Baring it all for the greater good

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Dan Cope is a British skydiver who has been jumping for more than a year. In this time, he has completed more than 80 jumps and is planning to reach his 100th before the year’s end.

However, while this number is impressive, it’s no record breaker. So what makes jump 100 so exciting?

This skydiving stud is going to jump stark naked from 10,000 feet and record it for the internet. Oh what a utopian world we live in, where naked men just fall from the sky.

Cope is raising money to build a playground for the Donna Louise Children’s Hospice, a facility that takes care of terminally ill children.

Cope originally planned to jump after he’d raised £500 ($830 Canadian), but he upped the amount after he quickly met his goal (for obvious reasons). For £1,000 ($1600), Cope promised to document the event — a goal that’s been met two-fold.

“The video of the sky dive will be uploaded online,” Cope writes on his donation page. “There could be temperatures of -30°C up there, so I might not be . . . looking my best, if you know what I mean! But it’s worth it for a brilliant charity.”

Donations have poured in from all over the globe, and Cope is grateful for some of his biggest supporters — the gays.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the national and international LGBT community have played a massive part in the success of this fundraising activity,” says Cope, who is bisexual.

Cope has already raised more than £2,100 ($3,500) and says there’s not much more that he can offer for donation incentives, other than good will.

“I can’t offer any more to hit the next target of £2,500 [$4,100] (I can’t jump without the parachute??) but please keep up the epic momentum and let’s really make something special happen.”

If he needs some help with ideas, Xtra suggests Cope land on top of the donor who gives the most.

While we eagerly await Cope’s jump, here’s a list of other equally hot people who’ve stripped down for a cause.

Brokeback boathouse

Somebody pass us a paddle.

For the past four years, Warwick’s senior men’s rowing team has released an annual nude calendar that features the boys stripping down, getting wet and finding creative uses for oars.

The calendar features a different theme every year but guarantees 100-percent nudity. The 2013 theme was Brokeback Boathouse.

Lesbians and straight men, fear not: in 2013 the women’s team joined in on the fun — releasing their own full-frontal calendar, with proceeds donated to the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.

Fundraising for the 2014 calendar has already concluded, with monumental success: more than £13,000 ($21,500 Canadian) was raised — well beyond the original goal of £5,000.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation, a charity whose mission is to raise awareness about bullying.

Those who donated larger amounts to the fundraiser have been invited to be involved with one of the rowing team’s calendar shoots (a smart person would audition to be the boat — though try not to spring a leak).

This one’s for the books

Reading has always been sexy, and these authors are here to prove it.

Bare It for Books is a calendar created by novelist Amanda Leduc and blogger Allegra Young.

The group’s inaugural calendar, which you can now order online, features Canadian authors being naughty with their novels.

Proceeds from calendar sales will be donated to PEN Canada, an organization that fights censorship and the persecution of writers.

Some of the Canadians featured include Trevor Cole, Farzana Doctor, Steven Heighton and Angie Abdou.

Naked and tethered

This event will certainly get the blood flowing — in more ways than one.

In BC, dozens of people will partake in an annual 50-metre bungee jump into a Vancouver Island canyon.

But this isn’t an ordinary dive. Each jumper is — you guessed it — buck-naked.

The event has taken place for more than seven years to raise funds for BC mental health initiatives. The nudity represents the stripping away of stigma that can make discussing mental health very uncomfortable.

Closets are for clothes — fabulous, fabulous clothes

Heterosexuals for Same-Sex Equality is a non-profit activist group that brings straight voices to the frontlines in the ongoing battle for LGBT rights.

On Sept 30, the HSSE presented a video, Closets Are for Clothes, which features men and women of all shapes and sizes stripping down and throwing their clothes into their closets.

“We aim to show you that supporters are everywhere and when you’re ready, we’re here to show you respect, love and support,” the video’s description reads.

Some of the exhibitionists involved in the film include 1 Girl 5 Gays’ Philip Tetro and Kim Crosby, Ed the Sock co-host Liana Kerzner and a whole slew of comedians and other supporters of LGBT rights.

Boy band gone wild

Members of the British boy-band Lawson stripped down over the summer of 2013, posing in the buff for a centrefold in Cosmopolitan magazine (see photo gallery above).

The members of the group — Andy Brown, Ryan Fletcher, Joel Peat and Adam Pitts — all took part in the photo to promote cancer research and awareness in the UK. It’s a cause that’s important to Brown, the band’s lead vocalist, who named the group after a doctor who performed life-saving brain surgery on him.

“It’s so important to be aware of your body and any changes,” he told Cosmo. “When I was 19 I had a brain tumour removed. It wasn’t cancerous but I lost the hearing in my right ear because of it . . . If you catch things like this early, it can save your life. It changed my whole perspective on everything.”

To view Lawson, Cope and all the other scantily clad people on our list, view our photo gallery. Don’t worry: it’s mostly safe for work — mostly.