Sometimes I’m surprised about how people in the nudist/naturist way of life emphasise how nude they are. Nude when they read something, nude when they sit on the couch and watch TV, being nude while stripping off wallpaper, nude… everywhere possible.
Of course, being naked is something crucial in that lifestyle, but something that hardly ever is said is happiness. For me being nude is not the reason to be nude. It’s to be happy, to feel free and unrestrained by the burden of clothes, straps and elastic bands.
I can imagine how all that emphasis on nude is something that puts dressed people off. After all, it’s not their piece of cake, we’re not trying to convert them (unless I missed a memo about the Church of Nudity, or worshipping the Nude Spaghetti Monster).
For the message to come across I think nudists and naturists should more focus on displaying and telling how happy being nude makes them. How relaxing it is, how free it feels. Those are values that mean something to dressed people, because let’s be honest: how much is there in this modern world that can make a person happy, relaxed and free these days?
(This post appeared earlier on The Nook.)
Good point. It is like with my tagline in my G+ profile “Feeling at home in my natural state”. It gives me a feeling a freedom, happiness, relaxation, like you would do at home (I hope). It doesn’t mean I feel ‘at home’ everywhere so I’m not naked everywhere and I’m not nagging people all the time with ‘I wish I was home’, or similar.
I can be days ‘at home’ in an environment where it is appropriate, but if I’m ‘at work’ I don’t push the envelope.
I fully agree, it is necessary to describe the well-being that brings not so much the fact of being without clothes.
For me it was that feeling of extreme freedom and well-being with which nudism pervaded my whole skin the first time. It was these things that then gave rise to the need to undress again and again and again. It’s hard to explain these things without trying nudism. Before I even knew it I had become a nudist.