We all want the entire world to become naturist. Or at least, that the entire world accepts naturists as sane and full members of society. We don’t want to be seen as weirdos, or – even worse – perverts and child molesters.
By now we all know that it’s easy to reach the entire world, because we have this crazy little thing called Internet. At the same time, we should realise that it’s not possible to change the entire world. Some folks will want to listen. Others are stuck in their ways and ruts so deeply that no mammoth tanker or Kenworth truck can pull them out of it.
It’s important to know where our boundaries are. Not in the way of self-limiting where we want to and can be nude in nature, but in the way of recognising who we can (try to) change (as in perspective about nudity) and who’s beyond help / hope.
Some people will keep running into the same wall forever, hoping to bring it down. Kudos for determination, but minus several hundred points for smart, because it is a waste of energy and time. Energy and time that can better be used to be nude with others, to enjoy the time we have. It’s also possible that such determination will have an adverse effect on that wall (those people who don’t want to see our ways). The people who keep trying will be seen as annoying, pests and other bad things, which is not helping the reputation of naturists anywhere. “The wall” has access to this crazy little Internet as well, and they can spread anti-propaganda towards naturism.
So let’s be smart about this whole ‘conversion’ thing. Don’t go out of your way trying to change everything and everyone.
Go where it’s convenient, where you have a proper chance for change. Let that do its work, because the more people are in a specific mindset, the more overall consciousness will shift. That shift will be slow, and we may not see the definitive change, but it will happen if we do this the smart way.
Paul,
I think we are mistaken if we think we can change the whole rest of the world. Also, I think that is not a task we want to try. Instead, I think we need acceptance and tolerance and work at it in small steps.
One way to gain tolerance is to be willing to let others know what you personally do and why. I was just in Mexico for 3 weeks and we stayed at a small fishing village on the west coast. We were in an RV park which in years past was totally full of Canadians and American tourists but now there was only a few there an any given time. I love this park because it has a very long beach–about 6 miles and once you leave the main section you are pretty much alone and can hike along nude. Well, there was another couple in their MH there and I had talked to the woman a couple of times. Finally, we were talking and I told her how much I enjoyed this particular park and that I was a nudist and used the beach for nude hiking. She stuck out her hand and said they were nudists also and did the same as I did. They were to leave early the next morning and said they might stay over for a last walk on the beach. Around 10:00 a.m. we set off and quickly took off our minimum clothing and had a delightful 5 km hike up the beach and back. One motorcycle passed us but paid no attention to 3 naked people walking along the waters edge.
My point is it would have been easy to do the normal RV park conversation and never mention the nude walks. We would have never known that the couple were nudists and that we shared the same interests. Nudists must be willing to let others know what they do and why if we are going to convince friends and others that we need recognition and more importantly designated public places where nudity is accepted. I am talking about the USA here and realize that you folks in other parts of the world have it much easier in this regard.
So, open up to others and try to convince your elected officials that public lands, beaches and parks should have designated clothing optional areas.
Indeed. We can’t change the world but we can start with the street.
“Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong or have been mislead, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armour of self-justification” -Carol Tavris
I know that might be a bit of an extreme statement to make but humanity itself can be rather strange in a psychological sense. We fear the unknown, which is an ancient and primitive (and logical) flight or fight response to back when we were many rungs lower on the food-chain, but this instinct has become a bane of our modern existence and i would argue its responsible for many of the conflicts we face today.
We lead by example. Sometimes words are useless things but actions speak volumes : ) strangely enough, we as humans often follow by examples set as well. Think about something as simple as Applause, which usually begins with but a single individual before others join in and then the group conforms. There are several experiments (some very unethical) which show that the overwhelming majority of people are followers. I can not remember the exact experiment but there was one where a single participant was put into a room filled with several other people who the subject thought were also participants but were in fact paid actors, and when the actors pretended to be speaking to a ghost (or some other easily disprovable thingy) the lone participant then interacted in a similar fashion- to fit in with the group oO.
Then there is the Milgram experiment, also known as the shock experiment which shows just how far the average person will follow (in this case, an ‘authority figure’) to say nothing of the Stanford prison experiment and the darkness that showed about humanity. We can not talk our way into acceptance into greater society and there will always be those who will deem us as perverted, evil or disgusting but by leading by example as you do Paul, we can peace-meal change enough minds so the tide will turn. Whether that results in us being embraced by society, i can not say….but they may learn to at least be a little more tolerant.
Small steps. . .
Thank you for that insightful comment! 🙂
I’ve found the Carol Tavris quote to be true depressingly often.
– I’ve mountains of medical test results documenting that the multiple ‘psychosomatic’ problems of my youth have always been 100% physical. To this day the family I grew up in insists they were all in my head.
– When I was a teacher I had students who had severe-to-profound hearing losses (i.e. hear almost nothing without hearing aids). Their parents maintained for years that they only had a “little bit” of a hearing loss so their kids had no hearing aids growing up. They felt their kids didn’t need that “sign language hand thing”. This nearly always led to teenagers who had no viable means to communicate with anyone.
I could go on, but you get my point.
And Covid has simply made everything ten times worse, at least in the US.
All we can do is lead by example. Talking is useless.