Miscellaneous – Zjuzdme.org

Social naturist media

I’m curious which ones you use, and especially “Why”?

There are tons of social media out there in internet land. Sometimes it’s as if there’s a new one born every day.

Everyone knows about Twitter, which so far is a reasonably good naturist place. That is: until someone decides your account is bad and reports you to the censor bots. Once your account is slammed shut, good luck in getting it back. (Been there, tried that, opened a new account.)

In less flattering ways people know of Facebook. It’s a huge, micromanaged universe (Metaverse :p) on its own, where porn and all kinds of nasty things are okay but honest naturism and nudism is banned as soon as it appears. As a naturist I don’t like the place and so I am mostly silent about it there. (Yes, I have an account there, to stay in touch with some family.)

More and more people seem to appear on Mewe, which is a rather safe place for naturists. More and more naturist groups are appearing there – which means that more and more perverts show up there too, under the guise of naturism.

Then we have Diaspora. Diaspora is part of a loose set of privately run servers that are all connected. As long as you mark your naturist posts there with the #NSFW tag, you’re good. There are almost no instances on Diaspora where you get banned for nudity or naturism as long as you follow their rules (which are quite sensible). No company here that dictates what is good and bad and Zuckerberg.

The same thing goes for Mastodon and the Fediverse. Mastodon etc. is another set of servers without a big company running them. It’s a kind of Twitter, that allows all the freedom, again as long as you stick to the #NSFW hashtag and you mark nudity image with a ‘content warning’. There is even a special naturist instance called “pl.nudie.social” where you can find lots of naturists.

Yes, I know all those places. I have accounts in many places. (If you want to know where, what and how let me know in a comment.)

What do you follow in naturist social media? And what do you get from those? Do you feel good there? Are you more ‘meh’ about them? How satisfied are you about those places and your choices, and do you know better places? Note that I’m referring to social media, not forums about naturism.

Let’s hear it!

Paul

Naked and civilised

Do you think we live in a civilised society?

A while ago I listened to the podcast of the Dutch naturist foundation NFN, called ‘Blootgewoon‘ (note, link is Dutch), which means something like ‘nudely normal’.

I love that podcast. Too bad you need to know Dutch to understand it.

The statement that triggered this post was:

To be nude among each other, you need to be civilised.
Blootgewoon podcast

How did this sentence pop up? It was in an interview with the former proprietor of one of the most famous restaurant/bars at the Zandvoort nude beach, the Adam and Eve beach pavilion. The man said that, one day, a sales rep was there to talk business. As they were talking, an older man with a body that showed ‘the good life’ and also several signs of a hard life, came to thank the establishment’s owner for a wonderful day.

After the man had left, the sales rep said: ‘Well, you really need a good stomach for that.’

It was at that point, the interviewer made the comment about being nude and civilised.

He is right.

Making a comment about someone’s appearance is rude. Uncivilised. And guess what, that is probably the reason so many people dress up, pimp their outside, make their flabs and flaws ‘disappear’ under layers of pretty and expensive. That way, no one has “a reason” to make a comment about their appearance.

Image of 5 nude people — Image via ClothesFree.com

At a nude beach, there is no covering up of said flabs and flaws. People are real there. With marks and scars and hanging bellies and uneven bits. The works. You name it and you can probably find it at a decent nude beach / resort / etc. If you find a pin-up model person there, it’s something for the diary.

And no one makes comments or rude remarks there. Because when everyone has some kind of flaw, no one has a flaw. No one stands out then, and that is where the civilised bit comes into play.

Drop your clothes and we are all equal. We treat each other with respect.

We’re nude. And civilised.

A new release. SkyGhost.

SkyGhost cover large — SkyGhost. The first naturist steampunk novel?

Swamp.

I know, I know, I’m swamping the world with books. Just tell me to stop and I won’t, I promise that. I also promise that, for now, this is the last one. Simply because the rest still needs to be written. 😉

I love the steampunk genre. My non-naturist web presence wrote several of such stories (like Bactine, Lily Marin – the Novel, and Aeroparts Factory).

For that reason I entertained the idea of trying my hand and keyboard at a naturist work in this genre.

What is steampunk?

Steampunk man, all dressed up. — Steampunk role players can go all-out!

Think airships instead of airplanes. Robots and other machines running on steam instead of electrical power (hint, it’s in the name!) and punkers (not so much). Most steampunk stories originate around 1870 / 1880, at the start of the industrial revolution, and in the steampunk realm there is no or only very little electrical power. Visit this link for some more information, if you are curious.

