Dancing nude on the streets of Paris – part 1 from Gypsy Taub on Vimeo.
This is the story of my recent arrest and a night spent in jail in Paris. I was charged with “indecent exposure” for dancing on the street nude.
My name is Gypsy Taub. I am a body freedom activist from San Francisco. I am originally from Russia.
I went to the nudist resort in Cap D’Adge, France, with my daughter Inti Gonzalez(age 16) and my sons Nebo Gonzalez(14) and Daniel Gonzalez (12).
A supporter of my body freedom activism invited us to Cap D’Adge. On the way back we were in Paris for a day.
My kids and I visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and were walking down the river Seine when we heard an old street musician play a Russian song “Ochi chorniye” and play an accordion. I had to stop and listen. More fun songs followed and I started dancing, dressed at first. After a few songs I decided that it was time for some body freedom activism and some fun. I love dancing especially dancing nude.
I got naked and danced for a good 20 minutes if not longer. Boats passed by, lots of people smiled, waved, filmed with their phone cameras. I noticed a muslim young woman smile. She stuck around watching me dance.
My kids Inti and Daniel were on the look out for the cops all that time while Nebo filmed me dance.
Dancing nude on the streets of Paris – part 2 the cops come from Gypsy Taub on Vimeo.
All of a sudden my daughter Inti yelled: “Cops, cops, they are on a boat!” I quickly grabbed my yellow silk wrap around skirt, wrapped myself in it and ran up the stairs onto the street. My sons told me later that about 4 cops with bullet proof vests and Famas assault rifles ran after me. As they were passing by the street musician he yelled at them condemning their actions.
Nebo was worried about getting arrested and unfortunately did not film the cops as much. But he did capture a little bit of them on camera.
Dancing nude on the streets of Paris – part 3 – the cops from Gypsy Taub on Vimeo.
Dancing nude on the streets of Paris – part 4 – the cops from Gypsy Taub on Vimeo.
I found a great place to hide – behind an old dresser that I found in front of a building. I could have hid so well behind it but I didn’t think the cops would chase me that far and wasn’t hiding very well. When the cops finally showed up they almost walked past me but since my arm was visible a little bit they did find me.
They asked me if I was the one who had been dancing nude and why. I told them it was me and that I was doing it for fun. The 2 cops kept asking me questions about my identity for a good 20-30 min. Then a big police van arrived with 3 or 4 other cops. One of them was a white brunette in her early 40s. She was really pissed off about me dancing naked. I had been giving the cops misspelled versions of my name before but once the van arrived I realized I wasn’t going to get away so easily and told them that my kids had my passport. They put me in their van (no handcuffs, just the seat belt). In the States the cops ride separately from the arrestees, but in that van I was riding in the same area with all the cops (except for the driver who was separated from us with a glass wall). They took me as close to the spot where I had been dancing as they could and then they went on foot looking for my kids. In the meantime they told me to stay in the van and not to take my seat belt off. It was funny how they were worried that I would run away and were using a seat belt instead of hand cuffs. I am not sure if they even had handcuffs.
They found my kids and brought them back and loaded them all in the same van while some of the cops had to sit on the floor with us.
My son Nebo secretly turned his phone on and started recording. The female officer got really pissed off when she noticed. She turned his phone off.
We all arrived at the police station. We were there for hours. The kids got really tired. We asked the cops if they would open the jail cell that was adjacent to their office and let the kids lie down there. They agreed. I thought it was funny how they let my kids sleep in the jail cell.
When I was talking to the officers who arrived second they were pretty supportive of my activism. I told them I was an activist and they asked me why. I said I was a body freedom activist. One of the younger cops said: “body freedom, why not?” All the male officers (there were about 4 or 5 of them) seemed to be on my side. There were 2 other female cops who were very nice but the original female cop was trying to cause as much trouble as she possibly could.
