A Revelation about Nudists

I just read a remarkable blog article by one Felicity Jones that describes the kind of insanity that is prevalent in many nudist resorts, particularly those in the US, the land where, it has sometimes been said (although I seriously doubt its accuracy), puritanism and rank hypocrisy historically proliferate.

If you read the comments that follow that blog post, you will be horrified to see the extent of the insanity. One man reached for his phone to make a phone call in a nudist resort and a woman came running to him and yelling hysterically that that was against the rules. She was afraid he would take a photo of her.

This is one area where I have gone into serious disputes with many closet nudists and if you have followed my blog and other blogs too, you will know that there is often outpourings of feverish vitriol and spite from the closet nudists who positively hate me for treating my naked body as natural and decent. One of them who goes by the misnomer ‘all-nudist’ even commented once that I ‘splashed my blog’ with my nude photos. Naturally, he wouldn’t have said that if I had posted clothed photos of myself. What does that tell you? These closet nudists are advocating precisely what the textile world has been advocating all this while.

Why is there this divide between nudists? The answer is simple. Not all nudists are TRULY prepared to accept that the naked human body is natural, decent and not something we ought to be ashamed of. But these closet nudists (as I call them) are not prepared to state openly their obvious worldview. That is why I say repeatedly that they are hypocritical. But some of them honestly believe they are nudists.

Let’s examine their mindset more closely. Why do they think of themselves as nudists when they are so uptight about nudity that they get upset when someone reaches out for a phone in a nudist place? A better question is if they are so worried about being photographed or being identified as nudists, why do they bother to go to a nudist resort in the first place?

I have turned this over my mind for a long time and I think I have stumbled upon the correct answer that has been eluding me all this while. Some of these people (I’m not saying all of them – it’s very hard to know a person’s true intent and so I can only speak of the hypothetical ‘nudist’ which by no means is applicable to any one person in reality) have a warped, perverted and twisted picture of nudity that is not in line with true nudist philosophy. Please hear me out.

I have been asked many times if I felt ‘pleasure’ from being naked. Most nudists expect an affirmative answer and they will talk about how ‘pleasurable’ nudity is. I have sometimes replied in the affirmative but I think my answer is miles different from theirs. To me, nudity is more ‘pleasant’ than ‘pleasurable’. I honestly don’t find nudity pleasurable – it’s just natural and pleasant. I prefer to be naked because I don’t like the encumbrance of clothing. I prefer to be naked because I rebel against the worldview that the body is obscene. I prefer to be naked because I do not see why I should be clothed. I also prefer to be naked because of the freedom it affords as opposed to the restrictions of clothing – I can get wet or dirty without the trouble of having to send my clothes to the laundry. And I feel a sense of closeness to nature when I can feel the breeze and the heat of the sun more keenly and not having clothes to shield me from the elements.

I suspect that many of the people who go to nudist resorts but who are morbidly afraid of being photographed or identified are there for the wrong reasons. Obviously, they don’t even want to be identified as naturists; they desire anonymity. Why do they go then? The answer is obvious. Some of them derive some perverted gratification from being naked. The fact that they still view nudity as sexual can be seen from statements like ‘He plasters his nude pics all over his blog.’  They view nudity as sexual and hence they take objection to what they consider an overly sexual blog. These people go to nudist places to experience ‘pleasure’. I would expand that further and say they seek sexual gratification through nudity because in their perverted sexuality, they (like the textile world) still view nudity as, at least,  mildly sexual.

Once, in the university hostel where I was at, my roommate who had thought of me as eccentric because I always slept naked, told me he’d try to sleep naked. The next morning, he told me he couldn’t sleep at all because he was assailed by sexual thoughts. At that time, I thought he was a pervert but now, I understand that all textile folks feel the same way. Nudity is sexual to them. Being naked is a sexual activity for them.

And it’s the same with some of these self-styled ‘naturists’ – they view nudity as sexual and they enjoy being naked in nudist places for this reason which is clearly at odds with true naturism. That explains perfectly well why they are so afraid of cameras or phones being used wherever they appear naked. To them, nudity is a sexual experience and their objection to photos is on the same footing as my objection to photos when I’m having sex. In other words, these people are no different from the textile folks. They are nothing more than textile folks who participate in naturist activities to achieve sexual gratification. Hence the importance of anonymity. If I treated nudity this way, I would certainly want to be anonymous and I’d hide my face in all my nude photos for sure.

Like Buddha seated under a bo tree, I suddenly achieved this enlightenment as I read the comments in Felicity Jones’ admirable blog post. There are, broadly speaking, three different groups of naturists.

The first are true naturists. We do NOT at all view nudity as sexual. We honestly view it as natural, decent and wholesome. We treat our own nude photos no differently as we treat our clothed photos except that we observe the law of the land and we may not post our nude photos on Facebook because we don’t want to get banned. But we are not ashamed of our nudity. We are honest and sincere when we say nudity is natural. We do not hide our naturism from our family, friends, professional colleagues, church, etc.

The second group consists also of true nudists. But they may have problems with the law or their own families. I know of a nudist who lives in Saudi Arabia. If he’s found to be a nudist, he’ll probably be stoned to death. His family will openly denounce him to the authorities and so, naturally, secrecy is important. I also know of another nudist who is unable to reveal his nudism to his wife who will give him hell and rope in his own family who will also give him hell. For cultural reasons, he is unable to be open about who he is. Although my advice is always to be open with one’s spouse and family, it’s not for me to say anything here. He knows his own wife and family better. These are sad cases of nudists who are trapped in their culture and repressive countries.

