As the economic recovery slogs from the worst recession since the Great Depression, businesses struggle to innovate, or else risk bankruptcy. Case in point: The Fawlty Towers Motel in Cocoa Beach, Fla. allowed its guests to take it all as of May 1.

After years of declining revenues, owner Paul Hodge was in a “make-or-break situation,” he told Florida Today. Rather than lose his motel, he was able to convince his wife that going nude was the best option.

Hodge hired a lawyer and consulted the American Association of Nude Recreation. He found nothing prohibitive in his state’s laws. In Texas, however, a nudist maid service had to reclassify the business as “sexually oriented,” which requires a permit.

“Nudity offers a potentially lucrative edge for several types of businesses trying to tough out the anemic market,” says historian Mike Foster, co-author with his wife, Barbara, of the biography, A Dangerous Woman: The Life, Loves, and Scandals of Adah Isaacs Menken (www.TheGreatBare.com). “Recession has people rethinking some of their long-held prejudices.”

Nudity is not the only issue being reconsidered, he says. To ease government spending and increase tax revenue, some conservative pundits, including broadcaster Pat Robinson, are reconsidering their stance on marijuana’s illegality.

Whether in recent or not-so-recent history, nudity can make people rich. Foster gives the following examples:

• Hugh Hefner: The founder and chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises was worth $43 million in 2009, according to divorce papers filed that year.
• Lindsay Lohan: She earned $1 million for a nude spread in Playboy.
• Janet Jackson: Now synonymous with terms like “wardrobe malfunction” and “nipplegate,” Jackson’s flashed breast earned her an incalculable amount of free press.
• Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus: Although often valued as priceless, some estimate the most iconographic nude portrait to be worth half a billion dollars.
• Adah Menken: dubbed “The Great Bare” by writer/admirer Mark Twain, Foster says Menken single-handedly created the first celebrity bombshell in the Civil War era, earning her fame and money.

Menken was a singer and actress who became famous as “The Naked Lady” for her starring role in “Mazeppa.” In this drama she rode a stallion up a four-story stage mountain, apparently in the buff. She actually wore a flesh-colored body stocking, but audiences were shocked, horrified and intrigued by this blend of danger and sex appeal, Foster says.

“If you were a young woman and didn’t have a father or a husband to take care of your cost of living, then times were always rough back then,” Foster says. “She used her body for independence, ambition and money.”

To this day, part of the appeal of nudity is the fact that it’s still a salient taboo in our society – a relic from the Victorian era, Foster says.

“For the business owner struggling to keep his or her business afloat, going nude can be among the most cost-effective rebranding that comes to mind,” he says. “Besides a possible need for permitting, a nudist business simply needs some patrons to go semi-nude or nude, which is after all our most natural state.”

As recently as January, the U.S. Supreme Court was debating whether TV networks should be fined for showing a bare body part–in this case, a woman’s butt—on an episode of ABC’s “NYPD Blue.”

A lawyer arguing for the network noted enforcement could lead to complaints about the Summer Olympics in Beijing: During the opening ceremonies, a statute of a bare-breasted, bare-bottomed woman was plainly visible.

A decision isn’t expected until June, but no matter the result, the very fact this is a matter before the highest court in the land troubles historian Mike Foster.

America remains surprisingly prudish, or at least hypocritical, about nudity, says Foster, co-author with his wife, Barbara, of the biography, ”A Dangerous Woman: The Life, Loves, and Scandals of Adah Isaccs Menken.”

“Officially, we’re uptight about nudity,” he says, “but happy to watch it in the media. Advertisers use nudity to make a buck, publishers to sell product, and protesters take it off to make a point.”

Lindsay Lohan’s nude spread for Playboy earned her $1 million and was pirated on the Internet. Helen Mirren, at 64, posed topless for a puff promoting “Love Ranch.” PETA women, who strip in public for attention to animal rights—‘go naked instead of wearing fur’—have been joined by their men.

The “ultimate fantasy commercial” for this year’s Super Bowl featured a beautiful Colombian model looking stark naked. It was done with paint and 100 million viewers feasted their eyes on a nude illusion.

Foster says our nude hypocrisy stems from the Victorian era, when actress Adah Menken was dubbed “The Great Bare” by writer/admirer Mark Twain. The Civil War-era bombshell singer and actress became famous as The Naked Lady for her starring role in “Mazeppa,” a drama in which she rode a stallion up a four-story stage mountain, apparently in the buff. She actually wore a flesh-colored body stocking, but the audience gasped—yet another nude illusion.

It’s mystifying that in Western Europe, the birthplace of many American traditions and values, billboards, TV shows and commercials featuring nudity are commonplace. Nude sunbathers enjoy their nations’ beaches—and don’t go home with awkward tan lines.

One hopeful sign that America’s easing up: At actress Betty White’s televised 90th birthday tribute, Tina Fey claimed the older actress told her: “Never let anyone tell you that you are not good enough to pose nude.”

Yes, our favorite “Golden Girl” did it, decades ago. Yet another “dangerous woman” ahead of her time?

Whoops?

We haven’t seen the pictorial yet, but someone leaked the cover of Lindsay Lohan’s issue of Playboy, showing her naked, straddling the famous bunny logo.

The legally troubled actress was paid a fortune to bare it all for Playboy, but her mother, Dina, has promised that the spread will be “tasteful” and will not show full-frontal nudity.

