clothes free – Page 2

Nude swimming is a wonderful thing

Hey folks.

Did you miss me?

I was gone for a week and I loved it. It would have been even better had the week been a month, but sometimes things just don’t happen the way we want them to. I’m sure you know how that feels. (If not, let me know how you manage that.)

During that week I went out for a swim in the ocean. Some of you might live next door to an ocean so for you it’s probably not a big thing, but for many others, like me, it is. Going into that enormous expanse of crystal clear water (see above picture), knowing that almost all that water is connected to the rest of the world, is quite an experience if you stop to think about it.

When I got into the water, I was prepared for it to be cold. Oceans tend to cool down at the end of November. Still, it wasn’t too cold for a swim (not even for me!). I loved it.

There was a swimming pool at the place where we stayed. That water was definitely too cold. I still wonder why that wasn’t just one block of ice.

The ocean experience, though, was fabulous. I realised that I was in touch with that water, water that was in touch with all other places in the world, give or take a few.

I wasn’t in the water alone. There were four others, also entirely nude, enjoying the early morning swim. It was a fabulous experience. (Unfortunately my girlfriend wasn’t there at that moment, she had to tend to something personal.)

Next time we’ll swim there together. Naked. In that big water.

Clothing optional?

This is probably something people will never agree on. Should clothing optional be a thing?

I think that clothing optional is a nice idea but that it will never work to make naturism more accepted.

The social pressure, instilled onto almost everyone of us from a very young age, to wear clothes ‘or else’ is something that most people won’t ever shed of lose.

At best, clothing optional places are good for when people in and out of clothes are very happy and comfortable together, disregarding the fact that some are dressed and some are nude. It sounds very simple. But it isn’t.

Why is it that people in some prisons are stripped naked while their guards stay in uniform? To make a difference. You may say, “I’m a naturist, I couldn’t care less”, but that’s just the physical part. The psychological part is there, whether you want it or not. The naked person is the exposed one, the one who can’t hide anything (regardless if you want to or not – you have no option), while the clothed one is ‘in control’. Because of our textile conditioning that’s always there, no matter how you twist or turn it. (Again, excepting the lucky few, this is the last time I will add this, so remember that 😉

Folks in bathing suits will usually feel just a bit ‘better’ about themselves, because they are following the ‘civilised’ guidelines of wearing clothes. Even at the beach, no matter how ridiculous those things are, and no matter how open-minded they are towards nudity and naturism.

One of my sayings is “when everyone’s nude, no one is nude”. This creates equality. A nude banker is as nude as a nude construction worker or a nude astronaut. There is no equality in bathing suits vs nude people, and also – wait for it – no equality among bathing suit wearers. There will always be people with more expensive, fancier, more modern bathing suits than others, and so there is the social divide again that (my idea of) naturism aims to remove.

That’s why I think clothing optional will never really work.

A glorious day in September

Sunland_Holiday_Village_by_Tripadvisor — Glorious day

The past Saturday, my girlfriend and I were off to a sauna/wellness complex in the neighbourhood. It’s called “Thermen Berendonck“. We knew the day would be good, but it turned into a glorious day, because the weather was amazingly kind to those who want to relax in the nude.

Sunshine and 21C (70F), barely any wind and a wonderful area, inside and out, to enjoy. What more could you ask for? I mean, have a look at this:

Thermen Berendonck arrangement | Hotel Cuijk — Indoor swimming pool Berendonck

It was good to see “many” people there. The sauna still maintains a strict count on the people allowed in at one time, due to Corona measures, which is great, but to see so many people enjoying this place was nice.

Again it struck me that there are many folks who cover up to the nose when they’re not in a sauna, a steam bath or a pool. Bathrobes, towels, anything goes. These are the people who also keep their towels around them until just before the moment they sit down in a sauna. As if that small difference between standing and sitting makes that no one can see their nakedness. And some people actually keep their towels wrapped around, to keep their ‘dignity’, or whatever they would call it, intact. And that while there are plenty of people walking around naked and carefree, the way such a day should be enjoyed.

