Will Walters has a bone to pick with the city of San Diego.
In 2011, he was arrested during San Diego Pride for dressing up as a sexy gladiator. The officers who arrested him claimed he was “over-exposed.” But Walters and his attorney say that’s a bunch of baloney, that he wasn’t showing any more skin than the average woman wearing a g-string on a San Diego beach, and that the only difference was that Walters is gay.
According to Walters, he was approached by the then newly-appointed head of the San Diego Police Department, Lieutenant David Nisleit, while inside the beer garden at a Pride event. Nisleit informed Walters that his gladiator-style, 12-inch long leather kilt was “borderline” too revealing. Walters disagreed, saying he had worn the kilt as past Pride events without any issue. Nisleit left then returned a few minutes later with backup.
The officers issued Walters a citation. But Walters maintained that what he was wearing did not break any laws. When he refused to sign the citation, he was put in handcuffs and booked into a local jail for “public nudity.” Once there, officers refused to provide him with any additional clothing.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Earlier this year, Walters filed a claim against the city for discrimination and harassment. U.S. District Court judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo dismissed it. Walters appealed. And now, a panel of judges review the claim and decide whether or not the case will move forward.
“In the days and weeks leading up to the 2011 San Diego Gay Pride Event, Lieutenant David Nisleit, the newly appointed head of the San Diego Police Department’s Special Events Police team met with the Pride event organizers and volunteers to discuss his enforcement policy,” the appeal reads. “As for public nudity, in particular ‘skimpy’ bottoms, Nisleit announced that he was abandoning the policy of his predecessor…and was replacing it with his own interpretation…. Under Nisleit’s new policy, all attendees and parade participants would now be required to ‘fully cover their buttocks.'”
The appeal called for the city to turn over all of its public nudity citations and arrest reports issued by the San Diego Police Department from the last five years.
“The city produced 104 redacted citations and reports,” the appeal reads. “In not one of those reports was a person arrested or cited for wearing a thong or a g-string type bathing suit bottom.”
A hearing date has not yet been scheduled.
h/t: San Diego Reader
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aliengod
It seems like so many pride events are no longer family friendly. There are very few that I’m comfortable taking my children, simply because of the rampant sex and nudity.
vive
@aliengod, what is family-unfriendly about this, unless you are teaching your children body-shame? In Toronto, for example, complete nudity is allowed and in fact common to see at Pride, and people of all stripes bring their families without the sky falling. In fact, most attendees at Toronto Pride are in fact straight people. It is just not an issue at all.
And you are wrong, by the way. Pride events have become more and more conservative over the years. Some Pride events (e.g., Oakland) even ban leather and Dyk*s on Bikes, etc., in a totally misguided attempt to appeal to the most conservative element in the city. As a result, many gay people are not welcome at our own Pride events any longer.
aliengod
@vive: Body shame? LOL It’s called modesty. How can anyone think that an event where nudity is allowed would be appropriate for children? It’s gay pride, not nudist pride. I hope that my daughters never reach a point in their lives that they think it would be appropriate to parade around naked in public.
Hopefully you’re correct that the shift is toward more conservative display. Banning nudity or public sex doesn’t prohibit gay people from attending. It simply makes the perverts feel less welcome.
vive
@aliengod, whatever your point of view regarding nudity, this was not nudity anyway. As he mentioned, women are allowed to show more skin at the beach.
In any case, my complaint about Oakland Pride wasn’t about nudity or public sex. Please reread it.
Larry & Patrick
@aliengod: get over yourself dude…..good lord its folks like you that make my stomach turn. Hopefully your daughters grow up to be a little less stuffed to the gills than you.
musctop
@aliengod: Jesus. Don’t ever take your kids to Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. It’ll make the Pride parade look like a Baptist convention.
DarthKitsune
Pride is a celebration of being alive and not under arrest for simply being gay. If you want a family friendly parade that’s gay as hell, go to Disney or attend the Macy’s parade. I don’t go to pride for the family atmosphere; I go for the camaraderie, the sense of community, the chance to connect with new people face to face, and for the massive party with other gay men and women.
This cop clearly has something against gay men, especially sense scantily clad women get a free pass.
Dakotahgeo
Police… Incompetent LEOs… most incompetent Supervisors/Chiefs! Problem fully explained!
JaredNorthcutt30
Dude suffers from white male superiority complex. “I’m a white male, therefore I shall be deigned to whip it out anywhere I please.” Cue eye roll.
JaredNorthcutt30
Wake me up when there comes a day that nudity isn’t wrapped up in the patriarchal construct.
enfilmigult
@JaredNorthcutt30: Not really. As mentioned here, women wearing thongs don’t get arrested for showing MORE than he was. If you click “he was arrested during San Diego pride” up there, there’s a pretty stark illustration of how ridiculously the law was applied here.
enfilmigult
P.S. You used the word “deigned” incorrectly.
JaredNorthcutt30
And women aren’t allowed to get their nipples out while bro dudes can freely roam. Double standards everywhere. Cry me a freaking river.