She was on a major power trip trying to get me in trouble for indecent exposure in front of minors. She was really pissed off about the video we took in the police van because I refused to give her the password to my phone. I said I was willing to delete the video in front of her. She agreed, but as soon as I entered the password she grabbed the phone away from me and took off with it. Another hour or so later I was asked for the contact phone number of my friend who could come and get the kids. I told the cops his contact number was in my phone even though it was on a piece of paper and not in my phone. They had to give me the phone back which was exactly my plan. I wasn’t happy about the cops snooping through my personal photos and videos. When they gave me my phone back I powered it off. I told them: ” Oh yeah, I actually have my friend’s number on a piece of paper in my wallet.” After that they asked me for my password again and I said no. The power tripping female cop got even more pissed off.
We also had a small confrontation with another female cop who was there for a short time. She was a young chubby black girl who spoke English quite well.
The kids and I were having a lively discussion. She came over to us and said: “Just shut up! I am telling you you just have to shut up! Just shut up, OK?”
I don’t take it lightly when people insult my kids. I told her:” Don’t talk to my kids like that! You can tell us to be quiet but you have no right to be rude.” Surprisingly, she didn’t do anything in response, I guess her power was limited to running her dirty mouth. In any event, she actually listened to me. She walked away to the other side of the room and said: “Be quiet!” She behaved herself the rest of the night.
Many hours passed. The power tripping female cop was doing her best to get me jailed even though we had a flight to catch the next morning. I told the cops about our flight and that we couldn’t afford new tickets but the female cop had no mercy. The rest of the cops felt bad, it was obvious. The other 2 females were super friendly and tried to be helpful as much as they were able to. The male cops were almost exaggeratedly polite when giving us water and escorting us to the bathroom. Really, besides that one female cop everyone else was hoping we would get released.
At one point I was informed that the charges had been filed and that I would have to stay till at least 10 am, which meant that I would miss my flight to New York.
I was interviewed by an investigator. The next day the interview would be given to the judge and that way I would not need to see the judge unless she/he chooses to take this to a higher level. I was told by a cop, by the interpreter, by the public defender and by my nudist friend who lives in Paris (I talked to him on the phone) that the charges would be dropped and that I would be released in the morning even though by the books I could get up to 5 years in prison for indecent exposure. In France any public nudity is considered indecent exposure. There is no differentiation between sexual and non-sexual nudity. However, they seem to apply this law in a very forgiving manner. In most cases all you get is a night in jail until the charges are dropped in the morning.
My public defender mentioned a case from 2014. An artist named Stephen Cohen was arrested for showing his penis in public. He danced in front of tourists and nuns with a rooster attached to his penis. His defense was that it was an artistic performance, the same defense that I was using. He was found guilty but no sentence was imposed.
Their way of handling interviews was very interesting. An investigator was assigned to interview me. He was an ordinary looking cop in his 50s. I was given an interpreter and a public defender. The interview lasted over an hour. I was asked so many questions about my life, my economic situation (I was told that the prosecutor would make a decision whether to give me a fine based on my economic situation). They asked me about my marriage and such. It was interesting that they spent a long time trying to understand and document my activism. At least half of the interview was about my activism, my protest, my websites, blogs etc.
I gave them my activist name (Gypsy Taub) and told them they could Google me. They quickly found my photos at the City Hall with cops, then later they Googled my wedding pictures. They were very interested in my activism and were quite entertained. The public defender made sure to write down the url of the wedding photos. He was a younger progressive man and was very helpful. He was supposed to be silent throughout the interview. But he kept chiming in and the investigator asked him questions from time to time. The interpreter was also quite young, probably in his late 20s. He was clearly on my side and was very supportive the whole time. I kept making jokes and everybody laughed and added their own humorous comments. It felt like a small informal party rather than a police interrogation.
We spent some time discussing the influence of France on the rest of the world. I told them that the whole world had once been liberated by the French. The French brought so much sexual liberation, so much art, music, so much body freedom to this world. The investigator ( a pretty ordinary looking cop in his 50s) said: “That was a long time ago.” I told him: “I was trying to revive the spirit of Paris.” He responded: “It is dead.” I said: “Yeah, that’s what I have been discovering”. Everybody laughed.