So… what is SkyGhost about?

SkyGhost is the name of an airship, and its crew is naked. For several reasons. Which ones? You’ll have to wait for the book to come out.

And when?

Next Saturday. As of writing, that means July 23rd, 2022. I hope you can wait that long. It’s going to be available as an e-book in the usual places, and also as usual, the paperback will take a bit longer.

Look how naked I am!

A clothie never said. Until now.

I kid you not. Watch and shudder over what I found.

Our enemy called Fashion has a new ‘moment’. The naked look.

What you see here is clothing with life-like nipples on it. Because printed nipples are fine, where real nipples are EEUW NO GO AWAY DIRTY PORN!

How much more crazy do we go?

Is this bad enough? Oh, look how naked I am… I found this on the Guardian.

“It’s a statement – I guess it’s that punk attitude of like, ‘We don’t give a fuck.’ If I want to wear something that looks like my naked body, I can.”
London designer Sinead Gorey

I am not sorry. This is not a punk attitude of ‘we don’t give a fuck’. If you don’t give a fuck, you go naked like real people. The no-clothes version.

The article says there has been a t-shirt like this before (although I don’t agree that this is in the same category as the idiocy up here).

Created by Vivienne Westwood, late 1970s

I couldn’t be more flabbergasted than when I saw all this ridiculous stuff.

Don’t these people have any shame??

The power they want to hold over you

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?

Paul in the woods — Lucky me, with a HUGE forest garden to roam free in.

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!)

In naturism size doesn’t matter

This might sound weird but I think it’s true.

A man can be big and strong and impressive, but in the nude that doesn’t matter. The only thing that seems to matter (for those who don’t understand naturism) are the bits of a person that can be seen that are usually hidden.

Indeed, these bits are genitals and female breasts. Naturists know that people come in all shapes and sizes. Being naked, there’s hardly a way around that unless you’re visually handicapped, and even then a person is probably aware of that. (If you have other experiences, please share, I’m genuinely curious.)

These are the ‘problem parts’ for the non-understanding ones. For the people who lived in the repressed environment of clothialism, so to speak.

For me this is another indication that the whole clothing-obsessed world is wrong. The clothialists get further and further away from nature and all things natural, including their own bodies. I have heard stories about people who are so ‘body conscious’ that they don’t even dare to be nude in their own home, when they’re alone and no one can see them.

Isn’t that sad?

People who shower in their underwear. How awful to even consider that.

And for exactly those same repressed people, the size of a penis, a behind or some breasts matters. As if that defines a person. Certifiably bonkers, I tell you. That is now how naturists define people. Because, in naturism, size doesn’t matter. I know big people and tiny people, and they’re beautiful people. I know “beautiful” people who are downright ugly on the inside.

Size doesn’t matter.

People are people.

Do you agree?

What if nudity was a religion?

Many people frown on nudity. I still don’t understand (and you probably don’t either). We’re all born naked, and we can’t take any clothes with us (even if we wanted to) when we move away from this realm.

Christianity

To start with, even the Christian bible starts off with nudity.

Would the power of religion really be strong enough to convince / convert people to be nude more often? It’s something I suddenly wondered about. Of course, this is mostly a thought experiment, because the big religions with their shame attitude towards the nude body (a very good way to keep people under their thumb) cover most of the world and its population.

India

Still, there are areas in the world where things are different. For example there is a World Naked Religion in India – Digambara, the Jainist sect.

Digambara, (Sanskrit: “Sky-clad,” i.e., naked) one of the two principal sects of the Indian religion Jainism, whose male ascetics shun all property and wear no clothes.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Digambara

It’s a bit weird that this is only done by men, but it’s something, at least.

Note: low quality video.

History

Long ago there were Adamites, who practiced holy nudism during worship. Followers of ancient Adamism were centered in North Africa and Spain. The strength of the ideas, and its subversive nature to some, can be seen in authorities’ reactions, for example how they charged the ascetic Priscillian with praying naked, which was one reason for his execution as a heretic in circa 385 CE. (Via HistoryOfYesterday.)

Mid 18th century Adamists being arrested in Amsterdam

Adamists were not only men. Men and women would gather naked for everything about their religion.

Our now

Would there be room for a nude religion? Would it be viable? Accepted?

