clothes free – Page 5

Baring it all. Down to the feet.

We probably all have heard about it and / or know about it. Walking barefoot is good for you.

Often the reasoning is: when you’re naked already, why not go all the way and get rid of the shoes. I recall I wrote about this some time ago.

It still is true what I wrote in that post: “barefoot feels more naked”.

Since then (which was 2014, blimey) I have been experimenting with going barefoot in lots of places. Unfortunately I have to decide that going barefoot everywhere is not for me. Maybe not yet, maybe not ever. In my house and on grass I’m fine. My feet like it. On rougher grounds however, no matter how short the distance and how much I practice, it’s not working for me.

I gave it as many tries as I could over the past years. As long as the weather was acceptable, my feet got the opportunity to get used to all kinds of surfaces and I didn’t start with pebbles, trust me. I read up on the tips on Walking Barefoot, followed some barefoot-walking people on Twitter and nothing seems to work. My feet have the last word in this and that word is ‘no’.

There is a tonne of information on how to do it, what to avoid and all that. Maybe I will give this another try next summer. It’s definitely getting too cold for my feet now: a combination of the wrong temperature and the wrong surface is a no-no for me. And if I never make it to walking barefoot on anything rougher than grass: so be it. I made it to my current age with shoes. I’ll probably make it to the end of it that way too.

Power to you, all barefoot people. It’s great that you do what you do. But someone has to keep the shoe manufacturers in business! 😉

A writing-update

It’s been a while since the writer in me spoke out to update you on the world of stories and the likes.

I’m working on far too many stories.

This is a true and a false statement in one, of course. False because there can never be enough stories. As I once read, the world needs more story-tellers and dreamers. In that respect I am doing my best to add my words.

In the true sense this means that, though there is progress in every story, it seems to take forever to get something done and finished. That’s something I have been thinking about. Would it be better to focus on one story, get that done, and then focus on the next? Some may say yes, some may say no. For now I am in the no-camp…

So what’s going on?

Naked Crow 9 is beginning to take shape. I’m at chapter 3 as I write this post (which is in the past hahaha, I love how you can manipulate time online). It took a lot of researching for me to find something that I hope will be interesting. For me to write it definitely worth the while.

Unsworth part 3. I already know the title for it, which I won’t tell you now as that might change. My way of writing allows for such flexibility. 😉 So far the story ambles along nicely. My trusted word-advisor Mr Bun says so as well, which should be enough of a quality certificate.

Murphys in Space part 2. That is going slowly. I have a lot to think about regarding that one, but it is growing. The thinking comes from the space parts in it. I don’t want it to be the thirteenth-in-a-dozen kind of space thing where you already see what’s happening before even seeing the cover image of the book. Bear and bare with me, it will come.

Emma Nelson part 2 is also slowly taking shape. I am only 2 chapters in with that story because this is mystery sleuth stuff and I am not very good (at least not experienced) with that. It will take place partly in Dallas, Texas (just adding that for good measure, maybe there is another Dallas somewhere), and the story will shed some light on Jo-Anne’s absence in book 1.

And then there is something which for now is called Crazy Pictures. It’s a superhero fantasy story that somehow popped up in my head and so I had to start writing that.

So there you have it. 5 naturist volumes are on the roll at the moment so plenty to look out for in due time.

Be well, happy and as naked as you can!

Paul

The advantage of being old and wrinkled

I kid you not. There is a big advantage to being old and wrinkled. To being “beyond repair” from modern industry that tries to beautify and rejuvenate everyone in order to flog their products too.

When you reach that age, there is not much advertising bugging you. You are how you are and you accept it. That might be the reason why there are more old than young people into the nude lifestyle.

When you reach that age, most people don’t want to look at you any more so what the hell, might just as well be as comfortable as possible. When old joints aren’t cooperating, can you imagine how welcome it is not having to put on clothes, or shoes?

I know that many people don’t know but I am approaching 60. Next year I’ll be there, and I’m happy with that. I have never given a wet fart about how people see or look at me. Maybe I’m weird in that fashion, or just a mental hippie, but it is how it is.

