this album is an event which demands the attention of nudists throughout the world. Firstly, because it depicts the artistic, simplistic philosophy of Lennon and Ono regarding nudity that is expressed with utmost humility. Secondly, it is a textbook example of the hysterical reaction of the establishment toward nudity that still uses the same methods and stereotypes in nearly every locality of the world, including Australia.

The album's title came from the couple's feeling that they were "two innocents, lost in a world gone mad". Lennon said that the album cover "just seemed natural for us”. We're all naked really." Ono saw the cover as making an artistic statement: "I was in the artistic community, where a painter did a thing about rolling a naked woman with blue paint on her body on a canvas; ... that was going on at the time. The only difference was that we were going to stand together, which I thought was very interesting ... it was just standing straight. I liked that concept.” The methodology to produce this album cover is awe inspiring. In a single statement written by John Lennon, we are treated with a story of positive affirmation of the naked human form. John said: “We were both a bit embarrassed when we peeled off for the picture, so I took it myself with a delayedaction shutter. The picture was to prove that we are not a couple of demented freaks, that we are not deformed in any way and that our minds are healthy. If we can make society accept these kind of things without offense, without sniggering, then we shall be achieving our purpose.”

Following the recording of the album, their record company EMI pressed the record into vinyl but refused to produce the intended album cover. Technik later produced the cover while Apple came up with a packaging solution. The album was later distributed by Track in the United Kingdom. It was pressed and distributed through comedian Bill Cosby's Tetragrammaton Records in the United States as a joint Apple/Tetragrammaton release where it reached 124 in the charts. The controversy was calmed down largely to Apple’s marketing solution, in which the album was sold in a brown paper bag with quotes from Genesis Chapter 2, Verses 21 to 25 written on the side which read:

“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof, And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man, And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

But American police authorities were not so happy about the release of the album. On Jan. 3, 1969, 30,000 copies of the album were impounded by police at Newark Airport, New Jersey on the grounds that its cover photograph was pornographic. Copies were banned on 25 Jan 1969, in both Union County, New Jersey and Cleveland, Ohio. Police in Mountainside, New Jersey seized a further 20,000 copies of the album. Lennon commented that the hysterical reaction had less to do nudity, and more to do with the fact that the pair were rather unattractive and the photo taken of them unflattering. Lennon described it later as a picture of "two slightly overweight ex-junkies".

Lennon’s description is most interesting. He is really making reference to stereotypes that people have long held about nudists and still use today. It is interesting because within the past decade, a South Australian journalist used these exact same stereotypes about nudists visiting Maslin Beach in an opinion column:

“And in particular, the way it is still permitted by law in South Australia, in one of the last remaining vestiges of the counter-culture era when drugs such as LSD helped convince ugly, hairy people that they looked good in the buff.”

“The only women I saw all looked like the enormous American feminist Andrea Dworkin, and appeared to have had some sort of crazy bet to see who could grow the most pubic hair.”

“(Don Dunstan) effectively declared one of the greatest beaches in Australia off-limits for anyone who isn’t an exhibitionist and, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit of a weirdo.”

“In fact the whole joint has a sort of weirdness about it because most normal people would never step foot there.”

Maslin Beach, South Australia

The stereotypical labels the journalist is selling to the public are here, are that nudists are; aged, ugly, hairy, drug users, feminists, weird and abnormal. Almost a carbon copy of the stereotypes Lennon identified at the time of seizure of his albums. It is also interesting to note that the journalist even stereotypes the people of the counter-culture era which John Lennon and Yoko Ono belonged to.

This journalist most likely thought he was being funny. However stereotypes such as these are damaging not only to nudists, but all people. They are usually the medium in which bigotry, prejudice and ignorance are well nurtured. Stereotypes distort images of a particular kind of person and presents them as some kind of freak, monster or social ill. It is clear in this example, that the journalist is attempting to foster distorted images of nudists in the minds of the general public consuming this stereotypes as entertainment.