DarkZephyr
@aliengod: “Body shame? LOL It’s called modesty”. No, its called body shame.
marc sfe
@aliengod: I hope to god you never take anyone to Mardi Gras in New Orleans – the man was fine wearing his leather kilt – jeezus – get the fuck over yourself.
aliengod
@DarkZephyr: Nope. Definitely modesty (having regard for decency). How could you think it’s appropriate for people to be nude in public when there are children present? Why is it necessary? How is it relevant to a gay pride event?
@DarthKitsune “I go for the camaraderie, the sense of community, the chance to connect with new people face to face, and for the massive party with other gay men and women.”
Me too! I go for those things also. Should I not be able to bring my children so they are able to experience this same sense of community? Maybe if the perverts could just wait and come out after dark… but in the middle of a daytime festival is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination.
scotshot
@aliengod: That’s been Pride from day one – you seem to have forgotten that the genesis of gay pride was a police raid of the Stonewall Inn in NYC in 1969. The reason? They were gay and many were wearing dresses. If you’re offended by people celebrating freedom, please by all means stay home. I won’t change how I live my life and I won’t go back in the closet for the likes of you. If there are times when you as a parent are not comfortable at an event, then stay home, not everything is geared towards children and you need to realize that your perception of propriety is not others.
Call me a proud pervert.
aliengod
@scotshot: It’s quite a jump to compare men wearing dresses and public nudity.
“If you’re offended by people celebrating freedom, please by all means stay home.”
You must have misunderstood something I said. I’m not offended by people celebrating freedom. I’m offended by public nudity. One has nothing to do with the other.
“I won’t change how I live my life and I won’t go back in the closet for the likes of you.”
That’s odd. Remaining clothed in public will require you to go back in the closet?
loren_1955
Interesting take on a number of the comments. Phoenix Pride festival and parade are suffering through the same growing pains. There is a faction that demands that the parade and festival become more family friendly. My response is as a gay man if I want family friendly I will go to the July 4 or Thanksgiving parade. I don’t want family friendly so I go to the Pride parade. Those demanding family friendly are losing sight of everything we fought so many long years for, to have fun our way, the gay way. We don’t need to be mainstreamed, that is an insult to who we are.
dazzer
@aliengod: If you haven’t explained the physical biological differences between men and women to your daughters, you’ve probably got a lot of problems on your hands in a couple of years’ time when they start to grow up.
Apart from the fact that the guy wasn’t nude – he was wearing more clothes than you’ll see on some music award-show dancers, you’re also mistaking the naked human form for sex.
Though this will probably blow your mind, in Europe there are many naturists resorts that are entirely family friendly, they’re just places where people happen to be naked most of the time. And they’re emphatically not places of sexual depravity.
The problem you have with this story doesn’t lie with he individual involved, it doesn’t lie with Pride parades in general and, currently, it doesn’t lie with your daughters.
It lies with you and you atitudes to nudity and sexuality.
rickhfx
Nothing wrong with his out fit i have seen less on women. People need to grow up he was not nude. The bible says if thine eyes offend thee pluck them out. Haters start plucking!
jwtraveler
@aliengod: I have a couple of suggestions: Go to a synagogue and tell them it’s not very Christian-friendly. Or how about going to an NAACP event and telling them it’s not very white-friendly? You want family-friendly? You’ve got the whole f###ing world. So shut up.
Saint Law
@aliengod: There’s no way you have kids. You’re only nine years old.
Ken A.
Nudity is not sex. So lets differentiate the two. The excuse that it is “decency” is a cop out, The argument behind the words “indecent” or “modesty” and “not in front of children” namely girls, is the archaic belief that the male nude–not so much the female nude–brings out the inferiority complex of those who feel average and powerless. They use “children” as an excuse to project this inferiority they have over their own bodies.
Women for centuries have been brainwashed to believe that virginity equals purity. They could break their own hymens and still remain virgins since they were untouched by the male penis. It all boils down to this. The church, when they had absolute power decreed that women were to remain virgins until marriage, so their husbands wouldn’t have to compete with a better lover than they and they wouldn’t have another man’s “sloppy seconds” and he would be the first. Has nothing to do with spiritual purity whatsoever. Girls were considered women as soon as they had their first period around 13. Not too long ago, when a girl had her first period, they started looking for a husband for her, to marry her off more for economical and political reasons than “one man and one woman” BS we hear today. It is misogynistic and misandrist to say nudity is indecent when in fact that the only indecent thing about the human body is how we take care of it. And to hide nudity behind perversion, indecent is ludicrous. To use children as an excuse to hide behind one’s inadequacies is also ludicrous. Parents use this excuse because they are uncomfortable not their kids. Even though their kids bodies will grow and mature and they will be misinformed or “protected” from a biological fact. Children by nature don’t like to keep their clothes on and it wont shock or traumatize them to see nude people. But if those nude people are doing things that should not be done. That is another story. The gladiator costume is not indecent.
