Naakt zijn is ongehinderde vrijheid

Kleren zijn gewoon lastig. Vaak duurt het lang voor je iets vindt dat je aanstaat, dan moet je zoeken naar de juiste maat, en als dat allemaal gedaan is moet je op vanalles en nog wat letten zodat je je mooie dure nieuwe kleren niet verknoeit. En dan moet je ook nog oppassen dat je ze kunt blijven dragen.

Strakke jeans
Is dit makkelijk?

Kleren zijn beperkend. Hoe je het ook draait of keer, tenzij je iets draagt dat 2 maten te groot is zal er altijd iets strak zitten, de bloedstroom afknijpen, op een paar spieren drukken of andere leuke dingen. Om nog maar niet te denken aan de omstandigheden waaronder veel van die kleding wordt gemaakt, door mensen die te lang en hard moeten werken voor te weinig beloning, zodat anderen hun zakken nog wat meer kunnen vullen.

Kleren helpen ook om jezelf te verstoppen. Koop iets duurs en je ziet er duur uit, ook al ben je niet rijk genoeg om rijk te zijn.

Kijk eens naar nudisme.

In the woods

Gooi die kleren eens uit. Wees jezelf. Accepteer en waardeer je lichaam zoals nudisten en naturisten doen. Het is bevrijdend, en tegelijk een statement dat je de standaarden weggooit die de moderne maatschappij op je drukt. Leef naar je eigen standaarden. Denk er eens serieus over, en wees eerlijk. Verwar je dat wat iedereen denkt niet met wat jij zelf denkt? Stap uit je kleren in de veiligheid van je eigen woning, in je slaapkamer, met de deur op slot zodat niemand je ziet. Ontdek wie je echt bent. Probeer het verschillende keren, om aan het idee en het gevoel te wennen, de sensatie en het zien van je eigen lijf. Het is van jou, ongehinderd door kleding. Proef de vrijheid waarmee je je opeens kunt bewegen.

Probeer het maar eens.

Being Nude is unrestricted freedom

Clothes are cumbersome. Often it takes a while to find something you like, then it takes time to find the right size, and once you have them, there usually are all kinds of things you have to watch out for so you don’t ruin your precious and often expensive clothes. Or your shape.

tight jeans
Is this comfortable?

Clothes restrict. No matter how you twist or turn it, unless you wear something 2 sizes too large, there will be something that’s tight, blocking the blood flow, presses down on muscles or other fun things like that. And not to think about where clothes often are made, by poor people who work too long for too little, so others can fill their pockets some more.

Clothes also help you to disguise yourself. You buy something expensive and you look expensive, even when you’re not rich enough to be expensive.

Enter nudism.
In the woods

Drop your clothes. Be yourself. Accept and appreciate your body, like nudists and naturists do. It is liberating, and at the same time a statement that you throw off the standards that ‘modern life’ throws upon you. Live your own standards, and do think hard and be honest about that, so you don’t confuse what everyone else thinks with what you really think. Drop your clothes in the safety of your house, your bedroom, with the door locked so no one can see you. And discover who you really are. Try it several times to get used to the idea, the feeling, the sensation and the look of your body. It’s yours, unhindered by clothes. Enjoy the freedom you have in moving around in it.

Just try it.

Verzet tegen sluiting naaktstrand Delftse Hout

Via Reformatorisch Dagblad :

Verzet tegen sluiting naaktstrand Delftse Hout

28-06-2013 19:18 | Redactie regio

De sluiting van het naaktstrand in het natuur- en recreatiegebied de Delftse Hout in Delft is tegen het zere been van de Naturisten Federatie Nederland (NFN).

De NFN heeft deze week een voorlopige voorziening bij de Haagse rechtbank aangevraagd. Die aanvraag heeft tot doel sluiting van het naakstrand door de gemeente van tafel te krijgen, stelde NFN-directeur H. J. Kamerbeek vrijdag desgevraagd.