Reality however, could not be further removed from the distorted images disseminated to the public by this journalist. Anyone who has ever attended the Maslin Nude Games or the Nude Pub Night in South Australia, both the brainchild of David and Debbie Pillar from Pilwarren (Nudist Resort) or the Nude Cabaret which featured at the recently held 2015 Adelaide Fringe Festival know that South Australia has a vibrant nudist community evenly represented by ALL ages, ethnic groups, shapes, sizes and genders. They also know nudists take no strange bets to see who can grow the most public hair nor do nudists take LSD to accept their naked bodies.

Within the last decade, we see that it is not just the domain of journalists to stereotype nudists. A recent case in Queensland highlighted police discrimination and harassment of an elderly man going nude on a Sunshine Coast beach. Eighty year old Kenneth Wenzel was charged in 2005 with being a public nuisance and his case was brought before the Maroochydore Magistrates Court in 2006 for a summary trial. Apparently, it was not just Wenzel’s actions of going nude that caused the two undercover police officers to be offended at a distance of 75 metres at which point Wenzel sighted them and covered up as he would have for anyone else. His rainbow coloured painted toenails, the legacy of a request made by Wenzel’s great-grand daughter to paint them, were also a source of disgust to the arresting officers and a contributing factor to why Wenzel was deemed a public nuisance. As a result, Wenzel was convicted by the Maroochydore Magistrate court and fined $75. Wenzel appealed and took the case to the Brisbane District Court. On 28 April 2008, Magistrate Barry Barrett raised one final question before delivering his final verdict:

“Is this a state,” he asked, “that on the one hand, allows nudity in large numbers on some beaches? For example, Alexandria Bay, Noosa, and, in particular, the so-called Nude Olympics? Does this state allow that to go unchallenged by police intervention yet, on the other hand, seeks out elderly nude males, partially concealed by vegetation on semi-secluded beaches—for example, Third Bay, Coolum—and lays charges against those individuals for alleged criminal conduct? If the answer is ‘yes’, and I feel it is, this Court shall not be party to such patent victimisation and double standards.” The charges were dismissed against Wenzel and one of the arresting officers was ordered to pay $2000 in costs within two months.

Alexandria Beach, Sunshine Coast, Queensland

The actions of both the journalist and the two police officers are identical to the establishment and authorities who seized John Lennon’s albums in 1969. Lennon’s assertion that these intimidating social agencies are not so much concerned with the actions of people going nude, but are more concerned about ‘unattractive people’ with ‘unflattering bodies’ and ‘eccentric habits’ daring to bare their bodies, is given credibility. Nearly 50 years on from the release of Two Virgins, we see that wider society has still not adopted a grown up understanding of nudism. It is no wonder. Distorted images of the weird, aged, ugly and hairy nudist are still being used by our agents of social control. We face an ongoing battle as nudists even in this day and age to present nudism as John Lennon seen it, that we are not demented freaks, that we are not deformed in any way and that our minds are indeed healthy and that we should continue work to make society accept nudity without mockery or offense.

Lennon's statement is one of self-affirmation that all nudists should own to defy the stereotypes

Sources:

http://www.discogs.com/John-Lennon-And-Yoko-Ono-Unfinished-Music-No-1-TwoVirgins/release/485652 Read More: 46 Years Ago: John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Controversial 'Two Virgins' Album Seized by Police

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/john-lennon-yoko-ono-two-virgins-seized-bypolice/?trackback=tsmclip Beatles Discography https://books.google.com.au/books?id=FHdnkXJK2e4C&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=two +virgins+john+and+yoko+release+in+australia&source=bl&ots=LnukVJdiN0&sig=bDh64S pIMpW0MhTjBlKc4LjUZfY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OQkFVequJYaG8QW7loHoAw&ved=0CDcQ 6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=two%20virgins%20john%20and%20yoko%20release%20in%20 australia&f=false

http://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/daivd-penberthy-maslin-beach-badpuns.html#.VQUPCY6Uffd

http://benjamin-law.com/queensland-raw-nude-beaches/