Naktivism – Page 5 – Zjuzdme.org

The selfie situation

I guess several of the readers of this blog have some experience with this one. How do you take a decent selfie when you’re out and about?

Many times, at least in my situation, I’m out on a walk alone. Taking a good picture of a nice spot with myself in it often becomes a problem because: a) what fun is it to haul a tripod around all the time, and b) images using a selfie-stick always make it clear you’re using such a device.

So now I look at you, reader of this blog.

How do you make your pictures? Sometimes I see great shots that clearly aren’t done with a selfie-stick. Do you carry tripods around? Do you use other means to set up your camera/phone for a good shot?

Or do you use more advanced methods? For instance I could imagine that the use of a drone could be an option, but that would come down to a very expensive selfie stick, or isn’t that the case anymore?

I’m really curious about this and I am looking forward to your responses!

The crazy stuff that is parts of America

This week I tried to publish my first Dutch naturist fiction book.

A naturist book which is a crime story. As usual I chose a platform called Draft2Digital to get the book ‘out there’. That, combined with Amazon, gives me a good reach for books. Except this one.

Imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from Draft2Digital telling me that most online bookstores do not accept pornographic content on the cover of a book. Let me show you the cover:

I assume you are shocked over the pornographic content displayed here. If so, accept my apologies. If not, I’m glad to meet a human being with a sensible mind.

To make sure I was indeed offending some policy, I went to wikipedia to have a look at their (Wikipedia’s) definition of pornography: “Pornography (often abbreviated porn) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal.”

If a man’s back and naked behind is sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal then I wonder what kind of people decide this image is exactly that.

Considering the fact that Draft2Digital is an American company, I should not be surprised about this rejection. Still, being stubborn, I decided to try my luck at Amazon because there is a Dutch Amazon-website for books. And lo and behold… American company Amazon sent me this: Congratulations, your book “High-Tech Recherche” is now live and available* for purchase in the Kindle Store!

I decided to publish the e-book through a Dutch e-book distributor. This means it will
a) be a bit more expensive
b) not get to Apple iTunes or B&N
but that’s something I’m not going to be bothered about.

I know, this is not my typical kind of post but I had to vent this somewhere, and this is as good a place as any. If you want to know more about the book, please let me know. The plan is to get an English version out too, and I would like to point the Dutch visitors to my Dutch author website where I will announce the book shortly.

The battle against faketurists

Yes. I hear you. Faketurists? What the hell are you talking (writing) about here? Let me tell you.

Time and again I come across posts on Twitter and other places where genuine naturists/nudists mention being followed by ‘other naturists’, who after some quick inspection prove to be swingers, sex- and porn-lovers and the like. I am sure we all know the kind by now.

These folks always have pictures on their timeline/profile, and they are not as naturist and calm as the one here.

Fake naturists. Hence faketurists.

They’re a pain in the eye and the mind for real naturists, and with reason.

It’s difficult to get rid of them in their entirety since going after them and ‘exterminating’ them is a) time consuming, b) costly and c) illegal. So we end up blocking them, reporting them, the works. I’m sure most people reading this post recognise the problems.

The crap thing is that, yes, sometimes it’s hard work to check each account that is following you, me, anyone. Still: keep doing it. No one is doing it for you, and if you want to keep your presence as clean as possible, it’s a necessary evil. The ones with explicit names or profile images are easy to catch. Some require inquiry. Alas.

An idea I suddenly had was to get some kind of swap-space going where naturists can swap their block lists, at least the one from Twitter. On Twitter you can export your blocked-list by clicking your profile image and select Settings and privacy from the menu:

From there select Blocked Accounts on the left, click advanced options and export your list:

Save the list and that’s most of the work. On the swap space everyone can then download your list and import it to their own blocked accounts (which, as you see, is also a choice in the advanced options, and that will save everyone a lot of work going after each suspicious account.

A drawback is that you might block an account that someone finds offensive, gross of insulting while you might like that account very much. It’s a personal trade-off.

I wonder what you think of this idea, and if you have specific ‘controls’ in place to keep your online, naturist presence ‘clean’.

Naturist Witch Trials?

Our world is a remarkable place.

So many people, so many cultures, philosophies, religions and ways of life. And we all are part of it.

There is a problem though. Most of the world isn’t like us. Most of the world prefers to cover up, even when it’s hot, and does the smart thing by buying machines to cool down.

We are the strange ones in this mental picture. Acknowledge it. We don’t do mainstream coverups well when it’s hot. We play along because we have to. We’re being forced into this.

What makes me say this?

You may have noticed a parallel with the Salem Witch Trials in the title of this blog post. This is on purpose and kudos for those who noticed that.

