Left: Jacqui Salmond ran onto the 18th green at St

 Left: Jacqui Salmond ran onto the 18th green at St

Left: Jacqui Salmond ran onto the 18th green at St. Andrews, interrupting the 2000 British Open; Melissa Johnson joined the pre-match photo session at the 1996 Wimbledon Finals

While streaking of the 1960s and ’70s seemed to be driven by a the same spirit of fun and adventure that compels a 3-year-old to take all his clothes off and run fully nude into the middle of his parents’ dinner party, there’s something a little off in our increasingly enlightened culture about forcing a person to look at one’s naked body without the permission of the observers. Especially considering that being forced to look at nudity isn’t always that fun for observers.

Now, at Notre Dame, the much-gawked-at Bun Run of old has become a source of on-campus controversy and moral hand-wringing. Understandably so. Some people just want to study during finals!

There are also safety concerns for large public events where everybody’s naked. Princeton University had to axe its Nude Olympics in 1999 after seven students were hospitalized due to injuries obtained ostensibly while nude. There’s also the injury to a reputation or criminal record; ending up on a sex offender list is not worth the adrenaline rush of briefly interrupting a soccer game with your peacemaker. That perhaps explains the trend of today’s streakers, like Zdorovetskiy, leaving their goods under wraps instead of going full flop.

Streaking embodies the opposite of what runners love about running. Road and trail races require months of planning and bring strangers together to cheer for other strangers who have been training for months, if not years. Strip all the dignity from running—the self-discipline, commitment, sportsmanship, order—and what do you get? A 19-year-old sophomore in a foam cowboy hat who may have flunked his organic chem final that morning but, for a glorious few minutes, is greeted like a hero breaking the tape at Boston.