Maybe you caught it too, the hoolabaloo around Sherwood Forest in Nottingham, UK. Maybe you aren’t interested in the antics of Robin Hood. This is not about Robin hood.
This is what it’s about:
Nudists spotted in Sherwood Forest
It was in the Nottingham Post last Friday. A bunch of non-nudists had complained about seeing nude people in the forest.
All the upheaval boiled down to nothing, which is good, although the textile community is still up in arms about it, probably.
In England, nudity is legal as long as the nude person(s) are not making a nuisance of themselves. See the official UK Crown Prosecution Service site.
The funny thing about this, when you look closely enough, is that the good and dressed people of Nottingham are screaming that this is illegal.
If they knew the law, or at least make the effort of looking it up, they would see that they’re wrong.
(But who would want to look for their own wrong, right?)
British Naturism
Donna Price, British Naturism’s coordinator for Women in Naturism, had a video talk with a talkRadio host about the stir this all caused. At the moment of writing, there is a link to the talk here. Click at own risk, it might have been removed.
As so often, the biggest issue was that ‘people don’t want to see this’.
I think they should learn that the world isn’t just about what they want, but that there are other people with other views and ideas. If they don’t want to see this, they should look elsewhere. I have never been to Sherwood Forest, but if Robin Hood could stay hidden from the soldiers so long, it must be big enough for every kind of person.
Nudists were not and are not ‘ruining’ the forest, as the banner on the image states. That’s just in people’s one-track minds.
Unfortunately. Because there are so many of them.
Meanwhile in Zeewolde…
And all the NFN does is write a sternly worded letter to the city council asking them to please reconsider.
What action would you recommend for them to take, instead of writing a letter?
A nude protest in city hall?
take it to trial.
Or organise a nude hike through the impacted area and fight every single fine being written (this has worked in the past in other cities).
City hall would be interesting, but it probably doesn’t fall under the legal definition of where nudity is allowed.
I hope the NFN folks read it!
imagine a scenario: you hike for days into the wilderness, climb steep hills and maybe a mountain, find yourself in a gully by a stream. There’s no road access, only way in or out is to hike or to be dropped by helicopter, you’re utterly alone in the bliss of the wild in your natural form the ground squarely anchored to your feet.. the only noise a trickle from the nearby stream, the sound the light breeze makes as it interweaves between the leaves and an occasional Birb making Birb sounds… other than that, silence..
You take a big big big gulp of fresh air in, raise your arms in harmony to the sky and breathe out, perfectly content.
… then some doof in a helicopter flies overhead and spots you, completely destroying the serenity of the area.. the birds flee, the trees now moving violently in the wash of the helicopter which is lowering to just above the tree tops and some concerned textile-obsessionist is pointing at you in horror.
Unbeknown to you as they return to the wretched civilisation, news reports surface of the vile evil naturist naked in public..
a collective eye roll from the audience please! but this is a fact of life.. No matter what we do there will always be that kind of person who goes out of their way to make a big drama out of nothing… all we can do in return is explain (usually for the millionth time) and then ignore them.
<3
It’s not difficult to imagine all that.
Most people are so… what’s a good word… submerged in the necessity of clothes, that they can’t understand that it is good to be without them. Because clothes are ‘normal’. Again, it’s the norm that sets the standards and the rules, and anyone stepping outside that accepted square is odd, weird and a pervert.
It’s sad.
One of the strangest yet innocent questions I’ve gotten recently was: “without clothes, don’t you end up hurting yourself more, like during your day to day moving things around etc”
A little bit of fabric isn’t going to prevent you from getting hurt if you fall off the verandah hehe 🙂 like okay when I go hiking there’s a propensity to get my body more scuffed up by branches n whatnot but its not like being nude makes you paranoid about it..
I love questions like that which are so innocent and just show how much the clothed public does not understand- it means there’s hope, baby steps ofc and we can enlighten them.
That is a very intriguing question indeed, and indeed, they don’t understand.
I guess their concept of ‘hurting’ is different if they are scared of that. Slamming a leg into a coffee table will hurt just as much with or without clothes (unless full metal armour are clothes too). 😀