The Salem Witch Trials happened in the world of Puritans, who wanted to build their ‘City on the Hill’, according to their own pure insights and laws. (Problem was there were no real laws after a while, when England handed over jurisdiction to the locals.)

Naturists and nudists face more and more Puritanism in the modern world. People are become more prude. The mainstream media make people ashamed of their less than paintbrushed and photoshopped body which increases the ‘need’ to cover up. And, take it as you will, religion has its foot in the door as well. Muslims are spreading all over the world, and they are – as far as I know – very inclined to cover the body as well.

Why would you cover yourself up if the weather’s fine?

As I was thinking about with trials, listening to a podcast about them, and incorporating them in a story, it occurred to me that this spreading out of modern body-Puritanism might well flash back on us, naturists and nudists, if the lawmakers aren’t doing something. But for that to get into lawmakers’ skulls, we have to stand up and proclaim we’re not evil. We don’t work together with some modernday satan, as the former witches were convicted of, to bring down society.

There were no witches during those trials. Only innocent victims of mass hysteria. Hysteria caused by fear, stress and uncertainty, because the puritans in Salem Town and Salem Village (currently known as Danvers) had their share of problems. Disputes about who had the right religious system, famine because of bad harvests, feeling forgotten by England, and the many attacks by Natives and the evil, catholic French took their toll, and the ‘witches’ had to suffer from that. They were the scapegoats.

Let’s make sure we aren’t becoming scapegoats either.

Being naked is natural. I think that’s the main concept we need to get across.

Society is losing touch with nature, hand over hand, which is a shame in itself. At the rate nature is being destroyed, our options are getting limited.

Let’s stand up. Speak up.

A restaurant bites the dust

We probably all know it by now. The Parisian nude restaurant is closing.

Yes. That is a sad thing. Why did they not make it?

Apparently the restaurant is well liked by all who dined there. Unfortunately there weren’t enough of those people, which put the restaurant in a dire, financial spot. The food, as I read in many places, was very good, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was described as very pleasant.

The owners, Mike and Stephane Saada, stated:

“Thank you for having participated in this adventure by coming to dine at O’Naturel. We will only remember the good times, meeting beautiful people and customers who were delighted to share exceptional moments.”
Source: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/paris-nude-restaurant-is-closing

Let’s hope there will be another occasion for a nude restaurant in France. I think that’s important, since France is one of the countries where naturism is huge and growing.

I’m glad to see that the Bunyadi restaurant in London is still open, and that in Bristol, the Greenbank pub has hosted several Naked Dining events.

Let’s hope more restaurants will start seeing the possibilities for nude dining. The way O’Naturel was set up, catering to nude guests only, is perhaps a bit too optimistic. Opening for nude guests a few times per week might have been an economically better idea in that light.

On the other hand, the world of naturism and nudism is facing fierce opposition and that pressure is growing. Establishments like O’Naturel are important because they fight back. It is important to remember that prudishness and the feelings of shame, which are spreading over a world that has made steps into the other direction, can be pushed back. We do need a backbone and some guts for that push. Let’s push!

The older, the nuder.

Interesting how things can change in a moment.

When I first thought of the title for a new post (this one: the older, the nuder), I had an idea where this was going. Until I started investigating the idea, which made me see things in a much different way. Let me tell you what I thought and what I’ve learnt!

My initial idea was that, when people get older they get less flexible. I’ve seen it everywhere and still do. I’ve seen it with my parents too.

That brought me to the conclusion that older people should stay nude more for the simple reason that putting on clothes requires some agility, and since older people have that less and less, not having to put on clothes would make life easier for them. Are you with me so far? Sounds logical, doesn’t it?

Then I started looking around for stuff that might add a bit of laughter about this topic, and guess what I found:

The way to stay agile is STRETCHING.

You may not feel the need to read on if you’re not “old” yet, but I think it’s worth the while anyway. One interesting link took me to kveo.com. This page talks about the importance of stretching and not to overdo things.

And that brought me (again) to yoga, which is a good way to stretch. And that, hey hey, took me almost round circle to naked yoga, which I touched on last year. Right, there’s no need to ‘yoga’ like the lady up there. (I’m still trying to find out how she got herself in a knot!) And as you see, she is doing naked yoga.

Even Wikipedia has an entire article on naked yoga, go figure. That should tell everyone there’s something about it.

Regardless if you’re into or out of yoga, though, the main thing clearly is that when you get older (like I am and probably the odd 2 or 3 other readers of this blog), you should keep moving and stretch as much as possible. And as we all know: the best way to move and stretch is in the nude.

Lucky us!

