Author: Paul

Promoting the clothes-free lifestyle.

The beauty-dogma

What? What is a beauty-dogma?

In this post I want to lay out a few thoughts I suddenly had about the reason that so many people stick their clothes, even when deep inside they know better.

For instance: imagine it’s a hot summer’s day. The the only logical thing to do is take off your clothes. And folks still need to wear something, no matter how flimsy. There is this need, this weird mental obligation to cover up.

I suddenly realised it’s not only because people are afraid of being naked. It’s also because of their inbred body-shame issues. Even people who don’t look bad according to these disgusting, modern beauty-standards, suffer from this same thing. I am convinced of that. TV and ads convince everyone they never look good enough. That is the beauty-dogma for me.

And so they cover up.

The people you see at a nude beach…

Did you ever hear or read this one?

The people you see at a nude beach are not the people you want to see at a nude beach.

That is one of the problems with the beauty-dogma. Everyone who tries so hard to look so beautiful expects everyone else to look so beautiful as well. The brainwash has taken full occupancy of their mind in that respect. And so these people are against nudity because…

Naked people nude beach
Skinny dippers in Ireland.

…not everyone at a nude beach is ‘beautiful’. (Again, according to the impossible beauty-standards of today.)

I think it’s partly because of that beauty-dogma that many people refuse to be sensible about clothes and heat. And it goes even so far that they will do what they can to embellish their outside with clothes, because vanity rules in many ways. Combine something powerful like that with body-shame and other influences like religion and peer pressure, and I think the picture is coming together quite nicely…

Paul nude outside

Stay naked.

Stay happy.

Remain yourself.

The truth lies just beneath the skin…

Bodypainting. It keeps fascinating me.

Like a broken record perhaps…

I know. I have written about this several times.

Family body painting
Bodypainted family.

Bodypainting is an amazing form of (self)-expression for me. It’s something that no amount of clothing can come close to, because paint on a skin can be applied in so many ways that a tailor can’t ever keep up.

And, like in the image on the left, anyone can paint someone else and go crazy. Poor tailor yet again.

Skin wins.

The efficiency of bodypainting.

I can hear you wonder what this means. But, according to me, there is an efficiency to bodypainting over clothes. When you want to be very varied (I admit, those 2 words next to each other made me grin 🙂 ), you will need a lot of stuff.

A mountain of clothes

Lets start with clothes. Being varied with clothes means something like this. And maybe that isn’t even enough. You will need a pile of clothes that is going to set your wallet back quite some. We all know the price of clothes, right? Not many of us are full-time naturists, so clothes come into the picture at various stages of life, no matter we don’t like that.

This is not uncommon among naturists, for obvious reasons. Being nude is the idea, so variation with clothes is already a no-no.

Paint.

Then there is paint. A can of paint can go a long way. Service a lot of bodies. And it can create anything you set your mind to. Of course, the final result will also depend on your painting skills, but using paint is a lot easier than making clothes, I hope we all agree on that.

So here we have a nice number of things in which paint is more efficient than clothes. Usually it’s cheaper, it’s more versatile, it has less of a learning curve and with less you can do more. If you have clothes, those will only fit certain people, where paint fits anyone.

The beauty of the body.

And with all this, I haven’t even brought up the beauty of the body, and how it can be emphasised by paint. And we can do that in the most personal way. If three people are asked to paint one specific model, you will end up with three entirely different designs of the same starting point.

This is why I love bodypainting.

Do you have experience with bodypainting? Either having done it or having it done to you? What was it like? I am curious.

Body awareness

This is something that just popped up in my mind at some point. Things have a habit of popping up and some of them are worth writing about.

Naturists are known to have less / no body shame. Some of them/us are still growing up to the point where it disappears, but it is clear to many that bodies are what they are. All different, all special, all good.

Nude darts, free as you can be.

Naturists are, as far as I know, very much aware of their bodies. That has nothing to do with shame but the mere fact that we know our body. We know when it’s comfortable, when it’s not so great.

People who wear clothes all of the time have lost that awareness (or perhaps they never had it in the first place, since they were ‘wrapped up’ before their mind developed enough to notice.)

It’s autumn now. Or fall. Name it as you want. Naturists in the northern hemisphere are wearing more clothes. I don’t know about you, but I am very much aware of that fact. I feel those layers of fabric. Of course, I know my body needs those things, otherwise I’ll be cold and that’s not nice.

Still, despite knowing all that, it sometimes is as if my body revolts against that stuff. As if I am not made for those wrappings. Heck, at times I feel like a mummy, especially when I have to bend or squat down to pick something up. There’s that direct awareness that something is cutting off my ability to move and also my blood-flow. Those are the clothes.

Summer of 2019
Summer of 2019

I’m certain many of you have similar feelings.

I, for one, am looking forward to the next warm days of spring and the next summer. Oh, sure, having 40C days this summer wasn’t extremely funny at work (that’s 104F) but without clothes I find those days much easier to handle than the days of -10C to 5C (10F to 40F) wearing the garments.

I just need to find a place that allows for doing the work in the buff. 😀

A writing update for a change.

One of the categories for this post is Nanowrimo. If you know what that is, glory to you. If you don’t: forget about it. It’s a bout of madness for people who like to write.

Most of you know this cover.

Yes, I’m working on book two of the Emma Nelson fantasy mysteries. I think it is going well, be it as slow as with the first book. Mysteries are hard to write for me because a lot of mysterious things happen (duh) and they have to fit and work on all sides. The next book will shine some more light on where Emma’s ability comes from (if I can make that work) and also Jo-Anne’s absence gets more attention (if I can make that work.)

I’m also still working on Naked Crow 9. Two big things for Sheila and Jeremy are: Canada and Vacation. And somehow these two are combined I’ll leave it to your mastermind to figure out how that can happen, I’m sure you can do this. Otherwise follow this link… And then there is something with a big rock and someone disappearing, but that’s just minor stuff.

And then there is a story I once started and never thought would get any traction or serious word counts. Well, how wrong can you be. Said story is over 42,000 words (think 120 pages of text) already and suddenly it is growing and going into a direction I hadn’t expected to happen. If you know anyone called John, pay attention. There might be more to John than you think. Of course most Johns are not like this one, but still…

This particular story will be bought by Marvel as it is about superheroes. Four of them. Marvel will make it a huge hit and that will make me disgustingly rich and adorably famous. Well, that is the plan, at least.

I’ll let you know whether or not the plan worked out.

Until it does, I’ll keep writing. Have a great week, everyone!

P.Z.