Reden dat de gemeente Delft het naaktstrand sluit, is dat er „op deze locatie de afgelopen jaren een duidelijke toename van strafbare feiten, aangiften en overlast geconstateerd is op het gebied van schennisplegingen en dan met name van zogenaamde herenontmoetingen”, meldde het college van burgemeester en wethouders in een recente brief aan de gemeenteraad, daarmee doelend op contacten tussen homoseksuelen.

„Geconstateerd is dat het naaktstrand steeds drukker bezocht wordt door mannen met andere bedoelingen dan naakt recreëren. Er worden met grote regelmaat ‘cruisende’ en daadwerkelijke seksuele handelingen verrichtende mannen gesignaleerd en aangehouden.” Overwogen is om stekelplanten te plaatsen om mannen te weren.

Het college wijst erop dat het naakstrand „heel open en toegankelijk” ligt en omsloten wordt door strandgebieden waar mensen wel strandkleding dragen.

„Er zijn het afgelopen jaar meerdere meldingen binnen gekomen van mensen (en kinderen) die ongewild geconfronteerd zijn met mannen die ‘met elkaar bezig’ waren.”

Diverse maatregelen, zoals het snoeien van de bosjes en extra inzet van toezicht en handhaving, hebben „niet tot een afname van activiteiten” geleid, aldus het college in de brief.

De gemeenteraad heeft recent over het naakstrand vergaderd en sloot zich in meerderheid aan bij het besluit van het college, zo stelde een woordvoerder van de gemeente Delft gisteren desgevraagd. Wel wil de raad dat het college alternatieve locaties onderzoekt.

De NFN, die ook een bezwaarschrift bij de gemeente indiende, stelt dat het best meevalt met de overlast. De NFN vindt de sluiting van het strand „veel te rigoureus en te drastisch”, zo meldt de naturistenorganisatie in een gisteren verstuurd persbericht. „Het is voor de NFN onverteerbaar dat deze maatregel alle bezoekers van het naaktstrand treft. Voor zover er al sprake is van overlast, dan gebeurt dit op een klein gedeelte van het naaktstrand en vooral buiten reguliere stranduren.” De NFN roept „alle naaktrecreanten die in de Delftse Hout worden weggestuurd of bekeurd op om ons daarover direct in kennis te stellen, zodat we tegen onterechte bekeuringen en verwijderingen in het geweer kunnen komen.”

(Origineel artikel)

Naked unless someone is offended.

Original post at The Nook – by Richard Foley:

Many people, in the clamour to be seen to be politically correct, seem to believe in the principle that you should not do something if somebody will be upset by it. Being naked in a public space, for instance. While at first sight, this might sound a most honorable viewpoint, I’m not sure people have thought it through entirely.

For instance, would you be happy to join a WNBR, where nudity IS accepted, and then during the course of the ride if some one person was upset at seeing naked people, you would immediately get dressed?

If so, this seems to me to be the very problem with society today (and maybe forever). If we only ever accept a situation on the basis that nobody (pun intended) will ever be upset, then we should bring back racial segregation because somebody is upset that there are blacks on their side of the street. We should also deny women the vote because someone might be upset, (at least half the population of Appenzell in Switzerland), that women should have any say in the running of the country. We should make gay people illegal (wtf! eh?) because somebody doesn’t like gay people, or is upset by the idea of somebody being gay, or is “offended” by the very thought. Etc. etc. etc.

As Bertrand Russell famously said in a letter to The Times: “In a democracy it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged …”

True then, true today!

Meeting Peeping Tom

A few days ago I was confronted by a problem-seeker, a man who lives in same apartment building. (See here for the first post about it in case you missed it.) Today I met him again, as I came home from work. It was in the hall, so on “neutral ground”.

At first he tried to ignore me, but of course I wouldn’t let him do that. He didn’t ignore me nude, now he wasn’t going to ignore me dressed. I asked him if there was something he’d like to say to me, because I had something to tell him. He asked if I was going to take my clothes off again. Yes, absolutely, but not in the hall of course. To that he shared that he still thought it strange and wrong. I replied that I still think that staring into other people’s house the way he did is strange and wrong, and that it was his own fault that he saw someone nude in their own house. His response was that this wasn’t true, if I had not gone around naked he wouldn’t have seen me naked. Then I just asked him how he would like it if I were to appear in front of his window, fully dressed, and stare into his house in the same way that he’d employed.