A naturist’s view on the future

How many of you think of the future in terms of naturism? I’ve discovered I’m doing that quite a lot lately. And why is that?

According to this article on the British Naturism website, their membership is on the rise since a long time, and they ‘blame’ (haha) the heatwave of this past year for that. That, I say, is a good sign for the future of naturism.

Heatwaves are going to be more common than they were, so there will be more opportunity, temperature-wise, to undress and be the way we like, naturists, nudists alike.

And although this sounds wonderful and great for ‘us’, there is of course the other side of the coin: heatwaves. Also drought. Ice caps melting. All those things aren’t that great for ‘us’ or ‘the others’ (the textile based life forms)

I realise that being naked as much of the time as possible isn’t going to save the world, but buying fewer clothes (which in turn makes that fewer have to be made) is a good start. It’s scary to consider, time and again, how much crap gets tossed into the environment by the clothing industry, one of the holy cows of society.

I sincerely hope that the world at large will come to its senses and stop messing things up for humanity. And no, “Save the planet” isn’t needed. The planet will survive us all, unless someone can’t keep his hands off a specific red button.

Not at all what we want. Hot is good as we can take off our clothes, but let’s agree there are limits to the kind of heat we all can take.

A naturist’s view on sustainability

What is sustainability?

According to Wikipedia, sustainability is defined as “the process of maintaining change in a balanced fashion, in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.”

Naturism and sustainability

When we look back to the origins of naturism (nudism), the movement was all about a healthy lifestyle in harmony with nature. I am convinced there are still plenty of nude walking people who share that idea in some way or other. And that, for me, already points into the direction of sustainability. The harmony with nature part already shows that naturism’s basic philosophy underwrites a world that is a healthier and better place than many areas in our current world.

A while ago I posted a blog about the fashion industry and the amount of pollution that brings with it. The clearest point of that was that wearing clothes has a severe impact on the environment, so less clothes means less crap in the water and the air.

But it doesn’t end with clothes (for me)

Mankind has taken control of the planet in a way that’s totally irresponsible. Mankind thinks they are lord and master (or lady and Earth mistress) of this ball we still live on. A tiny flaw in this mindset is that ‘mankind’ is very wrong. Just because humans feel invulnerable doesn’t mean they win everything. When air is no longer breathable and water is no longer safe to drink, the all powerful human will be finished quickly.
Humans who think that way should spend a while in the nude, outside, in nature. I wonder if they still feel invulnerable then. Naturists and nudists know the fragility of man when faced the outdoors. When there is no fabric or plastic shielding that thin skin from the rough bark of a tree, things quickly look different.

Man’s place in nature

The author nude If we find our place in nature again, I am convinced things can still be set to right.

It won’t be fast because we’ve been doing our best to mess this planet up for decades already, but the nude mindset would be a great help in that.

A naturist’s view on co-workers (part 2)

Before

In a previous post I wrote about telling the people at work about your lifestyle. I received some interesting comments on that post, either on the post itself and also through various social media (yes, I pretend to be social, like on Twitter, Mewe and occasionally even on Ello).

It’s clear that by far not everyone has the good fortune to have colleagues or co-workers with open minds that will accept the clothes free way of life. That basically sucks, even when there’s little you can do about it. Going out to find a new job because of that is rather drastic.

Another side of things

One day at work, this past hot summer, I had a very interesting encounter. A co-worker came to me and whispered, “I saw you in your car yesterday”.

The reason for her whisper was that she’d seen me just before driving off. When it’s really hot I don’t want to wear clothes in my car so once in there I take everything off before leaving the parking lot. Since the building where I work is in town it’s hardly surprising someone sees me. Honestly I don’t care one bit about that. It’s my car and my sanity. If they really want to look into my car they should be prepared to deal with what they see.

To said co-worker I said, “Good for you. Have you tried it yourself?” Hardly surprising that the answer was ‘no’, followed by the question why on earth I was doing that. Was I some kind of exhibitionist?

No. I am not. I simply want to be comfortable and I did my best to explain that to my co-worker. Of course the concept of being comfortable made sense, but… “we have air conditioning for that.” This response is the default for modern people. I explained that taking your clothes off often makes that you don’t have to switch on the A/C in your car. Nor in your home if you have such a thing there and that is a huge cost saver. That information in turn triggered even more disbelief because “you don’t walk around naked at home.”

To that I could only say, “Wrong. I do. You clearly don’t, but that’s not my problem.” It was nice to turn things around. Dear co-worker wanted to make my way of life my problem but with a simple statement I turned that into the opposite. It also made for a surprised person who had nothing more to add.

Of course I drove home naked that day.