I’ve been thinking. (Perhaps that’s the reason there was no post last week. No, I’m kidding, I just had no time to come up with something and write about it.)
Why are so many people screaming that nudity is a sin, that nudity is sex and nudity is all things forbidden?
It’s just one thing.
Power.
Power is the name of the game. As long as someone holds power over you, they can make you sit, run and jump, and even play dead.
Christians, for instance, shouldn’t fear to be nude if they want to. The famous couple, Adam and Eve, were nude to begin with. Only when Eve found those fun mushrooms, had some, “and then a snake started talking”, things went sour. They apparently were charged with “sin”, which is quite a power-stunt, and thrown out of their garden.
Of course not everyone is in that fix. Not everyone lives in a garden with ‘shrooms and “talking snakes”. Trees with wisdom fruit are hard to come by as well, but power is all around us.
Look at the people who can’t come out as a naturist / nudist because of work. “If the boss hears, I’m toast.” Or the people who can’t come out because of “the family”. There are plenty of reasons that our lifestyle is so conflicting, and I think it all comes down to the power. The power of ‘the community’ is another one. What if the neighbours see/report me? What if the police come and pick me up?
Stuff like that is bad enough that people often can’t even be nude in their own garden. That’s the scourge of ‘power’ that hangs over everyone of us. Even the most naked person who reads this will find something in his or her life that connects to that.
May we all find a way to get rid of those power-mongers, so we can live our lives as free and freely as we want.
(Donations and suggestions for a naturist tropical island are always welcome!)
It’s always been about power in one way or another. Power and control. Recognising that and standing up to that takes away the power held.
Fight the power- reclaim your body autonomy
And it’s sometimes surprising to find out how easy it is to do that.
Power is a fickle thing. People holding it often have no idea how thin it is…
Agreed, it’s nearly always about some kind of power. Fortunately, most people seem concerned with power as a tool to benefit their family, friends, or themselves. Neither the power itself nor wielding it gives them satisfaction. They’re pretty live-and-let-live.
Then there’re people for whom power itself is a goal. They want to be perceived as “The Boss” and as having the ability to throw their weight around as they please. They’re very concerned with how people view them. Some are loud and aggressive. More low-key people may want to be seen as the wise ones who understand what’s ‘really’ going on, how things ‘really’ work. I think of this low-key group as having an “Oracle Complex” …. as in the Oracle character from the original Matrix movie. IMO, they’re more dangerous because so many of them are superb actors who easily convince otherwise intelligent people to support them. They’re often stunningly skilled at presenting themselves as embattled/besieged (by whom rarely becomes clear) and struggling to do what’s “right” (which also rarely becomes clear).
In my experience there’s no changing them, in part (I suspect) because so many of them seem to be suffering from Semmelweis Effect. The only effective strategy I’ve found is to remove myself from their sphere of influence.
As for “work'”, “family”, and the “community”, if one had the time, energy, and other resources, one could investigate if these entities actually had the power to do anything. I bring this up because the person warning (threatening?) you is probably NOT a reliable information source as to what (if anything) work/family/community would or could do.
——————
OTOH, I’ve had many people over the years give two much more simple explanations for the behavior of the screaming power-mongers:
1. They’re jealous. By going to clothing optional beaches and attending nudist social events you’re doing something THEY feel they can’t/shouldn’t do. It may not be about the nudity at all, but just that in their minds you’re breaking some sort of rule they have to follow and you’re not being punished for it…. I.e. It’s actually all about THEM.
2. They have a static mental pic of how the world is/should be and you’re being a nudist you’re basically bursting their bubble. The nudity could be irrelevant. What’s relevant is their bubble has been burst and in their minds that is YOUR fault.
That is a wonderful list, Anton. Yes, many people are jealous, and scared of doing it themselves, so ridiculing us is their ‘power’. It’s thin and easy to pop, like a soap bubble.
I’ve met plenty of folks you mention in the last paragraph. THIS IS THE WORLD, and you will adhere to MY RULES. I mean THE RULES OF THE WORLD.
Well, nope.
Sadly this world is full of control freaks, using whatever excuse they can come up with the try to impose their ideology on everyone else.
And that’s both the ideological right as the ideological left doing it, their methods nearly the same and their end goal being very similar too in nature (but of course different in details): a highly homogenous society where everyone does as (s)he’s told by their superiors and betters (whom those control freaks see themselves to be).
