SIGHTSEERS in the trendy Vermont town of Brattleboro may get more of an eyeful than they bargained for.

All summer, youths have been taking advantage of a loophole in local laws to strut their stuff naked in the town.

The young men and women, many still in their late teens, are not merely indulging in the long-cherished Vermont tradition of nude sunbathing and skinny-dipping. They have been riding their bicycles naked down Main Street, busking in the buff and congregating for nude hula-hoop contests in a car park.

No one has been arrested for public nudity because it is not a crime in the town of 13,000 — unless it is done for sexual gratification. But complaints about the outbreak of nudism have prompted the local council, or Select Board, to explore an anti-nudity ordinance.

Vermont — increasingly populated by well-heeled refugees from Boston and New York — has no state-wide ban on nudity, but some of its cities and towns have passed their own ordinances. Not Brattleboro, the first English settlement in Vermont in 1724, which has a large community of artists and writers and a proud history of nakedness.

This summer about two dozen youths, including a self-declared anarchist who calls himself “Pat the Bunny”, have been engaged in a polite social rebellion by taking off their clothes.

“We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and a ridiculous war in the Middle East,” said Ian Bigelow, 23, who had gathered with some of his friends outside a book store. “So why is it such a big problem if we get nude?”

Theresa Toney took offence and lodged a complaint with the town council. “A parking lot is not a strip club. It’s a parking lot,” Ms Toney told the Select Board. “What about children seeing this?”

Rachel Brooks, who works at Everyone’s Books, said that the nudity began in earnest when a woman decided she wanted to bare her chest in public, just like her male friends. Since then, the fashion has spread.

NUDITY LAWS

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