Nudist Deep Pockets?

Back in March, Godiva simply wasn't sleeping.

The reason was simple: The State of New Jersey was considering slapping a ban on women (and a few guys) who wanted to remove all of the hair, down there. Fortunately, this ban did not come to pass and a woman's right to choose a fur-less genital region remains intact. http://godiva.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/03/no-nude-down-there.html

Now, a new and potentially more sinister threat to all those who love running around sans clothes and those who make the facilities available lurks in paneled offices with upscale furniture: the plaintiff's bar. They are looking to put their hands into the deep pockets of nudists, and yes this is not only possible, but plausible.

Everyone knows that the plaintiff's bar, composed by predatory and parasitic trial lawyers are always on the hunt for deep pockets (e.g. tobacco, asbestos, booze, guns, big food, publicly traded companies, pharma etc. etc. etc.), who allegedly have committed a gross injustice to their selected plaintiffs. Well how about "Big Sun?" How can you sue the sun? Anything and everything is possible with the trial bar.

Consider the chapter in pollster Mark Penn's New York Times best seller "Microtrends" http://www.microtrending.com/ about a growing movement of "Sun-Haters" marching forward and expressing concern about skin cancer. Yes, melanoma cases have been rising and so have related lawsuits and regulations.

Take tanning salons as an example as New York and New Jersey have banned children under 14 from frequenting electric beaches or fake-and-bakes. "Look for federal agencies and state attorneys general to start going after indoor tanning salons like they once pursued Big Tobacco," Penn wrote. "If Sun-Haters truly get their way, look for warning signs on beaches, and lawsuits against beach resort owners who don't provide sufficient warnings. And where will it end? Must there be warnings on private swimming pools? Outdoor patio furniture? The entire system of national parks?

"Will there be lawsuits claiming 'secondhand sun' - to which children are unwittingly exposed at school?"

Not mentioned by Penn in his book are nudist resort owners, who promote the all-over-tan in idyllic settings such as Desert Sun Resort www.desertsunresort.comin Palm Springs, CA or Caliente Resort www.calienteresorts.com near Tampa, Florida or adjacent Paradise Lakes Resort www.paradiselakesresort.com

If you insist upon totally nudity or a "clothes free" environment such as Desert Sun and Caliente does that make you more legally vulnerable than "clothing optional" Paradise Lakes or Terra Cotta Inn www.sunnyfun.com in Palm Springs? And does that mean that nudist Hidden Beach Resort www.hiddenbeachresort.com in Mexico or clothing optional Club Orient www.cluborient.com in St. Martin are off the hook since they are outside the gravitational pull of American courts?

"The litigation is already starting," Penn wrote in Microtrends. "In 2006, Californians filed a class action lawsuit against sunscreen makers, claiming that the protection assurances were substantially overblown. What is 'safe and effective' use of protection against a known cancer-causer, anyway?"

And how does climate change fit into this equation? If the ozone layer is getting thinner and the planet is getting warmer, don't the chances for skin cancer correspondingly increase?

It is already tough enough being a nudist in the USA. Do we really need trial lawyers on our backs and buttocks?