Like any parade, a pride parade is showmanship, a costume party, a festival of how far we’ve come from the days of oppression, because of an act of civil disobedience and rebellion at Stonewall, the Genesis of the gay pride movement.
enfilmigult
@JaredNorthcutt30: So…what, do you think it’s a problem that there’s a double standard (and that other double standards exist also) or not? If I were asked to describe your opinion on this at this point I’d be baffled.
takingliberties
I don’t see the problem with his outfit. His face, on the other hand, is a whole other story.
scotshot
@aliengod: Whatever. It’s simple: If you’re offended don’t go. Start your own celebration with like minded individuals. Too many have sacrificed in our fight to knuckle under to the likes of you. Move to Topeka.
SFHandyman
Clothing restrictions come from the same root as burqas and head scarves. “Males can’t control their lustful thoughts when viewing certain patches of skin (or hair), and lustful thoughts are a sin, therefore the subject of those thoughts needs to be restricted.”
Just because you can’t control your lustful urges, should not be a valid reason to put restrictions on what other people wear.
And here is some great news: lustful thoughts are natural from time to time. It doesn’t make you a bad person.
Please don’t raise your kids to think nudity is shameful and sexual. You are implanting nudity=sex in their brains. The lustful thoughts are coming from you.
aliengod
@SFHandyman: LOL! What a silly response.
mz.sam
@ allengod: I know, we’re all entitled to voice our opinion. I’ll also add it Get Over it!…not about the children or being family friendly. Redirect your family activities to family oriented Harvest Festivals instead. It’ll put an end to needless whining.
Chris
The picture for the headlines suggests he was wearing a speedo with leather fringing. Since when is it illegal to wear a speedo anywhere in the U.S.?
jar
@aliengod: “It seems like so many pride events are no longer family friendly. There are very few that I’m comfortable taking my children, simply because of the rampant sex and nudity.”
I get the distinct impression you have never been to a pride parade in your life, let alone enough to them to opine on a changing dynamic. First of all, pride parades never were intended to be “family friendly” in the sense you mean. Historically, they were one of the few times many gay and lesbian people were open in public. They were an expression of that openness, including choice of dress. More importantly, I’d like to know where these parades with “rampant sex and nudity” are, as I’ve never experienced one. Please, do share your extensive knowledge on this.
As an aside, in NYS there is no double standard on exposing one’s chest. Women have the same right to go topless as men.
vive
@aliengod, most cities have “family Pride” celebrations as well on different times and/or different sites from the main Pride parade. Since with these events they are expressly going out of their way catering to people who have your views, nobody is oppressing you, whereas you want to oppress others by imposing your mores on everyone.
DuMaurier
@vive: Well, if there are “family” geared events it sounds like you and aliengod are pretty much on the same page, at least as far as children go. I’m all for bacchanalia and extreme fun–and while it does sound as if fatherhood may have lowered aliengod’s personal enjoyment of things he might once have even participated in, that doesn’t necessarily make him a prude or someone suffering from “body shame”; and he’s certainly right about kids not participating, in my view.
JaredNorthcutt30
@enfilmigult I think it’s a problem double standards exist. On this particular issue, men have been conditioned through the patriarchal construct to exercise their male dominance in the public sphere. Said dominance intimidates women and gender non-conforming individuals. As far as women being topless in public, there’s a historical precedence tied together with this construct. I do have a problem with gay men buying into said construct.
vive
@DuMaurier: “@vive: Well, if there are “family” geared events it sounds like you and aliengod are pretty much on the same page, at least as far as children go.”
No, I’m not on the same page as aliengod. I tolerant towards the practice of having G-rated sub-events for those parents who are uptight about having children at adult events. Aliengod, on the other hand, wants EVERYTHING to be G-rated. Even though he is already being catered for at these sub-events, he wants to subject EVERYONE to the tyranny of the toddler. That is not acceptable.
vive
@JaredNorthcutt30, are you saying that because women are oppressed, let’s be equal and also oppress men? That’s a horrible solution. Why not work on liberating women instead?
JaredNorthcutt30
I’m saying that the current machinations of the system does not and will not allow topless equality. And yes, men should stop being little titty babies and gtfu.
vive
@JaredNorthcutt30, so let’s promote topless equality – in a number of cities it is already the case, so it is not impossible.
As for prescribing what people (men, women, or anyone in between) “should” be growing the f* up and doing, let’s not, okay? Most of the biggest problems in the world are from people wanting to control how other people should live their lives.
JaredNorthcutt30
@vive And in most big cities with topfree equality, women are still conditioned not to exercise their rights due to the male gaze.
“Most of the biggest problems in the world are from people wanting to control how other people should live their lives.” You mean, like your form of control of people unwilling to meet your demands at Pride events?
vive
@JaredNorthcutt30: ““Most of the biggest problems in the world are from people wanting to control how other people should live their lives.” You mean, like your form of control of people unwilling to meet your demands at Pride events?”
What do you mean? Please reread my posts – I have no desire to control people’s behavior at Pride – I am in favor of people being naked at Pride events if they want to.