I was told that the prosecutor might choose to delete the videos of me dancing nude because they were considered criminal. Now that I disclosed that I plan to post the videos on Youtube they were worried about them being published. They kept asking me for the password to my phone and said that if the prosecutor chose to delete them they would hack into my phone anyway.
I told them: “By imprisoning me and threatening to delete my videos you are disrespecting your own cultural history.” The investigator took my message seriously and instantly started defending himself. He said: “I hope you realize that this is nothing personal against you, we are just doing our job.” The question about the password to my phone was never raised again.
After the interview I was once again escorted to my cell. There was a toilet there that stunk so bad I nearly threw up and felt nauseous for the first 2 hours until I got used to it. There was a water faucet but no towels and no toilet paper. I had to sleep on a cushioned bench that hadn’t been cleaned in months and was given a blanket that felt and smelled like it hadn’t been washed for months if not years.
In the morning I was released. The cops were very happy to see me released. The mean female cop was gone by then.
It’s funny how it all worked out. The mean female cop did her best to fuck me over and was so happy when she succeeded with her attempts to file charges against me. She was shining with joy when she got her way. But the funny part is that she actually helped me. Because I only had one day in Paris and really wanted to stay longer. Thanks to having to stay in jail and missing my flight I was able to spend an extra day in Paris with my kids. My friend managed to change our flights to the next morning without too much sacrifice. My kids and I spend the next day exploring Paris. We saw really beautiful buildings, took lots of great photos, heard and danced to some awesome street music and later at night we took a tour of Paris in one of those motorized bycicle/carts that looked like a modified cool looking golf cart. We went to the Eifel Tower at midnight, it looked so much more beautiful than it looks in photos.
So in the end the mean female cop ended up helping me and my kids enjoy Paris for one more day despite her mean intentions. Or may be it was divine intervention?
I am actually glad that I got arrested and detained, glad to have learned more about this planet, and specifically Paris and the struggle that its people are having with the new conservative/yuppie influences on their once liberal and liberating culture.
Gypsy, I am in awe of you and your tireless efforts. And you are a parent also! Superwoman. I live in Kansas & I am nude in my backyard with a privacy fence a lot. There is just no place to be free. I was in Los Angelos in June. I was in LA & SF in 2014. I tried to find Blacks beach. Never did. I wished I lived in your area so I can march with your group. I don’t care that I am overweight. It’s not sexual it’s body freedom! I hope to someday meet you.
Black’s Beach is in San Diego.
Gypsy, you need to understand something. It’s called Public Nudity and while it is acceptable … well … because it’s the Human Body, you have to be careful, because some people take offense to Naturism.
i am not going to let someone else’s narrow-mindedness run my life and take away my freedom. No one has the right to tell me how to dress or undress. Thats all there is to it.
Thank you Gypsy Taub!
For your fight for body freedom. You are an inspriration for me and many others. Without activist like you any public nudity would be banned. We should let the community know that there are many of us who want to live as naked as possible. Most people don’t have problems with it. Only a few say almost anybody experience it as indecent.
As I read your story it reminded me at someone who got arrested too in Paris. Dispite she is a very different person, she also fight for important principles about the naked body. See (and other aticles):
http://milomoire.com/en/imprisonment-naked-selfies-in-paris/
Thank you for sharing these great moments.
Koen Starre
Netherlands
Then this article feels very odd:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/31/revealed-paris-opens-first-nudist-park-no-voyeurs-allowed (remove spaces in link)
You told ” I said I was a body freedom activist. One of the younger cops said: “body freedom, why not?” All the male officers (there were about 4 or 5 of them) seemed to be on my side.” which is not very surprisingly. In Europe being naked in public is (dispite domestic laws) more or less protected as freedom of expression by the European Convention of Human Rights:
“The Court is therefore satisfied that the applicant’s public nudity can be seen as a form of expression which falls within the ambit of Article 10 of the Convention (,,,)”
This was a recent ruling about the “Nacked Rambler” Stephan Gough versus the UK (nevertheless the court didn’t ruled in favor for him).