And sadly more than a few naturists are exactly the same, trying to force their ideological view of what naturism should be on everyone else. I’ve been told I can’t be a “real naturist” because I’m not vegan, for example, or because I’m a single biological male (and therefore I’m by definition a sexual predator…).
We see it in people fat shaming too. If you’re only a kilo heavier than the “ideal weight” you’re a morbidly obese glutton who should be punished for eating too much, never mind the myriad reasons people can be overweight, or the utter nonsense behind those idealised and standardised body images that help define that “ideal weight”.
I’ve been often told I’m a freak for not being a “normal man”, with a wife and 2 children, a boy and a girls. The few people who even bother to ask why that is the case couldn’t care less for what answers you give them as those answers only serve to strengthen their conviction of their own self righteousness and the natural inferiority of the people they’re attacking. Being
1) autistic and socially awkward to the extreme and therefore incapable of dating
2) transsexual (related, though I didn’t realise it 30 years ago)
3) carrier of a potentially serious genetic disorder I don’t want to pass on
4) neither religious nor an adherent of any well defined political group
are all irrelevant to the control freak, and just confirm that I should be culled from ‘civilised society’ and either killed or forced into a camp for ‘undesirables’.
Now add being a nudist (I don’t call myself a naturist because of the ideological basis that tends to imply) to the mix and yes, I’m pretty much a social outcast unless I align myself with fringe groups I feel no connection to whatsoever.
The big bad thing is that people want to stick labels on everything and everyone. You’re a naturist? Then you get this label, which also prescribes how you have to look, walk, eat, act and think. Indeed. Control freaks.
BLAGH!
Labels go in clothes, describing sizes and stuff. Not on people.
It’s a sad sign of the times that even so-called ‘open-minded’ people tend to stuff everything/everyone in nice boxes. The ones that look at a person and take the time to get to know that one are few and far.
Everyone is precious to me, unless someone has shown to be not that precious. I try not to shove people in boxes with labels (hard at times, I admit it).
I hope (and dare to think) that you, JTW, feel safe here. It’s not a forum or such, but I welcome you. No judgment. No problem. You’re a real person with real ‘stuff’ going on. Not someone to be shunned.
Thank you. Yes, this is one of the few places nobody seems to judge others.
One thing I’m surprised I don’t hear about more often: Labelling people, putting them into boxes, being a control freak, being concerned with who dates whom and who can marry whom, who is or isn’t following whatever religion , etc., etc., etc. always struck me as incredible amount of work. Even as a little kid I’d see all sorts of demonstrations on the news and think, “Don’t you have lawns to mow? Don’t you have a garden to take care of? Don’t your kids need to go to soccer, football, baseball practice? Don’t they need help with homework?” When I got older it shifted to, “What’s your life like that you have the discretionary time and energy to be in an uproar over things that don’t affect you or your family and aren’t your business to begin with? I certainly don’t have it”
> The big bad thing is that people want to stick labels on everything and everyone. You’re a naturist?
“grabs sticker label, tries to figure out where to stick it….gives up and puts label on forehead” xD
Take that normies! your labels won’t stick no matter how hard you try : )
The power to condition the human mind.
When I was textile I still remember well, how normal it was to wear clothes even with 30 degrees celsius. How it was normal shame to be ashamed of the body, genitals, etc. and how taking off clothes was immediately connected to sex and how sad it was to undress and feel the automatic body reaction nudity / sex and for this reason I hate panties because they are the symbol of shame and the nudity-sex connection.
Completely naked, I take back my power and my body. For some years now I have felt much more naturist than nudist because as I said, complete nudity has brought me very close to nature. I found in a place far from the city, completely wild and natural where I have been undressing regularly for two years and immersing myself in nature makes me feel good and so far I have not met anyone (if someone saw me, they could even call the police). But for me it is something that cannot be renounced. Naked at home I am fine, but in nature it is much better. I went there with my two friends who I “infected” and we had a great time.
For all the rest, Italy is not the best place to do naturism, there are thousands of Km. Of beaches, sun, ideal temperatures, but the authorized beaches will be about twenty throughout Italy, together with some rare isolated B&B scattered around. Italy.
Unfortunately, this is also power. Power of those who in 2022 still fear the vision of a penis, a breast, a butt, etc. I wonder when the mentality will evolve.
