After seeing the umpteenth (absolutely well-meant) comment “Lovely bodies” on a picture with naked bodies, I suddenly thought: “Is naturism really about the bodies?”
Buddies with bodies
When I go to a naturist beach, resort, place, something somewhere, I like to meet people. Not too many, but real people. I know people have bodies – that bit becomes apparent to everyone somewhere in life.
The more bodies I’ve seen, the more I’ve become interested in the faces over those bodies. The people behind them, inside those bodies.
Perhaps I’m weird, because naturism is about being naked, right? Actually it’s only partly about that for me. It’s about being natural. Real. About the human being that someone is, not the person someone’s “supposed to be” according to the rules and regulations of fashion and “proper conduct”. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of those rules can be shoved to a place where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m leaving it up to your imagination where that might be, but a deep, dark cave would work in this case.
Bodies are good things to have, I entirely agree. They make up a big and the visible part of who we are. They let us move around and we recognise each other because of them. Either through ‘facial recognition’ or by body shape.
Bodies often tell us about the things its wearer has been through, by way of scars and marks, but the real deal is still inside that body. I’m not just my body. There’s more to me, and I’m sure there’s more to you as well.
Be a good buddy for your body. Also be a good person. Someone that people can say “lovely person” about, instead of “lovely body”.
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…
Right. Because you want to read it. Perfect reason.
And why are you naked?
Exactly. Because you want to be naked. Again: perfect reason.
I think that completes this blog post, doesn’t it?
Not entirely, because, as usual, there is more to this than the ‘naked’ eye can see. (Interesting phrase, that naked eye.)
I am convinced that one of the major misconceptions of the textilised humans around us is that they aren’t aware of the simple fact that we want to be naked for ourselves. It’s not for showing off or any other outgoing purpose – most of the time.
In fact, let’s be honest, most of us aren’t the model that would be ‘shown off’ in the textile world. They have different measures and standards, and they hide their own nature beneath their layers of fabric.
The subject title of this post suddenly came to me. It’s such a simple truth that I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it sooner. We eat and drink because we want to. We read because we want to. And we ‘naked’ because we want to.
There are many things that we do because we want to do them, and in general most people have the same wants, cravings and needs. Books being one of them. Put in that light, there might be a way to make the textile world understand us, provided they want to listen. Because many minds are made up, set in stone and locked behind the cast-iron doors, courtesy of their peers and leaders.
Let our fight never dwindle. Each person convinced that we’re not the loonies is a win. Each person who finally sees that wearing clothes when they’re not needed is silly, is a big win.
Let’s stay naked. It’s good. I could write a book about that…
You may have visited the naturist library page already. It’s a big, fat list of naturist books in a lot of genres. I had a quick look for you. 12 genres. There should be something in it for everyone.
How did this start?
Basically I started this for myself as I was getting tired of running over all the book stores online to find decent naturist fiction. Most of was erotica or porn, and it was nearly impossible to find the worthy gems in there.
I knew there were books. Good books. I had read them. As the list grew, I had this idea to put them online. I was proud to see that first list of about 50 or 60 books up there on this website, and people started helping me by sending titles and references.
Reading is good for the soul. Being naked is as well. Why not combine the two?
The work
At times it takes a bit of time for a new book to ‘come online’ in the library. It’s not a fully automated process. Some is, but most of it is manual because the site is hosted on a WordPress base.
My source is a spreadsheet.
It’s a very convenient way to keep things in order, and I wrote a few sorting macros to make the exports from there more convenient. There are 2 exports, 1 sorted on Genre/Series and 1 on author.
After downloading those, I run a script and a program I wrote, that together convert those exported text-files into handy dandy HTML files. I wrote those programs because I’m too lazy to code and link and x-ref (by now) over 170 books by hand. It’s also a bit too time-consuming. 😉
With that part done, I load the 2 files into an editor (snippet here on the left, doesn’t that look cool? 😀 ) and I log into the site, where I update the HTML code for the actual sets of books on each page; the main library page sorted by Genre and the one sorted by Author. This might not sound like a lot of work (it’s ‘only’ 15 minutes) but it’s not something I want to do for each new book.
Before a new book is in there
Because that’s not all the work. When a kind soul sends me a message to tell me there’s a great naturist book out by Smarty Johnson, that’s not exactly enough to add to the library. I go online, google Smarty Johnson, run into a thousand links of use tire dealers called Smarty Johnson and finally locate 2 of them on Amazon. 1 wrote a book on selling used tires, and 1 wrote, indeed, a book on naturism and its relation to, you guessed it, used tires. Yay, that means I found the link on amazon. But the book might also be on Barnes and Noble. And Kobo. And Apple. And perhaps some obscure other place. So there I go to search as well, often without a result as most people don’t seem to know there are books sold outside Amazon. Of course then I also investigate the actual book. Is this real naturism? Is it naturism enough? There’s always this difficult fine line, so I may ask someone to have a look as well. And if then the book passes the ballot, I’ll add the book to the library sheet.
