Naktivism – Page 2 – Zjuzdme.org

Clothes and the fear.

For fun I post a quote on Twitter every day. Or at least almost every day.

A few days ago it was:

I wonder who wears the pants in a house full of nudists…

A clever reaction was:

Obviously metaphorical ones

To which I added:

Yes! Facebook (Meta) for clothes! Considering how allergic they are to nudity when it’s not porn.

I thought it a funny pun on Meta-forical. Then I thought: what if this is true? What if they are so tight-assed about nudity out of fear? Their rules are impenetrable if it comes to nude things. They even remove images of naked statues, after all.

As long as they, and many other equally anal retentive organisations keep this fear-pressure going, they got you. (Oh, right, the latest edition of WordPress will not let me type quotation marks, so that is why you see none in this post.)

Their interpretation of a safe environment is so far away from reality in some ways that it is laughable, if it were not so sad.

For that reason I am very happy that Twitter, for now, is not such a place. Nor is MeWe. Even the Diaspora network is very cool with nudity, as long as you mark posts with the #nsfw tag. That will sort of hide the posts for people who do not want to see them.

Clearly not safe for work. But it depends on your job, right?

Fear is a powerful tool for places. As long as they can keep someone in their fear, by making someone feel stronger or better because s/he is not like that, they got them.

It is a sad thing that setting up a decent naturist social medium is a lot of work, and probably also quite an investment. This because most people are used to social media being free, so they will (probably) expect that from a naturist social medium as well. I only know of one such place, and that is naktiv.net. Yes, I have an account there, but the last time I was there, I found that the place was becoming more sexual than naturist. Perhaps that has changed since then, but I did not have the time (and often also no energy) to go there and check things out. Perhaps over the weekend, who knows.

Do you know nudist-friendly social media? Maybe you can help kindred spirits to find a safe place to be.

Which, of course, takes naturism and nudity to the old places. Secret places, behind (digital) fences. The places from where we want to escape.

It is a difficult thing, right? How do you feel about this?

Nudies down under

You may have guessed it. This post attempts to put the spotlight on naturism in Australia, and perhaps also New Zealand. Let’s see how far I can drag this out. 😉

Without a doubt, naturism is popular enough in Australia. There are plenty of Australian websites dedicated to naturism, there’s an Australian nudist podcast called The Naked Nerd, and on all the social media that allow nudity (i.e. Twitter and Mewe) you can find lots of naturists from down under as well.

As we all know, Australia has its special charms, in the form of creepy crawlies. Getting naked there requires some additional attention for those creatures, I would assume. Note that I’ve never been to Australia, so I have to rely on the tales of eye witnesses and other experience-experts.

Naturism in Australia is popular enough for its own magazine: TAN Magazine.

I’ve scanned their website for a bit and I found lots of interesting articles there, for instance about problems with naturism vs. your loved ones, something on art, naturist communities like the Townsville Naturist Community, and much more. I was actually pleasantly surprised about this magazine!

Australia also has a Naked Gardening Day:

“Grin and Bare It” isn’t just about that though, it’s an extensive series of videos, well made (I watched a few) and ‘safe’ enough to be hosted on Youtube. It’s worth having a look.

And, of course, Australia has its own Naturist Federation. This shouldn’t surprise anyone.

For more information on Australian naturism, please head over to the website of the Australian Naturist Federation.

And if you want to dive right in, follow this link to a site that lists the seven best nudist beaches in Australia.

(Sorry, New Zealand. Maybe next time…)

Flow Fitness Runner walking belt

Yes, I got me a walking belt. That may sound weird, so here is what I mean:

Walking belt Flow Fitness Runner — Flow Fitness Runner

You may wonder why I got this thing when it’s perfectly possible to walk outside.

Correct on many levels. However, the nasty season is coming along again (a.k.a. autumn and winter), and then walking outside isn’t always a bundle of fun. Rain, cold, snow, ice, and that list has some variations, and all of those don’t really appeal to me to go outside.

Flow runner

That is why I bought this Flow Fitness Runner, although with its top speed of 6km/h it is not exactly ‘runner’. But I got it for walking. As you can see, it fits under a table when folded up (big advantage).

It comes with a remote control and an app on the phone. Using it is really simple. Switch it on, get on the belt and make it go. Then walk until you feel it was enough (or until you reached a goal you set).

The display shows speed, time, steps and distance in sequence, so you can easily keep track of your goals. And best of all: it works naked as well as clothed. And honestly, who wants to walk clothed inside the house?

