Another quality page linked to Jim's Pen is Central!

PhD: Tell us about the first time you walked nude in public.

AM: Well I never thought of taking off my clothes in everyday life as I was growing up in Cupertino. After I graduated, a week before coming to Berkeley, I walked down Highway 9 in the nude. I put my clothes in a backpack and got about a mile and a half. [By the way, an advertising agency has recently contacted Andrew to see if he would be willing to endorse their brand!]

PhD: How did people react?

AM: They were laughing, honking, asking, why are you doing this? One, obviously, called the cops.

PhD: How have your parents reacted?

AM: They think I'm going through a phase -- that I missed out on my rebellious phase earlier.

PhD: Do you agree with them?

AM: Well, this gets into the subconscious. My conscious decision to walk around nude is not to rebel; I'd be nude even if no one else was or if everyone else is. The reasons for it are so close to the 60s; it seems that the 60s generation sold out and so much of their work remains to be done -- pot smoking, streaking, and nudity. But those baby boomers are now in positions of power, and no one talks about these issues. There's very little dissent, everyone's wearing suits -- and 60s generation kids face even more repression.

PhD: Let me show you this column by JoAnne Jacobs in the San Jose Mercury-News. She says, "It's no great intellectual breakthrough to notice that during much of the year, Californians wear clothing not for warmth or comfort but because it's a convention of society to keep certain parts of the body covered when in public. Is it stupid? That's not the issue. Social conventions don't have to be logical; that's not their job."

AM: [Interrupts] Oh, god! [Laughs uproariously.]

PhD: What do you think about that?

AM: [Mocking the point of view] "Cause that's the way it is, dude!"

Philip: [similarly] "Put your pants on, young man!"

AM: She's not addressing how convention perpetuates certain social conditions, whether they be [social] class biases that you don't want or repression of different groups. Her point of view doesn't go any farther than, "because that's the way it is."

PhD: Well, she goes on to say, "Some people choose to visit naturist camps or clothing-optional beaches where the social contract says nudity is fine and if it bothers you, stay awayä. But these conventions no longer command respect. New York's highest court ruled this year that women's breasts can be bared in public for fun but not for profitä"

AM: [Laughs heartily for several seconds] That's hilarious! I gotta read that decision.

PhD: "At least Madonna, for all her exhibitionism, has the grace to make people pay, which means that those too cheap to peep may go about their lives sexually unliberated. However, she can't just take the money and shut up about it." We talked about Madonna on the phone. Remind us what you think about her.

AM: I think she's great! She's definitely on the side of the same cultural war lines that I'm on, so she's working towards the same thing, I think: on the one hand, sexual liberation -- which goes beyond just accepting nudity -- but [also] accepting homosexuality, accepting women liking sex, and doing [sex] not just for marriage, but having the full range of sexual desires and all that. Madonna's view goes into deviant sexuality, doing things in positions other than the missionary position, too. She has the charisma, or the confidence, to take all the criticism [in stride] and it gets to the point where you can't even really criticize her, you know? I mean, other people might get all defensive, but she just says, well yeah, that's what I did, and it's all right -- so what's the problem? She silences a lot of criticism.

PhD: I think you're right: Madonna has that amazing self-confidence, but I also am curious about how she gets away with it in general, because the right wing really did believe for awhile that they were getting the media under control. Then Madonna just blasted that all away, and it must be frustrating to those media control freaks who think that they can keep people repressed -- Madonna makes freedom look so easy. And in a sense you make it look so easy -- just take off your clothes and let it all hang out.