Would many people join? Perhaps at first, to peek and laugh, I’m convinced of that. But what would they do after the peeking and the laughing? Would they notice how much more pleasant life and body are without those coverings?

I wonder…

Podcast. No such thing…

You may wonder what this is all about. Well… this is a bit about naturism.

The team of ‘No such thing as a fish‘ (which is a very entertaining British podcast) talks about facts they discovered in the past week. And fact number 1 in the above episode is… naturism.

Feel free to stop listening after the naturism part of this podcast, or not to listen to it at all (the section is about 12 minutes long), but I thought it worthwhile to share it here. I learnt a few facts about Eastern Germany naturism I didn’t know.

Oh, just in case there are sensitive people here: the team doing this podcast does not bleep out words as <bleep> or <bleep>, so proceed and listen at your own risk. Also the word ‘penis’ will be mentioned.

Catch a Sunrise

The Pythagoreans bid us in the morning look to the heavens that we may be reminded of those bodies that continually do the same things and in the same manner perform their work, and also be reminded of their purity and nudity. For there is no veil over a star.
(Marcus Aurelius – Meditations XI.27)

Marcus Aurelius was a stoic. (I have touched on stoicism before on this blog.)

Lately, I’ve been delving into stoicism a bit more. There is a lot of information out there, like the Daily Stoic Podcast, which has shorter and longer episodes. I love the short ones, up to ten minutes, that show a lot of cleverness in little time.

So what does stoicism have to do with naturism? On first glance: nothing at all. And yet, I’ve been thinking about this over the past few days, and there are points that work, that fit and touch.

One of the stoic ideas is not to worry or get anxious over things in advance. Suppose you want to take a nude hike in a place where there’s not a big risk of “getting caught”. Do you worry about getting caught before going there? It’s not worth the energy to worry about it, even though us humans have been taught / conditioned to do that. Because everyone else does it.

This is what stops many people from doing things. The “What if” monster, that looms over our thoughts and actions.
Yes, you want to go on that hike. Yes, there might be people who see you. Yes, there are people who get ‘upset’ or who are ‘offended’ by nudity. Be ready for a comment, have an answer ready. Or, if you’re scared that you’ll be photographed in the nude while you don’t want that, don’t go and feel good about that. And then, just let it go. Don’t beat yourself up about the fact that maybe nothing might have happened, because then you roll back into the “What if” trap again. Decide, accept and move on.

Another stoic idea, from Seneca this time, is to look at clothes for their real purpose. (I mentioned this in the first post that I already referenced.)

This doesn’t mean Seneca was going around naked all the time, but it shows that there is more to the idea than ‘we naturists’ attribute to it. Wearing clothes for their real purpose is the smart way.

For instance when it’s cold. Or when it’s dangerous to be naked (e.g. risking splinters, burns or other dangerous situations), clothes, as in ‘coverings’, make sense.

Stoicism, for me, points out a lot of idiocy in the real world. Many people think that stoics never have any fun, that they lack emotion. They accept that things come to an end and (try to) live accordingly.

Maybe this quote from Seneca says it all in the best way:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
Seneca

Indoor naturism and social demons

It’s what I do, mainly. I’m an indoor person, definitely with the winter weather here in the Netherlands.

I feel very privileged to have this possibility of not having to wear clothes when I’m at home. I live high up, people can’t see me from the street – even when I’m on the balcony.

Many people are into social naturism. I sometimes try to do that too, but life has taught me that I’m not a many-people person. Do you count yourself a social one, who can’t get enough people around? (Which in the past weeks and months and… has been quite difficult!)

I don’t know why I am this way.

My parents were very social and outgoing. My sister is like that as well. I am not and I never was. The odd thing is that, when I do go to some social event, it usually feels like something that was worth the effort. (Because really, getting up and going there is an emotional effort, even if it’s just a 20 minute bike ride to get to the local nude beach.)

It’s weird. I know the people there are nice and friendly, and most of the time, if you keep to yourself, they will leave you in peace, but that odd feeling remains. On the off chance that you, reading this, are like me, how do you handle things like that? Do you stay at home and indoors as much as well, or do you go out and face the ‘social demon’? (That concept just popped into my head, ha ha!)

And oh wow, as I was looking for a picture to go with social demons, I stumbled over this. It’s actually a thing. Not sure if this is something I am going to take on yet, but if you’re interested, you can find the book here.

Until I figure this out (and that might take a while) I’ll stick to the anti social social club and be who I am.

(It gives me a lot of time to focus on the stories!)