Lindsay graces the cover of the January/February 2012 issue of the magazine, and we’re sure that curiosity will drive sales.

wireimage.com

The first set of naked pictures taken for Lindsay Lohan’s upcoming spread in Playboy was apparently unsatisfactory.  The magazine has called the jailbird back for a second shoot, according to Fox News.

Lohan posed for the magazine before heading to hail to serve 30 days for violating her probation.

Her spread will appear in January, and she will take home close to $1 million from the job.

Hey, everybody has to make money, and it’s hard when you’re behind bars.  Maybe this is the star’s first show of pragmatism in a very long time.

Brooke and Hulk in front of the photo from wireimage.com

After a barrage of criticism, Brooke Hogan fights back and defends her decision to unveil her nude photo for PETA front of her father, Hulk Hogan.

Brooke took to Twitter to voice her complaints.  She tweeted “Im SO sick of people saying me and my dad are in some perverted relationship.  Go home and do your own thing! Stop picking on me!”

She unveiled the photo on Thursday at Miami’s Cafeina Lounge, with her father in the audience.  In fact, he was front and center, and photographed with the picture.

To Brooke’s defense, the photos weren’t any more scandalous than the other “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” or “women in cages” campaign photos, and it’s kind of nice that she shared it with her father in an “I’m supporting a family cause, just not in a family way” kind of way.

Slutever, Brooke. You look good!

Well-endowed beauty and reality television star Kim Kardashian is baring at all in print again. This time, the brunette bombshell with the big butt is on the cover of W Magazine with nothing but a few text boxes between you and … well, her.

“I used to think, I have to be this or that or skinny,” Kardashian said in an interview with the magazine. “Because of the show, everyone is embracing just me, which has given me such a confidence.”

Kim’s on the cover of the magazine’s “Art Issue.” She appears nude, covered in silver paint, in the magazine. Celebuzz has the photos.

The eight-page cover story is on newsstands this week.

It’s so hot outside. You just want to take off all your clothes, right?

Yeah.

That was how an 18-year-old Vermont woman decided to cope with the hazy, hot, humid weather this week. She got naked and took a walk around the streets of Montpelier on Monday afternoon with a male companion.

The dude left his clothes on.

According to TimesArgus.com, a “flurry” of phone calls came into the Montpelier Police around 1:30 yesterday afternoon.

But it’s not illegal to walk naked in Vermont.

“As long as they’re not exhibiting any kind of overt gestures or communicating any kind of lewd act, then they’re within their rights — if we’ll use that word — to do that,” Montpelier Police Sergeant Neil Martel told the local news site. “We watched her and there wasn’t anything going on that would have violated the ordinance. … She just said it was a hot day, I guess, and she was taking a walk.”

No pics.

Well, seeing Kim Kardashian naked is nothing new. But speaking as someone who’s met her in real life, I can say that she’s actually attractive even if you take away the television cameras and airbrushes.

(And I’m not even going to comment on that whole Ray J thing — except to say that I think the Kardashian girls need to pick new men. Regular men. Perhaps a journalist?)

But the news right now is that Kim has posed nude for Harper’s Bazaar, and the photo is (above) unretouched. You see her in all her curvy nature.

The series also features Joy Bryant and British beauty Amanda de Cadenet.

In the shot, the television celeb almost looks like a vulnerable and normal girl. What do you think? Share your comments below.

When “Bitch Slap” comes out later this year, America Olivo will make a certain scene by Denise Richards and Neve Campbell look like a Disney movie.

The 31-year-old beauty, daughter of 1959′s Miss Canada, is on the cover of Playboy in May, and she dished on her upcoming films and her upbringing.

The singer and actress appears in a 6-page nude spread available May 15.

She stars as a drug-running, street-fighting lesbian in the upcoming “Bitch Slap,” which boasts the longest girl fight in cinema history, Playboy said in a news release this week.

Olivo told the magazine that she had to do “blatant lesbian scenes on a trapeze, in which I’m making out, kissing this girl between the legs and riding her so intensely I was more sore than a mofo.”

She also talks about how, attending Juilliard, she was encouraged to lose her virginity.

“Every time I sang about love,” she told Playboy, “my 97-year-old mentor would say, “You can’t really sing a song like this until you’ve lost your virginity, and I can tell you haven’t!” Her solution? “I lost my virginity in Rome in a park with a view of the Vatican — literally.”

Olivo appeared in two episodes of House, has a role on General Hospital, was in the “Friday the 13th” remake and has five more films to her credit coming up after “Bitch Slap.”

Earth Friend Gen at Eagle Creek!

You can be the judge as to whether this is beautiful and natural or bat-shit crazy. We say both.

Gennifer Moss, aka Earth Friend Gen, roller bladed around Portland, Ore. over the weekend wearing nothing but a string bikini bottom.

She has asked officials if she could skate totally naked. They told her no.

As the Associated Press points out, this isn’t necessarily rare in Oregon, where nude bike rides are common and shows with live sex acts are protected as free speech.

God bless the First Amendment.

We thank The Oregonian for this story.

Gen is a California native who is described as an organic-food-loving, enlightenment-espousing “yellow earth warrior” — The Oregonian had no idea what that meant and neither does Blast Magazine.

We could go into Earth Friend Gen’s whole shtick, but we’re just gonna link to her website and post a gallery.