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-147623
I am not surprised to read about your arrest in Paris. I have lived in France for about 40 years and know how french authorities behave in general. The only option is to go to places where nudity is allowed, like some beaches, resorts and also Cap d’Agde where I go regularly. I am a dedicated nudist and love to be naked when and wherever I can. But there is still so much to acheve for body freedom acceptance.
I live in Italy now where the situation is even worse than in France and burocracy even tighter.
I ever I come to San Francisco I will be happy to participate (naked) in one of your meetings.
thank you and I would love to have you participate in our parades.
Wow, what an experience ! Glad you got to take such a trip to France. You wrote a great account of the ordeal. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I saw a video some time ago of a girl walking and going into shops nude in Barcelona Spain. She had no trouble as public nudity was legal there. I wonder where else throughout the world, being nude in public is legal.
I see you enjoyed some of your trip, it is very nice there. What I am wondering is how could you afford a trip to Paris, France when you say your atty. is owed money and the org. itself is in a hole. Please send money to who? You so that we can finance your vacations. Last year was Mexico and this year France for not only you but all three of your children. I did have my paypal out ready to donate but after reading this forget it. Embezzling money from a org. like yours is illegal. Better warn your attorney something like the IRS. or States Attorney may come looking for you.
Thanks a lot for your nasty ignorant comment, asshole!
First of all, I don’t owe my personal money to anybody including you. You expect me to spend countless hours, days, weeks, months and at this point years dedicating an enormous amount of time to this activism and you expect me to finance it all out of my own pocket as well? If I was paid a minimum wage for every hour I spent on this activism I would probably be a millionaire by now.
Besides the fact that I owe nothing to anyone, going to Mexico costs close to nothing. I drive to Mexico and we all sleep in my bus so there are no airfares and no hotels. Not to mention that all my trips to Mexico since last December were dedicated to helping drug-addicted street kids get off of drugs and heal and reunite with family. I got donations from one generous person to help me with that and also spent an emormous amount of my own money on it. I support a family of 7 at this moment and am about to take a trip to Mexico to give 6 people ibogaine treatments that normally cost a minimum of $4000 each. I do this for free. I pay for the very expensive medicine and the hotels to do the treatments and obviously spend my own time on it with no help. An ibogaine treatment lasts 2 to 3 days and nights.
As far as my trip to France (and New York on my way to France) are concerned, it was all paid for by a nudist supporter who lives in France. He invited me and my family to Cap D’Adge nudist resort. In New York we stayed for free at other nudist supporters apartments.
I personally have not been able to afford to take my kids nor go to Europe (nor the East Coast of the US) for the past 19 years. I have not had a chance to visit Russia, my home that I miss so much, for 19 years, since 1998. A number of people I really wanted to visit have died in the meantime.
As far as the amount of money that I get from nudist supporters, it would not be enough for anything luxurious, it is only $500 a month and it goes to our laywer Gill Sperlein. If I didn’t pay him that minimum that we agreed on with him, he would not have been able to continue working on the case. Gill was very generous with his time and what he is charging us is close to nothing. He has spent an enormous amount of hours on our case and we still owe him a lot of money.
By the way, in the past few months I only received between $200 and $300 total, since I haven’t been actively fundraising since the spring.
A generous supporter once sent me a $5000 donation to me personally, not to the legal fund. I was planning to spend $1500 on a new camera but in the end had to spend it on groceries. I gave the rest of it ($3500) to the legal fund.
Let me ask you, what was your “generous” contribution to our legal fund? And what was your “generous” dedication to this movement? Have you ever been to a protest? Have you ever been arrested? Cited?
You say you were about to make a donation by paypal? I don’t have any records of you donating anything ever unless you did it under a different name and email. If you ever did donate (which I greatly doubt) it had to be a tiny amount. I know everybody personally (at least by name) who has ever made any substantial contributions (of $50 or more). My feeling is that you never have and never had any intentions to donate anything to anybody.
Did Scott Wiener hire you to post this comment? or was it the SF City Attorney? Or maybe it was Trump? LOL…
You know nothing about my life, asshole, go fuck yourself!!!
