​Today on the nude beat: There's a calendar/guide available that may be the perfect stocking stuffer for your nudist uncle, if you have a nudist uncle (and who, honestly, doesn't?). This gift item is called The Skinny Dipping Report, and it is described as "a calendar and guide to swimming naked in beautiful places, featuring the best amateur nude photography the Internet has to offer." The whole Internet! That is a big place.

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​Here is another reminder that the most wonderful time of the year is weighing upon us like last year's leftover fruit cake. If you find yourself in Astoria tomorrow between 12 and 4 p.m., you should know that the semi-clad Santas running through the streets are doing it for charity. It's the second annual Santa Streak, in which 100 or so residents of the neighborhood are expected to participate in a one-mile run wearing "only Speedos or similarly revealing holiday costumes." For a good cause! Why Leave Astoria, the organizer of the run, asks participants to bring old coats and clothes to donate to New York Cares: "take it off, strip down as far as you want, then run like hell to the secret bar where we'll be serving up some free suds."

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​Back in June, when it was sultry and sunny on the city streets, there was a woman who walked the Bowery topless. Some were shocked, as people sometimes are; others responded coolly, knowingly that, actually, it is legal to be topless as a woman or a man in New York City. Still others were inspired to try it for themselves. And then, we all pretty much put our shirts back on and went about our business, except for a group known as the Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society. After a first meeting on August 17, they are still going topless as they read pulp fiction outdoors in various New York City locales -- although probably not today, given the rain. They are hoping to take female toplessness from "something taboo," albeit legal, to something that people don't much notice, or care about if they do. They've got a blog that's been seen by more than 100,000 people (and they're on Twitter, now, too). We had a chat with a couple of the group's members this weekend.

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Simone's photo

​Erica Simone is a French photographer who recently published a Not Exactly Safe for Work photo collection called Nue York: Self-Portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen, in which she does average daily New York City things totally nude -- jogging, riding the subway, riding a motorcycle, buying a hot dog, and so on. Her show ran from April 14 through April 28 at the Dash Gallery, and got, as she wrote us, "quite an extensive amount of press in May/April." We even covered it on this blog. Now Simone has gotten in touch to let us know that Zappos may be ripping her off in a campaign that looks kind of a lot like at least one of her photos, in so much as it is of a naked lady, running. (Note that in the original photo of Simone running, she does not have her lady parts hidden with any bars, much less ones that advertise clothing.) Simone writes of Zappos, "Their campaign is scheduled to fully run in August. The copyright issue is significant and a lawsuit may result from it."

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Here's footage from the hotly anticipated World Naked Bike Ride, which finally happened this Sunday. "As soon as the cops split the shorts came off," reports WNBR NYC. Seems like a ready-made tagline for next year's event. There was apparently a significant police presence limiting nudity this year: "14 cops on scooters and many more NYPD officers in 3 interceptors, 2 cars, and 2 van. At least 25 officers assigned to the event." World Naked Bike Ride, by the way, is not just about nudity -- it's also about protesting harmful environmental effects from cars and oil dependencies and promoting alternative transportation. Plus, nudity.
[JDoll / @thisisjendoll]

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​Because we know you've all been waiting for it, we are happy to report that the World Naked Bike Ride is happening Sunday. Postponed in June because of inclement weather, the ride will depart from East River Park near Houston Street at 4 p.m. The event's Facebook page declares: "Bare as you dare! You choose what not to wear!" Just remember people, under-boob sweat is not pleasant. [Gothamist]

​Hasn't Coney Island seen enough of sorrow, tribulation, and nakedness? Perhaps not. The American Association for Nude Recreation would like Coney Island to have a designated nude beach for reasons including Coney Island's accessibility via mass transit as well as the opportunity to "attract more Europeans and out-of-state tourists to New York, because they would finally have a convenient place to sunbathe nude," said the group's spokesman, Tom Mulhall, who we're not sure has ever actually been to Coney Island. City officials are being kind of a buzzkill about all this, however, as nude sunbathing does not exactly fit in with plans to revitalize charge more for fancy new things at Coney Island.

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​If going through airport security was, for a short time, your favorite means of getting a glimpse of some fellow human's nude body, think again! TSA is onto you. Contrary to popular belief, they don't like looking at you nude, and they don't think you should look at anyone else nude, either. Thus, as they battle the forces of terrorism throughout our great country, they have replaced the "explicit 'person-specific images'" revealed by full-body scanners with a generic image of the distinctly 1-dimensional, flat, sexless person missing not only genitalia but also a nose at right.

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​You're probably dressed already, given that it's noon, but you can change that. For today is apparently a very important national holiday, that being National Nude Day. According to one site, "National Nude Day is one kind of celebration for how to keep cool on a hot, sticky summer day." According to another, National Nude Day is a SERIOUS EVENT, and by the way, nudists are not perverts. According to Facebook, there are a lot of people marginally interested in this event. According to us, National Nude Day is a day in which to point fingers at people who are not wearing clothes in public settings. If anyone sees this woman out and about, please get in touch. Related: Here is a highly informative Wikipedia entry about streaking. [JDoll / @thisisjendoll]

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​Inspired by the mysterious Topless Bowery Lady who recently set the Internet aflame, and the publicly acknowledged legality of being topless in the city, our pal Jamie Peck took it upon herself to take off her own shirt in the outside air recently and see what happened. At the beginning of her adventure, which she chronicled for The Gloss, she found that she was initially nervous -- Could she do this? What would happen? -- but went through with it anyway in the good fight against social conventions. She headed to Central Park on a Sunday afternoon, took off her shirt -- "it turned out to be like ripping off a band-aid; once I'd done it without anything bad happening, I relaxed," she writes.

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