Streaking

Streaking is the act of running naked through a public place as a prank, a dare, for publicity or an act of protest. Streaking is the act of running naked through a public place as a prank, a dare, for publicity or an act of protest. It is often associated with sporting events but can occur in more secluded areas. It usually involves running quickly which also reflects the original meaning of the word before it became associated with nudity. Streakers are often pursued by sporting officials or by the police. In some instances, streakers are not fully nude, instead wearing minimal clothing. Historical forerunners of modern-day streakers include the neo-Adamites who travelled naked through towns and villages in medieval Europe, and the 17th-century Quaker Solomon Eccles who went nude through the City of London with a burning brazier on his head. At 7:00 PM on 5 July 1799, a man was arrested at the Mansion House, London, and sent to the Poultry Compter. He confirmed that he had accepted a wager of 10 guineas (equal to £1,013 today) to run naked from Cornhill to Cheapside. The first recorded incident of streaking by a college student in the United States occurred in 1804 at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) when senior George William Crump was arrested for running naked through Lexington, Virginia, where the university is located. Robert E. Lee later sanctioned streaking as a rite of passage for young Washington and Lee gentlemen. Crump was suspended for the academic session, but later went on to become a U.S. Congressman. Streaking seems to have been well-established on some college campuses by the mid-1960s. The magazine of Carleton College described the phenomenon in negative terms associating it with rock culture, drinking and destruction. At that time, streaking was a tradition on the Northfield, Minnesota campus during January and February when temperatures hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit. In 1973, what the press called a 'streaking epidemic' hit Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, with streakers being seen in residence halls, at football games and at various other on-campus locations and events, including Spring graduation. The trend continued until spring 1974, when Ralph W. Steen, University president, hoping to end the streaking fad, designated a day to streak the length of East College Street, a tradition that – with a few breaks – has continued to this day. The 'epidemic' was covered by all of the major media outlets and became the first time streaking received concentrated national press coverage, including an article in Paris Match covering the phenomenon. Time magazine, in December 1973, called streaking 'a growing Los Angeles-area fad' that was 'catching on among college students and other groups.' A letter writer responded, 'Let it be known that streakers have plagued the campus police at Notre Dame for the past decade', pointing out that a group of University of Notre Dame students sponsored a 'Streakers' Olympics' in 1972. There was also a streaker at the real Olympics in Montreal, Canada, in 1976. Fines of between £10 and £50 were imposed on streakers by British and Irish magistrates in the early 1970s. The offences used for prosecution were typically minor, such as the violation of park regulations. Nevertheless, the chief law in force against streaking in England and Wales at that time remained the 16th-century vagrancy law, for which the punishment in 1550 had been whipping. The word has been used in its modern sense only since the 1960s. Before that, to streak in English since 1768 meant 'to go quickly, to rush, to run at full speed', and was a re-spelling of streek: 'to go quickly' (c.1380); this in turn was originally a northern Middle English variant of stretch (c. 1250).