The Right Not to Be Offended?
Years ago, Rowan Atkinson stood in Parliament and made an argument about freedom that has stayed with me.
He was speaking about Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and, specifically, the danger of allowing the criminal law to become a mechanism for protecting people from being insulted.
His argument was essentially this: in a genuinely free society, encountering something we dislike, disagree with or even find offensive is sometimes the price we pay for everybody enjoying freedom.
The campaign succeeded. Parliament subsequently removed the word ‘insulting’ from Section 5, with the change taking effect in February 2014. (Legislation.gov.uk)
More than a decade later, that debate has an interesting relevance to naturism.
The recent High Court judgment in Cox v Director of Public Prosecutions [2026] EWHC 2437 (Admin) concerned a naked man walking on a public footpath near Macclesfield. His conviction under Section 5 was ultimately upheld. So Cox certainly did not establish some unrestricted right to be naked wherever we please. Quite the opposite: the judgment repeatedly emphasises context. (BAILII)
But buried within that judgment is an important principle.
When considering Section 5, the court referred approvingly to earlier authority establishing that behaviour which is merely offensive, distasteful, insulting, disrespectful or distressing is not, for those reasons alone, prohibited. The question is whether the legal threshold has actually been crossed. (BAILII)
That distinction matters enormously.
We have gradually become accustomed to treating ‘I am offended by that’ almost as though it ends an argument.
It does not.
Neither, however, should naturists make the opposite mistake and assume that ‘nudity is legal’ ends the argument either.
It does not.
Cox tells us to look at the whole picture: where something happens, when it happens, who is likely to be encountered, whether people can reasonably avoid the situation, the nature of the behaviour and whether it crosses the line into disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. (BAILII)
That is actually remarkably close to the position we have adopted at Naturism Wales.
I believe passionately in the freedom to live as a naturist. I do not believe that the human body becomes harmful simply because somebody removes their clothes. Nor do I accept the proposition that another person’s discomfort automatically gives them a veto over somebody else’s lawful freedom.
But rights carry responsibilities.
That is why we consider routes when organising naturist walks. It is why we think about other users of the countryside. It is why we have worked constructively with North Wales Police. And it is why, when we became aware that Duke of Edinburgh participants could be using an area at the same time as a proposed naturist walk, we asked the walking group not to proceed there.
We could have shouted about our rights.
Instead, we exercised them responsibly.
There is a profound difference between consideration and permission.
Being considerate means recognising that we share society with people whose beliefs, experiences and attitudes may differ from ours.
Seeking permission to exist is something altogether different.
Perhaps that is the lesson connecting Rowan Atkinson’s speech with the debate naturists are having today.
Freedom cannot mean that nobody ever encounters something they would rather not see or hear. A plural society could not function on that basis. But equally, freedom is not a licence to disregard everybody around us.
The difficult bit is the space between those two positions.
That space is where judgement, responsibility and community matter.
I don’t want a society in which naturists deliberately shock people.
But neither do I want one in which the simple declaration ‘I’m offended’ is enough to make another person’s lawful way of living disappear.
Perhaps the more useful question is not whether something offended us.
Perhaps it is whether any genuine harm was done, whether a legal boundary was crossed and whether everybody involved behaved reasonably.
Those are much harder questions.
But free societies have always depended upon us being prepared to ask the harder ones.