One thing I find interesting is that control freaks, power mongers, etc. who insist on labelling and putting people into boxes are usually using SOMEONE ELSE’S system of labelling and boxing. More evidence of this mentality is shown by the fact that most people have no idea that the choice of December 25th for Christmas and the system for determining Easter were picked for completely secular reasons. Along with that, you’d be amazed at how few people seem to think it odd that the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th months of the year are named seven, eight, nine, and ten.
I do have some hope for the younger generation, however. From what I’ve read in recent years it seems that for most anything you can think of that’s on a spectrum (politics, religion, etc.), the children and grandchildren of the people at the extreme ends are following in lower and lower percentages. To flip it around, the children of the extremists on average are statistically significantly closer to the middle than their parents are and the grand children are a step closer than the children are.
I noticed this when working in colleges just before the pandemic. Issues that were contentious 20 or even 10 years before simply weren’t regarded as crises by college students of 2018-2019. I suspect the economics plays a role. Pretty much everything I’ve read & heard in recent years points toward young people spending more and more of their time just taking care of life’s necessities. The resources required to be fanatical or extremist about ANYthing simply are not there.
Sadly I see the polar opposite, that younger people are far more likely to be ideologues than older ones.
They may not be the ones that scream the loudest at all times, but they tend to be extremely rigid in their ideologies and hostile towards anyone and anything that doesn’t match those ideologies.
They’re also extremely susceptible to propaganda from ideologues and make very good foot soldiers in the wars to enforce compliance with whatever ideology their chosen gurus tend to adhere to.
They make such good foot soldiers because they never question whatever they’re being told by their leaders, once they are under their spell.
Remember that the worst torturers and camp guards of the Khmer Rouge were teenage boys and girls, as are the most fanatic terrorists of groups like Shining Path and FARC.
As a transgender person who can’t wear shoes I dress “incorrect” for the genes I’m born with. The ONLY negative comments I get away from the internet and its anonymity are from teenagers (and the very occasional younger child) and occasionally the elderly (though far less often and violent).
Older people sometimes react with curiosity, hardly ever with hostility.
Same with negative reactions when a conversation leads to other topics that there is a lot of ideology involved with, like diet, climate, and general politics.
Even if presented with actual scientific data that directly contradicts their ideas, youngsters refuse to accept that they’re wrong, they simply reject the data because it’s not from an “approved source” (meaning, it doesn’t come from their gurus).
Sadly this has now spread into the general population far more than it ever has in the past, and even into their 30s and 40s people seem incapable of thinking for themselves rather than blindly following whatever person or organisation they have been led to believe carries universal Truth as a child.
Good points. Now that I think about it, my observations might
reflect the fact that I live in a bit of a bubble. Hint: Indoor mask mandates dropped months ago yet in most stores over 3/4 of the shoppers and staff are wearing masks.
I think a major problem there is the school system.
Most people are now told what to think and how to do things, instead learning how to think for themselves…
Indeed. Schools have degraded from institutes of learning to institutes of indoctrination.
When I was in school teachers told me their primary job was to teach me HOW to think, nowadays they pride themselves in teaching children WHAT to think.
And that’s wrong, whether what they teach children to think is something I agree with or not (and most often it’s something I do not agree with, including outright lies).
It is indeed how they are supposed to turn out little robots and drones. Disgusting. That is the end of civilisation as we know it.
Little heads filled with rules, rammed into them.
I’m glad I learnt to think as well. That makes us dangerous, I guess. But they’ll never take that away from me. “Nude and dangerous.” Sounds like a good title for a book too!
From mid 90’s to Covid I was fairly active in the K-12 education system in one of the largest and most liberal districts in the US. In that time I saw a massive drop in teacher autonomy. Teachers were increasingly told to teach to the test, how to teach, and what materials to use. The structure of lesson plans and of lessons themselves started becoming more important than the content. Decisions regarding all of the above are increasingly made by administrative people, most of whom (AFAIK) have never taught in a K-12 classroom.
Anton, this is exactly what I meant by “supposed to turn out drones and robots”.
I’m convinced that the real teachers hate what they have to do, but it’s either that or be out of a job…
@Paul
is there any option you can add to your blog that would give an upvote comment button? oO
I had a bit of a look.
No, there isn’t. Upvote-stuff is only available for posts, not for comments.
Note that “a bit of a look” is not exhaustive. If I can’t find it within 5 minutes, it’s probably not there – or it’s no good.
thanks for looking anyways : )