Here in Indiana, Hoosiers are gearing up for another weekend of partying during the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 500 mile race. Fifty years ago, it was the one place where getting drunk and naked in public wouldn’t get you arrested. The excitement began on Carb Day, the Friday before the big event. Even if you didn’t care for the races, many of your friends and co-workers came back with pictures of drunken parties where men and women stripped and streaked with wild abandon. However, things have really toned down since Covid-19 changed everything. Last year, they scheduled a race without any fans at all. This year, they’ve canceled Carb Day, and only half as many tickets to the big race will be sold. But it doesn’t really matter, because naked’s not novel anymore.
Netflix and other streaming services have watered down the novelty of seeing naked strangers. Almost every other movie or TV series has at least one scene where someone isn’t wearing any clothes. Not only that, sex education is provided in the form of video demonstrations of the act. Consequently, there’s so much sex and nudity on television that it’s not even titillating. Remember when ankles were considered so erotic that porches were built so that a man would not see a lady’s ankles while ascending the stairs? Nowadays, who would get aroused at the sight of a woman’s ankles?
Anyone who grew up in Indiana has probably attended at least one Indianapolis 500 race. For most of us, it was about as exciting as watching paint dry. The only thing to relieve the boredom of seeing cars drive around the track was a hefty supply of alcohol in the cooler under your seat. Nevertheless, diehard race fans thrive on the possibility of carnage when a driver hits the wall at a speed of 257 miles per hour.
As a result, there’s still a lot of hype surrounding the race. The city throbs with excitement, and you see women in ball gowns entering hotels at all hours of the day and night. There will always be sponsors who host festive galas. It’s probably the highlight of the social season in Indianapolis. Still, you wonder what will happen to attendance now that naked’s not novel anymore.