Hello friends of the nude life style and other curious ones. Yes, I am off on vacation again so I won’t be posting much in the form of articles on naturism or nudism although I have prepared the obligatory Sunday Noon Nudist imagery for you, so don’t despair. 🙂 If you happen to be near Vritomartis on Crete, we may meet.
For now I wish you this:
(Image found on a naturist group on Facebook)
More and more I think that nudists and naturists are – in a way – the most honest people. They are honest about their body.
A nudist doesn’t feel the need to hide being skinny or large beneath layers of clothing that have patterns to ‘flatter’ their shape. They are the way they are.
The same goes for people who have what many others consider a ‘good body’ but who have scars and other deformations. Accidents, surgery, giving birth (for women) and so forth, these things leave marks on a human. These are nothing to be ashamed about, even when modern society makes people feel that way.
After all, we all have to be eternally young and beautiful, in the impossible way that many supermodels look.
It amazes me every time that so many people allow themselves to chase such unattainable goals and looks. These people are the “lucky few”, and to be honest I am not so certain if they are really the lucky ones. They have to keep up this look, adjust their diet and what not all the time because the scrutiny of the world’s eye is on them.
And all that when there’s nothing wrong when you look like this lady on the right.
What’s not to like? She’s healthy, she is laughing and she is more than comfortable with her appearance. And all that with difficult diets and a regime for living that makes life not worth living.
Be honest. Don’t try to be the supermodel you’re not. Be happy. I’m convinced many of them aren’t, and in that light you win.
Yes, you’ve seen this image before. I posted this earlier, before the evening of going to see paintings of Vincent van Gogh. That evening has come and gone, and was enjoyed not only by me but by lots of people.
The idea was fabulous, I think. This year is Vincent van Gogh year in the Netherlands so there are many galleries and exhibitions with his work. One museum in Amsterdam had a set of 200 excellent reproductions on display and the NFN, the Dutch Naturist Federation, had arranged a special opening on Saturday evening for their members and invitees. I don’t know how many people came but I saw plenty of them. And the art was amazing. It was a very special feeling to walk through a museum and look at art when not being dressed, simply because I had never done this before. The space was nice, good for bare feet (even when many people wore slippers or even shoes). The light was great. The paintings and the information with them were amazing in detail, and the several booths with 3D imagery of how certain paintings were made were very entertaining. Not everyone was so thrilled with them, but then people are people. All different.
It was a fantastic experience and I hope that the NFN will be able to organise something like this again. I’m good to go!
Freedom of expression.
Yes. I’m going to look at art. In the buff. The Dutch Federation of Nudists (NFN) has arranged something extra special. A museum in Amsterdam has an exhibit of 200 replicas of work by Vincent van Gogh, and tomorrow evening there’s a special opening for members of the NFN. I love the work of Vincent van Gogh, so this is a very special occasion to see it in my preferred state!
I’ll report about it after the visit.
(Image links to the Dutch NFN website which details the event.)
It’s become a summer tradition for a nudist to encourage me to switch my bathing suit for a birthday suit. The first time was last year at Hanlan’s Point Beach, the stripped-down portion of the Toronto Island. Though I had swum naked earlier in the day, a man who is basically the beach’s ambassador of nudity approached me and my friend as we were about to leave. He said we really should have felt comfortable shedding our clothes sooner. It made me very uncomfortable.
My next solicitation happened last weekend in Ottawa when a friend and I stumbled upon a secluded inlet on Meech Lake known as “Little Beach.” A man was tanning naked beside a woman in a bathing suit, and another guy who looked north of 60 pulled down his leopard-print Speedo and dove in the water. We looked at each other like “Ah, it’s that kind of joint.” As we were packing up to leave Mr. Leopard Print walked over and encouraged us to check out the many Ontario naturist organizations (to a layman, naturist and nudist are interchangeable). We smiled politely and tried to act like we were in a hurry. He didn’t take the hint.
There’s something off-putting about being evangelized by someone who is naked when you’re fully dressed. But if you can look past the proselytizers, nudist communities might be one of the best places to build self-esteem. Body images issues that keep women (and some men) from joining a nudist community actually dissipate in buck-naked environments.