Treadmill

Now, some of you clever clogs might wonder why I didn’t straight away buy a big serious treadmill that also allows for running and has a cup holder (we can’t live without cup holders, right?) and all that jazz.

There are a few good reasons for that. 1 is: I don’t have the space for it. I looked for a fold-up treadmill. Didn’t find one. 2: I don’t run any more. I stopped after my back told me that running was not a good idea.

Work

The cool thing with this apparatus is also that I can have it in ‘sleep’ mode during the work day. Once I have a longer phone call to do, I can step on it, start walking and do the phone call. Easy peasy.

It is clear, I hope, that I won’t wear a suit, like the bloke in the picture. Working at home is working naked, so calls and walks are done in the same ‘fashion’.

No one notices and everyone is happy.

Do you own indoor fitness stuff like this? I hope you do, and that you can use it often.

Cloth Vader. The dark side of clothing

You probably know this gentleman. Darth Vader. Seeing his clothing, I doubt that he was aware of the idea that being naked can be a relief.

However… his mental attitude was mostly a bad one during the series.

In an older blog post I already talked about the way that the fashion industry is a big bad player in the pollution ‘industry’.

The whole affair is taking a step in an even worse direction: climate change and the heating up of areas. The whole pollution part must have an effect on the climate, with all the mess that’s put into the ground and the water. But the all-hallowed clothes have an effect on air conditioner sales as well. I am convinced of that. And air conditioners have a few bad sides:

They consume energy which has to be created, which in turn will add to the heat that is already in the atmosphere. (Hello America and Canada, heat domes?)
Air conditioners produce a lot of heat as well, which is conveniently blown into the atmosphere. (Heat dome revisited.)

I really wonder how much difference there would be if more people were to strip off their Cloth Vader and thus reduce part of the need for air conditioning. Yes, part of it, because I’m not stupid. Temperatures that go up to 45 and 50 degrees Celsius (113 – 125 F) or more aren’t for humans, no matter how nude they are.

Nude upper bodies.

Or: people can be bat-shit crazy and totally inconsistent.

A few days ago on MeWe I followed a post that was copied from a Dutch newspaper. Granted, it is a newspaper that thrives on sensational content, but the background of the article made me shake my head.

Note: this is not the man who is mentioned.

The “problem” of the lady who was interviewed in the news paper article was that she found it ‘distasteful’ to see men with bare upper bodies outside, despite the heat. She mentions ‘men with double B breasts, hair everywhere and beer bellies‘.

In the same article, however, she says: ‘This all is fine up to a point‘ (what? First it’s distasteful and then it is ‘fine up to a point’?).

The first valid claim in the article: ‘Can I do the same, being a woman? I don’t think so.’ … ‘This is discrimination.‘ Even though I suspect she would never actually do that, this is the only point in the entire article I can get behind. This is indeed discrimination and it should stop.

This kind of discrimination is a blemish on the freedom of people. Women should be allowed to be topless just as well. As it is the case in many places in, surprisingly enough, the United States. The ‘Free the nipple‘ movement has played a part in that too.

I keep hammering on the problem that religion slipped into ‘our culture’ that nudity is a bad thing. It’s not. It’s a way of religion to control the masses, and it’s been so successful that the idea has become mainstream. And the brainwashing has become so successful that people into that mindset aren’t even aware of it. They, like the lady with the complaint, prefer to take away even more freedom, unaware of the many things that have already been taken away from them (and us).

As this picture shows, nude is not rude. It’s perfectly fine, liberating. People are having fun, and it’s something that should be allowed for everyone. But as long as mainstream thinking is convinced of the opposite, we’re fighting a battle. Most of the time it’s an uphill one, but I think we have to keep it up. Otherwise the ‘mainstream’ will wash over us and take the few rights we have (beaches, resorts, parks) away. We can’t allow that.

It’s bad enough that women are discriminated against in many parts of the world. Let’s try and turn that tide, not make it seize control over everything.

Be who you are

Be who you are. Not who the world wants you to be.

This is one of the tweets I send out almost every day.

It sounds so simple, but if there is a group of people that sticks to it as much as possible, I think it’s the naturist community. The nudists, the clothes-free folks, the ones that drop their garments as soon as it’s convenient and possible.

Being real, being us, is what scares so many others. We’re not afraid to be ourselves, without artificial clothing additives. Come to think of it, the fact that we are us, with all our flaws, scars and odd bits showing, is what scares the textile the most, perhaps.