Thank you so much Oxane is not even enough to thanks you for all your work you do to promote nudism, body acceptance, positivity and freedom!
I’ll be glad if you would join my group.
Thank you!
Attila
Interesting to hear about your world travels. I saw in an earlier post that you were in the NYC area. I live in the NY area and was just wondering if you had a chance to get to Gunnison Beach and check out our wonderful nude beach. Great people there.
You’re my hero! Glad everything worked out. Always try to make the best out of the bad is what I say.
Can you blog about your experience in Cap D’Agde? What was THAT like? What did your kids think? Was it crowded? I’ve always wanted to go, but was never sure when the best time to visit would be.
Thank you for your support.
We didn’t like Cap D’Adge at all, we pretty much hated it. It is not a nudist village nor town, it is just a bunch of expensive resorts where people go to get laid and to be a narcissist. Every other chick has fake tits. The grass was as plastic as the tits, and they call it a “naturist” village? We got a good laugh out of that. Most people there were over 40 or at least over 30. I don’t mind people’s age but in this case it was even more sad because of that. When a person learns nothing about life by the age of 40 it is really tragic. If all you know is how to be a narcissist and you are over 40 that’s tragic in my opinion. Besides those people seemed totally dead inside, most of them anyway. The choice of music at that place was God awful as well. To describe it in a few words I would say “an expensive resort with plastic grass and yuppie narcissists with fake tits”. Sorry that’s just my opinion, and my kids all share it. Paris was way more fun, I wish we had skipped Cap D-Adge altogether.
Oh, wow, thanks for the real scoop, I’ll consider one of the other nudist friendly places in France now
An interesting story and glad you’ve taken a positive outlook on it after all! If you think about it, it’s so crazy that police is wasting their (and your) time on this, while there is so much real threat in cities across Europe these days
in Agde they giv u a ride in a sqad car where u can dress on the way 2 the station as u observ them curse women drivers who cut them off. upon arrival there may b a guy handcuffed to a radiator, which seems 2 b their jail. when the constipated guy is finished chickn-pecking your case on the typewriter, he gives u a short lecture then tries 2 stomp your roll of film, but ends up barely maintaining his balance as he unexpectedly skatebords on it. then the cop u’v ben showing the auto focus feature to kindly gives u a ride back.
So glad you could make your way out of it by reminding them of their own principles. You’re so brave!
You mentioned that you took many photos on your trip, why not make like an album on Flickr to share a bit from your travels, along with the ones your activism?
OUCH! The good news, you were let out of jail the next day; trust me the bad news could have been far worse re incarceration. Americans too often underestimate or do not understand the Criminal Justice system of other countries. You, as always look lovely! Extremely glad this had a reasonable good ending.
Nothing is more beautyful as a naked girl/woman dancing… hypocrite cops…
Thank-you for sharing this. The country that is so wonderful with promotion of real naturism, all the great family campgrounds and FKK culture. Art and photography and all that, plus fashion, acts like this with laws like this.
On the visit to the Cap D’Adge area, what were your impressions? I know it is divided up into use by family naturists and the other, not so family oriented. We have some reports on internationalyn.org by members who have visited there.
I would love to visit La Jenny and Monta and a few others!
All the best to you and the fam, G. Did the airline charge for the changes?
Love,
-Danee
Awesome!! Just AWESOME!! Love you Gypsy..you Rock sister!! Keep on with your activism and work. You represent the beauty and normalisation of nudity as it should be in it’s purist form. We should ALL have the freedom to go naked anywhere and anytime…always. It should not be illegal in any way, shape or form…We are ALL PERFECT just as we are..Seeing you dance naked is the purist form of joy and bliss that we as humans can express to the world…absolutely beautiful. It is people like yourself and others who will bring the attention to nudity as being a normal everyday thing in the future…I Love what you do sister!! Keep on dancing to the Beat of your own drum…and do whatever makes your Heart Sing…and your Soul Dance!! And you’re already doing that!!!