The one thing you can depend on in the "Letters To The Editor" page in Jamaican newspapers is the frequency with which our readers decry the nation's declining morals.

A favourite target is the homosexual and lesbian community, but the other day we had refreshing evidence that nudity is making a comeback as a contentious subject.

Ardaine (male? female?) Gooden of Cave in Westmoreland, in an Observer letter brought to our attention that "no longer is sex confined to the chambers of the bedroom, but is paraded on the streets on a daily basis by the uninhibited nudity or provocative half-dress of our women".

I haven't been to Cave lately, but the writer's description of what the women wear indicates that a visit is long overdue. Joking aside, there is reason to be more than a little worried that in Cave there is serious misunderstanding about the meaning of sex.

Nudity, or nakedness, has been a matter for controversy since Adam and Eve appeared in the Garden of Eden leading some to believe that it was sinful not to have a fig leaf to cover your private parts. The good old days - like the Greeks' nude Olympics - eventually ended around the 8th century when they stopped baptising Christians naked.

Various customs and conventions have been adopted by mankind. Whereas in the Amazon Basin the tribespeople walked around nude or nearly nude until the missionaries arrived, Islamic countries have historically been extreme in their modesty and conservative attitudes towards exposing skin. In the past, well-exposed young men in parts of sub-Saharan Africa engaged in stick-fighting contests in the hope of catching the eye of a potential bride. In the West, attitudes have become more liberal than in the days when Queen Victoria ruled her empire and women had to be fully dressed before bathing in the sea as public nudity was considered obscene.

Western society's response to nudity varies according to the culture, time, location and context of the activity in question. Jamaican resorts often have a section of their beaches reserved for topless sunbathing.

And there's Hedonism II in Negril which has earned its place in literature in a book entitled The Naked Truth about Hedonism II, a totally unauthorised naughty but nice guide to Jamaica's very adult resort. But we have yet to have a nudist colony or naturist resort, particularly popular with Northern Europeans.

Curiously, it is the fully clothed person who feels uncomfortable walking into a nudist colony. But when Peter Sellers in "A Shot In The Dark" found himself in one and was obliged to shed his garments, he held a Spanish guitar in front of him to avoid embarrassing himself.
Whereas nude sun-tanning - for some - is only mildly offensive, gratuitous nudity is - as it is perceived in Cave - definitely immoral.

One man who sees it as a bit of a lark is a Brit, Mark Roberts, who has "streaked" 380 times at major sporting events over the past ten years. He managed to streak (clutching half a football full of his genitals) at the 2004 Super Bowl before being brought down by a huge linebacker.

Barely covered, he crashed Ladies Day at the Royal Ascot horseracing meet in 2003, and in the same year streaked across the court at the French Open, er, wearing - what else - three tennis balls strategically placed. It was a Yankee baseball game that gave us the best anecdote about streaking. When their legendary catcher, Yogi Berra, was asked what gender a streaker was, he replied: "I don't know. Their face was covered by a bag."

Nudity in the fine arts seems to have always been acceptable as any stroll through a major European museum will confirm. US photographer Spencer Tunick took it to the extreme when he recently had l8,000 people pose for him in the nude in Mexico City's main square. He'd earlier already photographed 7,000 Spaniards in Barcelona wearing as little. "I just create an abstraction, it's a performance, it's an installation," said Tunick when asked his motive.

But for ingenuity in making the most of nudity as an asset, you have to hand the prize to Sharon Mitchell, a young American XXX-rated star. Finding herself with insufficient identification to cash a cheque at a New York bank she carried over to the teller a glossy magazine featuring her in a frontal pose. Then she simply raised her sweater. The teller promptly cashed her cheque. Good job she doesn't bank in Cave.

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