Because in their hearts they know they look like us. They too have their scars, dimples, wobbles, flab and whatever imperfection we have to show. With the difference that we show them and we’re fine with that. They aren’t. They feel safe in their artificial environment. In who the world wants them to be.

Play dick please

A few days ago I posted this tiny workout video on Vimeo. Just for fun. And yes, I know the light sucks and then some.

The next day I got one comment on the video. It was: Play dick please, posted by a person calling himself “Hector”.

In a knee-jerk reaction I trashed the comment.

An hour later I wondered if I had done the right thing. After all, I might have taken that comment as a hook to educate “Hector” that not all nude men are there to play dick please. Had I wasted an opportunity to tell “Hector” that naturism isn’t about that?

Now, days later, I’m still not sure if this was the right reaction, but more and more I’m leaning towards the notion that Hector wasn’t there to be educated. He wanted someone to play dick. At least he said please…

Censorship, or: You’re not North Korea

Censorship.

Censorship, as we know, is a stupid thing. Depriving people from knowledge is bad. Acting as if something we all know isn’t there is stupid.

We’ve all seen this crap. Many of us encountered personally and we had accounts blocked, banned or locked away.

It’s there, whether or not they like it

All people have their dangly bits. Women’s breasts, men’s penises, flabby parts and perhaps some other stuff that’s out there. I think I listed the most important parts.

Places like most of the world, which definitely includes facebook and its branch called instagram, are famous for censoring and casting out.

Why are the people who run those place so afraid of the bits that we all have? Because they’re there, whether or not Mark Zuckerberg and various other items belonging to the human race like it.

Those are actually important bits and pieces. Procreation-based bits and pieces. Without them, the human race would have been way ahead of the dodo and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Mark Z et al would be thrilled about that. Oh wait, there wouldn’t be a Mark Z, nor an et al.

Maybe you’ve heard about this:

It’s okay to be proud of your bits but you don’t have to slap them in everyone’s face.

It’s on many memes that I’ve seen with a variety in wording. I absolutely agree with it, but there is a difference between ‘slapping your genitals in someone’s face’ and pretending they’re dirty, evil, an abomination and ‘not there’.

I’ve never seen people who walk around like this. Real people have real bodies, no black banners over their ‘naughty bits’. Which is a stupid name for them, because that loads them up with references to the sex industry.

As if naturists, here we go again, are all wannabe porn stars.

They’re human bits. And no amount of censorship will make them go away. Again, we all know they’re there. Why on Earth do people want to convince us they shouldn’t be seen…

Nak-ed dot org.

Yes, nak-ed.org is a website. I heard about it on the current latest Naturist Living Show Podcast.

What is nak-ed?

‘ED’ should be familiar to most American readers of this post. It stands for Education. And yes, you figured out by now that nak-ed.org aims to deliver NAKED EDUCATION.

This site, and more importantly, this documentary, was created by a Norwegian man called Jan Dalchow, an award-winning Norwegian producer and director of documentaries.

As stated on the About page, NAK-ED is a documentary project with the intention to break the norms around nudity and decrease body shaming.

Nak-ed is created as a documentary which can be seen on Youtube (heavily censored as you might expect) and on Vimeo, uncensored. The Vimeo version is going to set you back an incredible $3.00, which I doubt is a huge problem for many people. I’m going to watch the proper version. It’s almost 2 hours of video footage that Jan worked on for years. I’m very curious about it.

If you’re not certain yet, have a listen to the podcast and hear Jan Dalchow talk about his project.

Such an important message…

I found this message on Twitter and had to post it here.

Naturism.

Imagine being 75 and you’re thinking about your life.

How you never swam nude in the ocean on a warm night because your thighs jiggled. You never laughed until you couldn’t breathe, because your teeth weren’t straight or white enough. You never embraced the sun on your entire body because of the stretch marks on your stomach and hips. You never allowed yourself to let go and have fun, because the pressure to loo perfect consumed you.

Imagine being 75 and realising you’ve hidden yourself away for the fear of being real Imagine realising all the years you wasted hating yourself – but now it’s too late. Now it hurts to laugh for more than a few seconds, and you’re too weak to travel to the beach. Imagine realising all this time you were perfect the way you are.

Don’t let that happen.

Live now, as you are. You deserve to realise you’re enough, and always have been, before you’re 75.