“You won’t see me naked,” he said to that. Well, that wasn’t exactly the point. I just wanted to know if he’d have a problem with it, when I were to stare at him while he sat watching TV, or reading the paper, or doing something else. “Not at all,” was his first reaction, but when I urged him to really think about that, to envision it, he changed his mind: it wouldn’t be very pleasant.

Home nudist cooking
Home nudist me.

Then I left him standing there with the words: “I don’t mind. Look into my house all you want. But don’t scream at me when you see something you don’t like. I’m right and you’re wrong, and next time I will call the police for harassment.”

You can’t do that!

Earlier today I was picking dry clothes from the drying rack, because even nudists wear clothes at times, which requires washing and drying them. As usual I did that in the nude, because the rack is in a room in my own house, there are gauze curtains for the window, I’m fine. Until this morning, sort of.

I noticed someone standing on the gallery outside the window (I live on the 4th floor), doing his best to look inside. I recognised one of my neighbours, face pressed against the glass, hands around his eyes so he could see what was going on. The window is always tilted open, so I clearly heard him call out: “You’re not wearing clothes!” I replied that I knew that. He didn’t leave; instead he called out: “You can’t do that!” Only then he left. I thought.

Nude household
I tend to do all household things in the nude…

A moment later, the doorbell rang. I knew it was the neighbour, as the window he had been peeping through is very close to the front door, so I walked to the door and opened it. Yes, naked. That seemed to give him a shock, even though he’d already seen I wore nothing. He stared at me (all over, which made me feel like he was severely invading my privacy) until I asked him what he wanted. (“My face is up here” were my exact words.) He told me that I can’t walk around naked.
Oh, in my house I can. I know this for a fact. As long as no one can immediately see me from the outside, I’m all in the clear.
He: “But I saw you.”
Yes. You were doing your curious utmost to see what was happening, almost pressing your head through the double glazing, so indeed you saw me. This is not accidentally seeing something, this is curiosity and acting like a peeping tom, invading the privacy of my home. (By that time another neighbour passed by. She glanced at me, smiled with a nod and a wink and walked on.)
“Still I think you are not allowed to do that.” His that was accompanied by a finger pointing at my privates.
Well, I’m not sorry but I think you are not allowed to do that unless I give you permission.

The discussion, with me standing naked in the open door, went on for a while until I offered to call the police and ask if they could come and explain things to him. He dared me, and only as I took the phone he walked off.

I am not going to put on clothes when I’m right. Period.

No new world record skinny dipping

Yesterday I participated in an attempt for a new world record skinny dipping. Unfortunately we had far too few people at the beach: we needed at least 414 and there were only 153 people there. I think it was because a) the attempt was planned on a Friday afternoon (weekend days usually are much better for that), and b) because of the poor weather (water temperature was 10c/50F).

Still, those that had come went into the water (after waiting for a while, hoping for more participants) because that was what we had come for:

skinnydip zandvoort 2013
Skinnydip Zandvoort, June 2013

(Original image and more at www.naakstrand.info. Used with permission.)

Below a short clip (in Dutch) from the newspaper Haarlems Dagblad about the event:

Naked message (From York Press)

Naked message (From York Press).

LAST year 122 cyclists were killed on UK roads.

Many were not seen by drivers who, in the collision, were themselves well protected. Over the next few weeks, all over the world, cyclists take part in the annual World Naked Bike Ride.

York will host its eighth ride on June 21, leaving Millennium Bridge at 6pm and following a six-mile route.

Earlier this year, the levels of atmospheric CO2 hit a record high not seen in four million years.

It is widely agreed that this 40 per cent increase since the Industrial Revolution is due to fossil carbon being released from power stations, cars and other trappings of modern life.

(More on the York Press site.)