To each their own, of course, but I do wonder what could go on in the minds of the people who keep their ‘shields’ up. Are the appalled by the sight of all those naked people? Curious and peeking? Proud that they, at least, maintain their chastity and don’t throw themselves at the mercy of the world’s eyes?

For me it will probably always remain a mystery why some people are so scared to unload their clothes, even when so many nude ones are around. Don’t they see it’s normal to be naked? That not every naked one is the symbol of physical beauty-standards and youthful attractiveness? Or don’t they want to see that?

It’s probably something else. I can’t help but pity those people, but I do hope they enjoyed their version of that glorious day to the fullest. Like we did.

Habit is perhaps the problem

As I write this, I got home from a walk.

The sun was out, it was warm. Perfect for a nude walk, but, being in a populated area, that’s not always an option. (Haven’t we all been there…)

When I got home, I was close to boiling, and I didn’t know how fast I should get out of my clothes. My body couldn’t get rid of the heat that had accumulated inside the textile prison, and only after a few nude minutes I actually started to feel better.

At that point I wondered: is everyone feeling that way?

Habit

Most people are in the habit of wearing clothes. All the time. Even in bed (insert scary feeling). I suspect that those people are not affected by the same heat-sensation that I had gone through after the walk. Or at least not that much. They trained their body (or rather, their mind) to ignore this problem (for the most part). And the part that can’t be ignored is going to be fixed by switching on the air conditioner or a fan.

Nude-aficionados probably have ‘trained’ their bodies and minds to lose all that excess heat by releasing it immediately, or not even ‘storing’ it – which is possible when you’re nude. Not so much when you have the fabrics all around. And that, I’m sure of it, made me get that hot flash as I came back home.

Maybe I’m entirely wrong about this (correct me if you know better), but does this make any kind of sense?

More and more I am convinced that nudity would solve a lot of climate problems, if enough people would go for it and stick to it. Look at damage done, and pollution created by the fashion industry. Look at the power consumption of air conditioning. Look at climate change. This place appears to move towards the situation as I described in “Nude in Space“! Parts of the world overheating, and those who can afford it, hide in air conditioned cities, making the situation outside even worse.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far. And let’s also hope we can find some kind of leverage to make the nude life more accepted.

Everyone has a body

“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:

Here is a similar clip, in French

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.

Home office, nude office

I’m sure that many of you (us!) have been working from home for the most part, the last year. How did you like that? Were you able to get into the swing of ‘home office’ easily? And did you have the opportunity to make it ‘nude office’ as well?

I’m a lucky one in that respect. I work in IT, specialising in Cloud technology. That means I can do about 98% of my work with a computer, from anywhere, as long as there is some internet connectivity. Just occasionally do I have to pack up and head out to a customer’s site. Some things require hand-on hands.

COVID-19 now seems to be mostly contained in many parts of the world. That means that offices are opening up again. I really wonder how you feel about that. Especially the ones who are required to head back into the office.

I heard from several areas, e.g. even Google and Apple, that their employees have asked if they can please keep working from home. I fully understand that. Maybe many of them are naturists who appreciate that they don’t need to get dressed to get to work. People who also don’t have to flood the highways and join the happy commuter’s traffic jams.

On the other hand I heard that people are glad to escape their homes again. Glad to drive their car, bus or train to and from work, as if that is a portal into the work-mode and back to home life.

Which tribe are you in?

Freedom.

One word. A lot of meaning.

What I’ve seen over the many years I’m alive, is that freedom is precious. And unfortunately, there seem to be more and more laws that limit our freedom. All for the greater good of course, to protect us from bad things (even when it’s entirely unclear what those bad things are, or when those bad things only seem to live in the minds of an unhappy few, a.k.a. the lawmakers).

I’m not going to make this a political thing though. There are plenty of blogs and other sources that dip their toes and more in that area of life, and this is a naturist blog.

What struck me, the other day, is that some people in the textile world seem to be so ‘happy’ with limiting (or limited?) freedom that they happily will reject our rights to enjoy our version of freedom.

Here in the Netherlands and, I’m sure, in other places in the world, it’s fine to be nude in certain places. In the UK, for instance, being nude isn’t rude / illegal / officially offensive as long as the nude person is just nude, i.e. not displaying any sexual urges like masturbating in the road and things like that.