If people don’t want to see me, fine. Then I won’t see them, which works both ways. Perhaps it is because I hate advertising with a vengeance (I don’t watch great youtube videos if I have to first sit through a stupid ad), but I have no problem with old people being old, or even young people being old. This craze that everyone should have the body of a 20-year-old, with silicone-filled boobs and viagra-supported erections, all in the name of youth… blargh.

Give me old, wrinkled, happy and nude over fake youth, plastic surgery smooth skin, depressed and never wearing the right clothes. I met most of my best friends on nude occasions, in sauna’s, nude beaches, nude resorts etc. And they don’t care either.

Here’s a cheer to naked friends. Old and wrinkled. And without a care.

When it rains, clothes aren’t always the smartest thing

Rain. We all know it.

This is no exactly what happened to me a few days ago (unfortunately), but I made the best of the weather anyway.

It’s been hot and dry here for a long, long time. Finally, the rains have come. That’s good, because crops and lawns don’t do well on just sunshine. (If you know better, please explain how that works.)

The long, dry period however made that the water drains on the outside gallery of my apartment (I live on the fourth floor, which for Americans is the fifth floor) got clogged with tiny bits of leaves, dirt and other stuff. Which means that water falling from the sky can’t leave.

Now having the whole gallery (where the people walk to get to their front doors) flooded isn’t the greatest thing when the water decides to come inside for a visit. I am sure you can relate to that. No one else on this floor (four homes in total) had the bright idea to look at the drains when it started raining. And it rained hard.

So I took a few wooden chopsticks (really!) and went outside, in the rain, to poke through the clogged drains. I have done this before and it works like a charm.

As I passed by the windows of the neighbour who claimed that the weather being hot is not a reason to be naked, she noticed me and came to the door. She was rather upset that I wore nothing (that attire made all the sense to me, though).

“Why aren’t you wearing clothes? You’re getting wet!” (Amazing, no comment on leaving her clogged drain in peace! 😀 )

“Well, this way I only have to dry myself when I get back in. With clothes, I would get much colder, have to take off the wet clothes afterwards, dry myself, put on dry clothes, and hang the wet stuff out to dry before washing them.”

Without another word, she closed the door. (It was raining and her clothes were getting wet.) I continued to handle the drains, which was only a few minutes of work. Then I went inside, dried myself and made coffee.

A job not to do naked

Yes.

I found one.

It took me a while but a certain song made me realise that this is indeed a job you shouldn’t do naked. First: the song.

The part of the lyrics that got me was: “… in this rubber suit, rubbin’ these cars…”

You may wonder what’s so attractive about a rubber suit while you can wash a car in the nude without a problem. Well, have a bit of a look at the website of Erie County, NY.

TL;DR version: Many soaps contain chemicals that harm fish and degrade water quality.

Not something you want in the ground and the lakes, so probably not something you want on your skin either. A car-wash uses such stuff too, but there the water is gathered (when it’s a good car wash) and recycled. Nothing (or at least very little) of the bad stuff gets into the environment.

Nude car-wash — Once in a while it’s fine, really.

Another reason to wear something when doing this for a day job is that your skin gets exposed to water and soap all day, every day. Now being clean and fresh is good but there is something like ‘too much’. Your skin needs a certain amount of bacteria to stay healthy. Frequent wash and soap will kill those bacteria and, in the end, you will end up sick.

I think I’ve made it clear why working at a car-wash is a prime example of wearing the sung-about rubber suit.

If you think that’s BS or if you have another opinion, I’m curious to hear it!

That is not a good reason to be naked!

This is what I just heard from my neighbour.

Okay, this happened in the past as I am writing that way before you read this, but that’s fine.

I just was outside on the balcony, getting a whiff of fresh air after many boiling days (100+F / 35+C days are not common yet here). My neighbour, curious as she is, saw me.

“You are naked.” Her observational skills are definitely amazing. I told her that I had been naked most of the time in this heat.

“That is disgusting,” she shared with me. Because people have clothes so they should wear them. (Note: sweat was waterfalling down from her.)

