“Everyone has a body. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have one.”
I heard this in a podcast from the Dutch naturist federation NFN.
It was a fascinating listen (link to podcast, make sure you understand Dutch) and when the above sentence came by, I laughed out loud. That made several people turn their heads, as I was out on a walk while listening.
The lady that was interviewed, Roos Schlikker , was very funny in her expressions.
The talk covered many different topics, ranging from being naked at home, visiting nude beaches and resorts, and going to nude saunas (there are saunas with specific ‘bathing suit only’ days here in the Netherlands).
Advertising was also a topic they talked about. They mentioned an advertising campaign from a soap and shower-gel company that had a television ad with a naked woman in it, and no one batted an eye:
A TV ad like this is absolutely impossible these days. I think this is a sad thing.
Because everyone has a body. It will not “live up to the expectations” that the beauty industry imposes on us (as I have talked about many times before e.g. [1] [2] [3]).
Something Roos Schlikker said in the podcast was that she had no qualms about walking around nude in her house. “If the neighbours see me, so what? They will look once and that’s it.”
And I agree with that. If people see me naked, I don’t care. So many already did, and many more will follow. If they don’t want to see me, they should look at something (or someone) else.
Another thing happened on twitter “just now” (as I compose this tweet).
Someone shared a tweet stating he would post more ‘shirtless selfies’. Someone responded with the words: “Just go ahead. I won’t. I don’t have the body for that.”
I had to jump onto that and sent him: “As long as you have a body, you can do it. All you need is no shirt.”
Because everyone has a body.
>“Just go ahead. I won’t. I don’t have the body for that.”
>>As long as you have a body, you can do it. All you need is no shirt.”
– trapped in the negativity of body image
~ perfect response 😀
I thought so too. People need to be shaken awake for this kind of thing.
I don’t know about the rest of the English-speaking world, but in the US “dysmorphia” and “poor body image” nearly always refers to a purely psychological problem. The person’s body is WNL (within normal limits); There’s a problem with perception. This approach completely ignores the fact that there are people in the world who have physical bodies that are not WNL. When such a person says his body does not match what is labelled ‘right’, the person is factually accurate. His perception is NOT distorted. He frequently has medical diagnoses as well as thick file of images, test results, etc. confirming that he is not imagining his difference. As you might expect, treating members of the second group as if they were members of the first group doesn’t work very well.
What is also ignored in the US approach to poor body image is how the outside world responds to the person’s body. When the outside world consistently gives unsolicited negative feedback about one’s appearance, the idea that the person is imagining his difference is not viable.
Pretty much all the body positivity lit I’ve seen assumes that the person’s dysmorphia exists solely in the person’s mind and was spontaneously imagined. The outside world is assumed not to exist. My response to this is that those promoting body positivity are heavily into reality denial
My point is that if a person (especially an American) says, “I don’t have the body for that” it is very possible he did not get the idea from his head; it was given to him.
————-
I sometimes wonder if it’s easier for a person who has physical differences to be a nudist. Speaking just for myself I have orthopedic issues that determine that my body does not live up to expectations. That is objective, empirical, documented medical fact. I just don’t care and am nude as much as possible and and (pre-Covid) participated in as many nude activities as work and other obligations allowed. My body’s ‘failure to meet expectations’ is completely separate form me as a person. So I have the luxury of ignoring people who yammer about subjectivity, self-image, accepting oneself, etc. because none of it applies to me. I feel like I’ve been spared all those issues. I wonder of that applies to other nudists in my situation.
I know this is a bit off topic but I think it’s important to understand why some people respond the way they do to nudism.
“I sometimes wonder if it’s easier for a person who has physical differences to be a nudist.”
It probably is. Such people tend to not care much about the body ideals presented by the mass media and marketing departments, knowing they’ll never match it anyway so why bother trying.
I know that’s the case for me. I’ve been seriously overweight for decades, and only a strict diet can prevent it from getting worse, let alone reducing it (to get that I’d need a literal starvation diet, and keep that up to beyond where it’d kill me from lack of micronutrients). I couldn’t care less about body ideals.
It’s the people who are within what they perceive of being “just out of reach” of the “ideal” who are most unhappy that they can’t seem to achieve that ideal and as a result are unhappy with their body to the idea that they’ll hide them as much as possible.
Anyone who saw that commercial would probably say that they don’t have the body for that.
There is an Apple Smartwatch commercial in Iceland that shows full nudity, both genders, all body types. Unfortunately, your spam filter won’t allow me to put a link in the comment.
That’s lovely, though not unsurprising for Ísland who, per capita, have a healthier attitude towards the human form
Sorry about the spam filter problem, but without that I get all kinds of crap on the blog.
And I’ve seen that commercial, it was amazingly refreshing. (There is a pixelised version out too. argh)
Any way to allow emoji’s oO
There is.
There should be. Either or the plugin is failing.