The idea is counter-intuitive. If you’re insecure about your body, isn’t being naked around others like being a vegan locked in a slaughterhouse? For most of us (and for the record, I’ve never been a nudist group member) these events seem like an ideal breeding ground for insecurity, especially given the fact that almost 100 per cent of women admit to having at least one “I hate my body” moment each day. But while the regular world is obsessed with how nude bodies look, nudists have a different mentality. Rather than aesthetics, they’re are obsessed with how it feels to not wear clothes.
In Ontario, there are are about 16 clubs or resorts where people who want to be naked can swim together, have barbecues or take vacations. During the colder months, the Ottawa Naturists/Naturistes de L’Outaouais (ON/NO) rents out Ottawa-area pools for its 200 members.
Because we’re all a bunch of 13-year-olds, “nudist community” seems synonymous with “orgy.” But the motivation to bare all is a lot more wholesome. The man at Meech Lake said he likes swimming nude because he can dry off naturally and doesn’t have to deal with wet bathing suits (and no matter how prudish you are, swimming naked just feels better. Admit it). Still, the fact that nudism doesn’t appeal to women in particular isn’t surprising.
My Facebook feed is full of stories about women’s bodies being judged – from the bikini-clad Edmonton mother who was taunted for showing stretch marks on a beach to the woman who says Instagram removed her butt-selfie because of her weight (to bolster her case, see the untouched tome of Paulina Gretzky cheek-shots). But nudist communities aren’t concerned with traditional beauty standards. There is no wrong kind of naked.
Being around naturists is actually like the reverse of the nightmare in which you’re standing naked on a stage in front of clothed people. Everybody fits in. All the parts we fetishize become like wallpaper nudists no longer think about. I spoke with a gender transitioned woman who said joining the ON/NO helped her feel accepted as a female. A British woman joined a nudist community after an operation left her with a huge scar on her torso. She told the Daily Mail she went from not being able to undress in front of her husband to being confidently naked around others. Yet as women, surmounting our own insecurities is only half the battle.
We also have men to worry about. When cops and politicians imply that we’re just a too-short-skirt away from rape, that message makes ditching the skirt seem like a bad idea. But nudist communities have us metaphorically covered. Since more men are drawn to nudism, organizations try to balance the gender ratio of members they admit to make women more comfortable. The majority of parks in Quebec do not accept single men and ON/NO created a bylaw that puts them on a waiting list if the male-female ratio exceeds 2:1.
And contrary to popular belief, nudist communities aren’t populated by gawkers and sexual predators. The ON/NO, for example, has a pretty intensive screening system for new members that involves at least four meetings in a mix of clothed and nude settings to make sure no creeper alarm bells go off. If more women knew how safe these communities are, they could reap the body-image benefits of being au naturel around others.
Of course nudism isn’t for everyone. I’m not even sure it’s for me. But I know this lifestyle doesn’t deserve the stigma it receives. Sure, having naked men convince you to get naked on a beach doesn’t foster a wholesome image. But for most people who go bare, nudism is an escape from society’s scrutiny of their bodies. It certainly sounds a lot better than cutting carbs to fit into that bikini.
Angelina Chapin is the blog editor for Huffington Post Canada.
A swim in nature, the natural way.
(Image courtesy of Twitter)
Irish reporter Sinead O’Donnell attended a naturist event in south Dublin. She joined Pat in studio to report back. Click the image or this link to go to the site and listen to the 9 minute podcast.
If you’re an avid reader like I am, you may like to learn that I have published a new book. It’s a science fiction with nudism/naturism as an element. It’s not an epic space battle kind of scifi. Here is the back cover text:
Earth, somewhere in the future. The environment has changed. Cities are large, closed structures with permanent air conditioning, and nudist villages have appeared in the warmer areas.
When space explorers encounter problems while trying to ‘tame’ a new planet, they turn to the nudist population of earth for help. What will these nude space travellers encounter once they’ve left earth? And will they be able to return to their home planet?
And here is the cover image:
You can find the book at Smashword via this link , and on the Amazon’s stores: US, UK, DE, CA, and all the others.
Distribution to Barnes&Noble, Kobo and Apple iTunes will take a while but it will appear there too.
I sincerely hope you enjoy this book.
Hi there
You may have seen my post on driving ‘nudist style’. There are a few things I’ve noticed over time that might be good to share, especially for people who want to start out with kind of transport. Here we go:
Drive safely!
