body freedom – Zjuzdme.org

Be nude. It’s better.

Disclaimer: which follows is my opinion, as this is my blog. Feel free to disagree.

Paul in the woods — Note: older picture, same me.

When the winter is upon us, and also autumn and spring, I tend to put some clothes on. Yes, I’m not a hardcore naturist who’s nude as much as possible, no matter what. As I’ve stated more often, I never graduated the Polar Bear training, and that’s okay with me.

When I wear stuff, I wear things that is as loose and light as possible, because garments that squeeze, press, constrict and are unpleasant in other ways, should be abolished all over. Those things are, in my opinion, bad for a body in more than one way.

Despite the ‘lightness’ of the clothes I mentioned, I keep coming back to the feeling that nude is better. This tell me, for one, that I live in the wrong place. I should be in a place where it’s warm enough, year round, to be naked. It also tells me that clothes design is wrong. No matter how loose clothes are (as far as I have experienced, at least), nothing comes even close to the “freedom to move” as the naked body. Now, I can imagine something of fabric around me that is as free as being naked, but that gives me scary flashes of carrying a tent around me.

Something like this on the left, perhaps. In case this gives you nightmares: you’re welcome. Always ready to help improve your life’s experiences! LOL! (And if this is not bad enough, imagine the whole thing going down to your ankles!

And now I ponder this contraption, I think this might actually work for going nude outside. Wear that thing, with a kind of gauze or other fuzzy fabric/curtain around it, with ample space to look around, and you can be all the naked you want, while wearing it outside. I mean, if burka’s and hajibs are acceptable, this should be fine too, right? And these things can come in a multitude of hip colours and prints too!

I probably digress into all directions at the same time. That’s how my brain works.

Point is, that naked will always be better. It’s how we’re born, and the best reason to put on clothes are environmental influences. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

(Yes, this is country&western. Don’t click if you’re allergic to it.)

Everyone has a body

“Everyone has a body. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have one.”

I heard this in a podcast from the Dutch naturist federation NFN.

It was a fascinating listen (link to podcast, make sure you understand Dutch) and when the above sentence came by, I laughed out loud. That made several people turn their heads, as I was out on a walk while listening.

The lady that was interviewed, Roos Schlikker , was very funny in her expressions.

The talk covered many different topics, ranging from being naked at home, visiting nude beaches and resorts, and going to nude saunas (there are saunas with specific ‘bathing suit only’ days here in the Netherlands).

Advertising was also a topic they talked about. They mentioned an advertising campaign from a soap and shower-gel company that had a television ad with a naked woman in it, and no one batted an eye:

Here is a similar clip, in French

A TV ad like this is absolutely impossible these days. I think this is a sad thing.

Because everyone has a body. It will not “live up to the expectations” that the beauty industry imposes on us (as I have talked about many times before e.g. [1] [2] [3]).

Something Roos Schlikker said in the podcast was that she had no qualms about walking around nude in her house. “If the neighbours see me, so what? They will look once and that’s it.”

And I agree with that. If people see me naked, I don’t care. So many already did, and many more will follow. If they don’t want to see me, they should look at something (or someone) else.

Another thing happened on twitter “just now” (as I compose this tweet).

Someone shared a tweet stating he would post more ‘shirtless selfies’. Someone responded with the words: “Just go ahead. I won’t. I don’t have the body for that.”

I had to jump onto that and sent him: “As long as you have a body, you can do it. All you need is no shirt.”

Because everyone has a body.

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.

Letting it all hang out

That is what naturists do.

And we’re good at it.

No need to pretend we’re prettier than we are, because we bare all, show all. And if ‘stuff’ hangs down, we let it hang the way stuff tends to do.

The past months of mostly working from home have often shown me time and again (as in made me feel) that being clothes-free (not having the body-prison around) is awesome. I knew this. I have known this for a long time. But being aware of that, again, is fantastic, I think.

Getting a job done is great. Doing it without clothes is better. We all know that. Nothing presses against you, nothing ties off the blood flow.

Just because we can let it all hang out.

When I had the idea for this post, I also thought of animals. They don’t do clothes. They let it all hang out as well, and they’re none the worse off for it. For them it’s normal. As it is for us.

I pity the people who are so used to being locked into their fabric prisons that the thought of getting out scares them.

A naturist’s view on nipples.

Nipples. The dangerous body parts.

Karate

Nipples are difficult and dangerous, or so it seems. Even more so than skilled karate hands and tae-kwon-do feet.

blurred nipples Nipples – let me rephrase that – female nipples are so dangerous that they need to be blurred on ‘regular’ television and in most media.

What is wrong with them?

Recently I listened to a podcast of the Naturist Living Show about breasts and nipples. The things I heard there were astounding…

In that show Stéphane talked about a plastic surgeon that corrected breasts, either to enlarge them or to make them smaller, but also how a woman was changed into a man. The odd thing, he said, was that – when the patient was still a woman, her nipples were blurred. After the procedure of removing the male chest breast tissue was completed (note that this was still the same person but now considered a man), the nipples were shown on television without any form of censorship. The very same nipples! Talk about hypocrisy…

Free the nipple.

It’s because of this idiocy (the only word that fits the bill) that I support movements like Free the Nipple.

Everyone has a body. A body is natural. Why should specific, tiny parts of the female body be regarded as dangerous, illegal, immoral or otherwise be put in a bad light?

Free the nipple. Free the body. Every body.