I detailed somewhat that it was very warm inside my house, and lacking an air conditioning (I hate those things) I could either put on clothes and sweat horribly (I doubt she noticed the jab) or be naked. I had once told her I am a naturist but still she was appalled:

“That is not a good reason to be naked!”

I asked her what would be a good reason. Can you imagine it actually took her a few moments to come up with showering?

I am sure I will be known as the naked pervert of the neighbourhood now, as far as she’s concerned. Good thing the rest of the neighbourhood, as far as I know, isn’t so anally retentive.

Do you have people like this in your circle of acquaintances?

If so… my condolences.

Naturism and oranges

What do these two have in common? This may seem a strange question but there is something to it.

Have you ever tried to explain naturism to a person? I have. You may have as well. And did it work as in did you make someone go along, become a naturist or at least try it? Not exactly for me. If you managed it, do share your magic in a comment, we’re all curious.

I think naturism and oranges share the same trait: they have to be experienced to be understood. Try explaining the taste of an orange to someone who has never seen or heard of one.

Imagine someone coming up to you and talking about a purple thing you can eat. It is triangular, you need special tools to open it but it tastes great. It can taste a bit salty, or sour, or bitter-sweet, “but you’ll love it”. Would you know what this person is talking about? Do you think you would like it? (I admit I wouldn’t since I made the whole thing up right here.)

That goes for oranges as well, even when they aren’t purple. And for naturism, which isn’t orange unless body-paint has been applied.

We all know naturism is a great thing. A great “fruit”. The trick is to make others eat it. It’s always worth trying to convince someone but, as with oranges (or aforementioned purple fruit) it may not suit everybody’s taste.

The power here is to accept that.

That doesn’t mean I would give up on someone. Give the talk as well as you can and leave it at that for a while. If they are genuinely against it, they won’t mention it again. It’s your guess and estimate to figure out if you want to bring it up again.

Maybe you triggered their curiosity but they need time to get to the point where they want to know more. Or they read about it and they want to experiment/experience it on their own for a while. Golden tip here: if you talk about naturism and you encourage someone to read about it, make sure you have valid references on the web, don’t let people look for naturism on their own. We all know where that leads!

Maybe… who knows… they will find a way to naturism as if they would find a way to the store where triangular purple fruit is sold. With the tools to open it. And then they might surprise you:

A day at a sauna

A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I spent a day at a sauna. A Wellness resort, as it describes itself.

It was great. A whole day of relaxing without the need to wear clothes. Can you think of a better way to spend a day?

I can.

Spending a week like that. Maybe not a whole week at a wellness resort, but in the nude? I’d take it!

I keep being surprised about how wonderful such a day is. Total relaxation, no need to wear clothes. We had a walk outside to cool down. It started to rain. No problem. Who cares about getting wet when it cools you down directly at skin level?

Days like that should be obligatory, at least once a month but preferably once a… day? At least the walking around nude part, without people throwing a hissy fit over that.

I had a good laugh when we walked along and, at a separate building, a relax room with a view over a large pond, there was a bucket with umbrellas waiting for those who were in need of one. Note that I didn’t see anyone there who was holding an umbrella. Naked people in the rain don’t need those things. When it’s too cold out there, an umbrella won’t make much difference anyway.

A stupid thing of many Dutch saunas is that they introduce more and more bathing-suit-days. What the bleep? Who wants to sit in a hot, wet sauna with such stuff clinging to you? Prudishness seems to be more important than hygiene, because all the bacteria you sweat out get stuck to your privates if you keep fabric wrapped up there. Eeeuw….

Do you have a favourite spa, sauna, wellness place, or another way to relax in such a manner? If so, spread your knowledge down here and you might inspire people to go there as well.

Nudity and religion

Religion in (my) school

Religion keeps confusing me. I know I’ve been at this before, but it is something so incomprehensible to me that I want to address it again.

When I was 15 or 16, which is quite a while ago, I made sure the catholic church removed me from their subscription list. I’d gotten into arguments with the priest who, in school, taught religion and got thrown out of the classroom quite often ‘for asking the wrong questions’. Even at that age I was aware that, if someone who is supposed to be a professional at his job (priest is a job, right?) and he can’t answer the most obvious of questions, then there’s something wrong with the background of his job.

