I’m not sure if this is a step up or a step down from University of New Mexico’s sex week.

Jennifer Kabbany at The College Fix has the story:

Brown University Hosts Nudity Week, Complete With Naked Yoga, Bodypainting

Ah, Brown University’s annual Nudity Week, which boasts naked yoga sessions, nude body painting events, and an open-mic, spoken word performance where clothing is optional. Because nothing says enlightenment like showing your privates to others.

The Ivy League university recently hosted its Nudity in the Upspace weeklong observance from Sept. 28 through Oct. 4. Its an annual occurrence “where participants can explore the intersections of identities including race, gender, sexuality, beauty, and physical and mental health. The nude body is used as a medium to begin critical discussion around these issues,” Brown students explain on the event’s website.

How is that accomplished? At Nude Arts and Crafts, “We will provide art supplies, but you provide the creativity.” For Nude Yoga, it was advised to “bring a towel.” Nude movie and game night offered a chance to “sink a battleship, and snack on some popcorn, all while naked.”

To weigh in on all this I turn to former College Fix editor Nathan Harden, who in his book “Sex and God At Yale” offered a chapter titled “Naked Parties and Elitism as Transcendence.”

“It would not be a stretch to say that public nudity amounts to a kind of existential, or even spiritual, experience for students who engage in it-giving them a feeling of distinction and meaning in the midst of lives that are often noticeably empty of spiritual purpose,” Harden writes. “In this way, naked parties … function as proxy religious rituals in an age of moral relativism. It’s transgression as transcendence.”