Running bare

arizonavichi:

The author comments on the surprisingly reactionary origins of streaking:

If a political dimension is attributed to the 1970s streaking trend at all, it is usually presumed to have been part of the counterculture of the times, of hippie-dom and sexual liberation. In reality, Kirkpatrick says, streaking was much more conservative.

”If anything it was counter-revolutionary; it was a counter-protest to the hippies and the feminists and the civil rights activists. The main people who were streaking in 1973, 1974, were basically white college males at a time when the college campus was changing radically. More African-Americans were going to college, more women were going to college, and a lot of all-male campuses and clubs were being forced open by the courts. And so, at a time when the college campus was in turmoil, suddenly all these white men started taking off their clothes and running around … It was about white men retaking the campus.”