It was around that time that I discovered nudism (as it was still called back then). That was the straw that broke the religious camel’s back: I asked the priest why Adam and Eve had decided to put on clothes when being naked was so much more comfortable.

This was the result, as it were. Words like ‘insolent’ and ‘blasphemy’ (that last one threw me, still does) were the last ones from the priest before I left that class forever.

The library was my friend after that.

Because of this ‘insolence’, I had to report to the headmaster, for being thrown out yet again. I explained my side of the argument, the priest called me a liar and Satan’s child (yay me!), and the headmaster decided I should stick to the library from then on and leave religion class behind me. In that library (yes, the school library) I read a lot about all kinds of religions and even more about nudism. Even back then, in the 1970s, our schools were so liberated.

Since being naked felt much better than religion, I read up a bit about the combination. Since the priest had gotten fired up so much, there had to be something.

Religion: the practice of shame and guilt (a.k.a. control)

Religion, for me (and many others), is the ultimate form of controlling others through shame and guilt. In Christianity, everyone’s born with guilt. The original sin. In Islam the body has to be covered all the time as that is ‘the law’ (of Islam), and exposing one’s ‘intimate parts’ is sinful.

Sin, according to Wikipedia, almost always refers to religion. Almost always? Yes, there is a trigonomy function written as sin as well, but that’s not the one on display here.

So, sin is a human invention. Sin is an offence to a God or divine law. It’s interesting that there are Christians and also Muslims who are naturists, despite their godly laws of sin and guilt and shame and what not. And the good thing for them is: their god hasn’t struck them down for being disobedient. Insolent. Shameful. Guilty. Any ‘striking down’ so far has come from people who stick to their holy books, be it verbally or literally (using techniques involving throwing rocks etc.).

Rocks should be used to hike over. Naked. Without the burden of some religion or god hovering over you for doing ‘the wrong thing’. Because being naked is natural. It is how we’re born.

Naturist kids

Note upfront: I have no children. I desire no children. I do desire children to have the best youth and life they can possibly have.

Let me kick off a few questions at the start. Do you have children? Did you take them nude venues like beaches and resorts when they were young? And if you did, do you think they suffered from it?

I somehow doubt they did. At our local nude beach I have seen kids play, swim and have fun, and no one had any issue with it. Hooray for free minds and people who feel good about being naked. I am sure you all agree.

This topic has been on my mind a while, especially since the number of protests from textile ignorants who claim that children should not be present at a naked swim organised by British Naturism.

Something that crawls up on me is the persistent refusal of these people to at least come and have a look. (Which would go against their textile habits, of course.) But how do they know that children will be harmed at such venues? We all know that kids are as safe as peas in a pod, but they don’t. They base their opinion on what happens in their world. The clothed, covered world, where nudity is a taboo.

Such people condemn us like they would condemn child molesters without knowing any better.

I for one am very glad that the owner of the water park, Mr Chaudry, spoke out against these people’s allegations, stating that the popular Stoke-on-Trent tourist attraction has been ‘unjustly accused of encouraging paedophiles’.

Good on Mr Chaudry. There should be more open minds like him around.

My parents weren’t naturists so their children weren’t brought up with the naturist idea. Still they were open-minded enough to let us choose our own paths and ways. I’m glad I walked down Nudist Lane, so to speak. Granted, I wasn’t a child any more, but I was still “young enough” in starting to fully enjoy it, knowing I would do so for a long time. Now I’m 59 and it seems as if I enjoy being clothes-free more and more each year. I have no explanation for it and I darn well don’t need one.

Nude child with bouquet (image courtesy of WikiMedia Commons)

If everyone’s kid would just be so lucky – and have an earlier start!

Children should be immersed in the lifestyle and later given the choice to continue or leave. It’s a part of growing up and making educated choices. Unlike those who remain in the textile realm and condemn us, the ones who know how good it is (mentally and physically) to shed our clothes and enjoy life the way we were born.

To everyone, including children, I proclaim:

Category: clothes free