Trust me, that takes longer than 15 minutes per book. Which is fine. That keeps the quality of the books high.
It’s a good source.
That brings tweets like this to life – and that is what the library is meant to do. It’s meant to help you find books about and dealing with our lifestyle.
Reading naked in a park
So keep reading, people. And let me know if you find a good book that belongs in the library!
Have you seen this kind of romance novel? Don’t worry, I’m not judging anyone on their literary or reading preferences.
My “thing” with this type of cover is, that this erotic/sensual nudity is okay while real, non-erotic nudity is entirely off the scale and still considered unacceptable. I doubt I’m the only person with such sentiment.
The world is mad. All over the place, porn and erotic stuff is condemned but at the same time stuff like this, which is nothing but an invitation to something close to it, is fine. Even now, during lock-down times, the porn industry is doing well. Perhaps even better than before.
Those double standards are not good, and we know it. I keep thinking about this, trying to find ways to make nudity more commonplace, but as the world progresses, this seems to be harder and harder.
I know why, of course. People are struggling to make ends meet in many places. They work long hours (which has a reason – if a government makes people work just long enough, they’re too tired to think at the end of the day, which makes the people ‘safe’. They don’t want to ‘think’ anymore, just slump on the couch and watch TV while eating their microwave dinner).
But even on the couch you can be naked, right? It’s my preferred way to be if I can’t go for a nude walk.
Why is it that all the media promote hidden, ‘naughty’ nudity over the real and genuine thing? Probably because there’s money in naughty (see porn industry). People who wear no clothes spend no money on clothes. It’s all the same thing, all over again.
Sometimes it’s disheartening to see what we’re up against.
I keep being surprised by the hypocrisy of the clothed world. Really, sometimes I think I’ve seen and heard it all, but the clothed world keeps proving me wrong.
Take the image up here. Apparently it’s just fine. Nothing wrong with it.
Just a very young face with very big eyes. A happy, loving face. Cute, because big eyes are a sign of the very young (as in babies etc.)
A bit lower: quite a “rack”. Yes, rather large breasts for such a young face. Of course, “it’s just a drawing, what are you making a fuss about?”.
Well… considering the fact that clothed people are making quite the row over nude swims where children are present…
…this is something that’s so adverse to this all.
The people who condone drawings like that feel, to me (do note that), like child molesters without the guts (which is good). Why else would they like images of young girls with huge breasts? Is there something repressed inside those people?
Nudists who like to swim in the nude (hey, where does nudist come from?) with their children are the pedophiles, while people who (I think) have this subconscious craving for images like the one at the very top are the normal ones.
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.
It’s weird, but Christmas is almost upon us. Despite COVID-19 and all the misery it brought us.
How are you all going to get through the holidays as they approach? Are you giving in, as usual, to have a clothed festive season? Are you the lucky one who’s always had the opportunity to Ho-Ho-Ho in the nude?
So much is different now, and this isn’t different.
My Christmas will be quite a lot of the usual. A quiet day, as naked as possible at home, and dinner at my sister’s place. That will be clothed affair, but that’s okay. It’s once a year and she likes to make ‘a fuss’ of such dinners.
There won’t be a crowd (just her, her daughters and me) so that’s easy as well.
I’ll leave it at this. If you care to share your plans, please do.
On Twitter (where else) there’s been a lot going on about a naturist symbol. Yes, the one you see up here in this post, and at the top of the page.
I’ve seen lots of good designs but this one seems to have ‘won’, and I have to say that I like it. It’s not obtrusive, not sexual (big danger sign) and, for the peace of mind of the puritanical society, it doesn’t even show stylistic nudity. Although you might see a nude person’s but in the blue bump that goes up to the sun. There’s no way to do it right, right?
I hope this symbol will be used everywhere. As logos, icons, as additions to images, like here, and any other way people can come up with. T-shirts? Towels? Flags and banners? Sure, why not. Go for it.
Let creativity reign, folks, and let this symbol tell the world who we really are. Not what the porn idiots try to make us look like by slandering our naturist heritage into their gutters.
Do you like this symbol? If not, what would you suggest? Do you have any ideas?
And let me leave you with another kind of ‘crazy diamond’…