In the Netherlands we can be nude in places that aren’t close to the ‘main roads’. There’s even a specific law article dedicated to that (Article 430a for those from the Netherlands who don’t know). And yet, when I’m naked in such a place, some people have the nerve to tell me that it’s not legal to do that, or that it’s offensive, rude and whatever other words they like to throw at that.

Luckily there aren’t many, but those that have these objections are the least open to reason and debate, and they don’t even want to hear about the legality of nudity in such places.

And that is the kind of closed-mind, happy to limit other people mindset I’m referring to here.

Why do people have those tendencies? Do they feel threatened by us? Do they think our nudity is taking some privilege or right away from them?

I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve asked people that on occasion, certainly the ones that don’t ‘want’ others to be nude in safe spaces.

So far I haven’t found a satisfying answer to those questions…

World Naked Gardening Day

It happened again last Sunday. May 1st.

Too bad for many people that the weather in many places was too cold (northerly wind and a lack of sunshine) but on Twitter I saw lots of brave ones going outside and looking after plants, trees, gardens and what not.

What I found interesting this year was, that on Twitter there was an actual Dutch hashtag to follow. #naakttuinierendag.

Of course there were lots of folks tagging along just looking for images of naked people, making weird, dumb and nasty comments and displaying a general ignorance of what the day is actually about.

I don’t have a garden. I don’t do gardening, which is usually safer for anything resembling plant life. But I do admire the people who do that. Who seem to understand what it is that plants need, in whatever form or manner. Believe me, when I tend to weeds, they will wither and die. It’s probably the only thing I’m good at. 😉

Wil Kemp and Melanie Meaglia naked gardening — (From Yahoo Australia)

Power to all who did their best to make the world or their garden a bit nicer last Sunday. May they do it again and again. Perhaps, someday soon, on more days than just the one semi-official day in the year.

I worked so hard for this body

It is what I read in a tweet a while ago. A lady was very proud of her figure, and with reason. She looked fit and all that. The tweet, however, didn’t end there. The whole tweet was:

I worked so hard for this body that I am allowed to wrap it up nicely.

Yes. She was wearing clothes that she liked. Nothing wrong with that, I say, but…

Why do you feel the need to wrap it up?

Why hide your body from the world if you’re proud of it?

Okay, stop, hold your horses, we all know why. Because haters will hate, because the perverts will be perverts and the porn industry… argh.

But the question remains: when you are proud of something, why do you feel you should hide it beneath something nice?

People can be so weird, and the ‘modern world’, which I complained about so often before, is the reason for that. It’s that corrupted, twisted concept of freedom that reigns. Yes, you are free, you have all the freedom you want, as long as you move inside the constraints we impose on you. And those constraints shift and move closer all the time, I sometimes think.

Worst of all: most people don’t even notice it.

They don’t seem to see that this is happening, while we naturists, nudists, clothes-free-o-philes and what now are struggling to be who we want to be when we want to be.

It’s a strange place, this world, and it keeps getting stranger…

Equatorial Guinea body painting festival.

Body painting never fails to impress me. I’ve been at a festival where a few people were painted. It’s impressive to see how the human skin transforms into something amazing; a walking canvas, an animal or a part of nature.

You may know that “we” were not the first people to do that. Indigenous people from many parts of the world took to painting their skin long ago. A few days ago, on Twitter, I found some images from the equatorial Guinea body painting festival and I thought to share those with you.

Contrary to the old days, these people do ‘comply’ to the ‘laws of decency’ so they aren’t entirely naked.

In the old days, hunters would colour their body with natural dyes to camouflage themselves in the forest in order to hunt animals.

The hunting tradition has ended, but the body painting is continued as a festival of colours.

Seeing the colours that are used in the festival, it’s obvious that they are no longer related to hunting. The vibrant colours, like sported by the lady below, are certainly not for camouflage, but they depict more the joy of life and, clearly, the amazing possibilities of the human canvas!

We should have more possibilities and options to decorate ourselves this way when the weather allows for it. Textiles can dress in the most radiating colours. We naturists should be able to carry ourselves in a similar, colourful “fashion”. (Pun intended!)