The Seattle Police Department has recently received questions about whether or not public nudity is legal in the city. Here’s the naked truth: public nudity in and of itself is not a crime in Seattle. However, public nudity can quickly become a case of indecent exposure if the nudity causes a person to reasonably experience fear, alarm or concern.
So, while some instances of public nudity may not offend, there are some cases in which it is nearly guaranteed to do so. One such incident, which occurred outside a Beacon Hill home last week, clearly illustrates the indecent side of public nudity.
It was just before 5 PM on August 4th when a 33-year-old woman—who officers would later describe as “extremely intoxicated”—wandered into the yard of a home in the 7800 block of Beacon Avenue S. There, several family members inside the home looked on through a window as the woman hiked up her dress and engaged in an intimate act with several lawn chairs.
The woman, clothes in disarray, then began urinating on the lawn before quite purposefully exposing her genitalia, and then posterior, to the family inside the home.
Officers quickly arrived at the scene and arrested the woman for her bawdy of work, and booked her into the King County Jail for indecent exposure.
Please keep this incident in mind before engaging in any sort of public nudity, lest you bare the brunt of Seattle’s decency laws.