The third group is where we see the hypocrites and perverts. This group consists of people who openly declare how natural and decent nudity is but they are quick to object to phones and cameras being used when they are nude because nudism is their closely guarded secret. Some of them have a perverted understanding of nudity and sex. They derive sexual gratification from being nude and because going naked alone is a form of sexual activity for them, all cameras and phones must be banned.

When nudist resorts ban cameras and phones, they are really pandering to this subgroup within the third group of nudists. They are encouraging people to view nudity not as natural but as a form of sexual activity that can bring about sexual gratification and hence, photography would be a gross invasion of privacy.

As a rule, I do not step into any place that rules out the camera and phone. These places can pander to perverts for all I care. But next summer, I’m joining a group of European naturists to hike up the Alps in the nude. The leader of the group has made it very clear that cameras and photographs are encouraged. Not only are they encouraged, we are encouraged to post the photos in our blogs and on nudist forums. That is the kind of honest and sincere naturism that I like. We who truly believe that nudity is natural must show the fruits of our belief. If posting your own nude photos is such a painful thing, just be honest and tell the world you really aren’t nudists – you may be hypocrites or worse, perverts, but you certainly aren’t nudists.

WHAT IS A NATURIST?

There’s been a great deal of bickering among people who call themselves naturists and it’s about time we take a good look at what exactly it is a naturist has to be.

A naturist is simply described by the Oxford English Dictionary (the 20-volume dictionary which is the final arbiter on the English language – you can discard your Wesbster, please) as ‘a person who practises nudism’ and ‘nudism’ is in turn defined as ‘the practice of going unclothed’. That is a bad definition because it defines a nudist from the non-nudist’s point of view, ie, what the non-nudist sees of the nudist which is he’s one who goes about unclothed.

Most naturists would agree that a more correct definition has to go into the thought behind the mere act of ‘going about unclothed’. I would define a nudist or a naturist as one who accepts the decency and wholesomeness of the human body and who does not subscribe to the warped worldview that the naked human body is evil or obscene or indecent or in any way capable of corrupting innocent minds. A nudist does not view his nude body as shameful or in any way more ‘private’ than his clothed body.

I believe the above definition must be acceptable to most, if not all, nudists.

In this post, I will refrain from making any mention of anybody else apart from myself. I’ll focus on the beam that is in my own eye rather than the mote (or speck, depending on your translation) that is in another’s eye.

A PERSONAL TESTIMONY

Nudity has always been quite natural for me since my childhood. My dad was quite often openly naked at home and I didn’t think nudity was anything bad or sexual. I have slept naked for most of my life. I have also, for a long time, had trouble with the concept that the human body had to be covered. I would ask who it was who ruled that we had to cover only certain areas of the body.

But for a long time, although I was philosophically in line with naturism, I was ashamed of my nudity. I would never have dared to have a nude pic of me taken, far less post it on the internet. When someone in the church prayer group which I was a part of spoke about nudists disparagingly, I defended them from a ‘rational standpoint’ without admitting that I was at heart a naturist. I did not even consider myself a naturist. How could I? I was obviously ashamed of my own nudity and I was unwilling to let others know I was in favour of naturism. I was as closet a nudist as one could get.

It was only in January 2013 when I went into nudist forums for the first time in my life. Two of the forums were specifically tailored for Asians, principally those in my country and a neighbouring country. These two countries are easily among the most repressed as far as nudism goes. But there were a few prominent members in the forums whose sincerity and honesty in forwarding the naturist cause appealed to me.

It has always been in my nature to hate and despise loud and strident hypocrites. In my culture, it will not do for someone to talk about something openly and encourage others to do it whatever it may be but in reality, he himself is averse to doing it. There are many stories in the period of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China about villains who tell others to go to war but are themselves cowards who absent themselves when it was time for battle. Cowards and traitors are traditionally held in contempt and there are parts of China where the stone statues of these villains are erected and you will see many visitors especially those of Chinese descent spitting on these stone figures even to this day.

Throughout the duration when I was too ashamed to expose myself to the world, I naturally did not consider myself a nudist. To do so would be hypocritical. But in January 2013, when I first joined the Asian naturist forums, I knew I had to take a firm decision. If I was still ashamed of my nudity, I should be honest and leave the forums and consider myself a confirmed member of the textile community. If I chose to be a naturist, I should be open about it and honestly let everyone know the truth about me. But I naturally baulked at this. What would my wife and children say? What would my relations say? In my community, none of us has met even a single nudist. We’ve only read about them in the papers. Nudity is condemned by Confucius as shameful and ‘animalistic’. In Confucian ethics, feeling shame for one’s nudity is considered an integral part of humanity. Confucius would point out that only animals had no shame when naked. And what about the strictly anti-nudity law in the region I live in? What will my friends say? The people in my professional body? Most of all, what will my conservative church community think? I do not know a single person in my extended circle of relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who is even remotely partial to naturism.

But I’m always one to be sincere in coming to a decision. It took me only one day to decide. The next day, I posted photos of me online. These are of course photos that reveal my face clearly. As anyone who knows me should know, I do not hide my face. I believe only criminals do that.

The next thing I did was to tell everyone. And I mean everyone. I felt it would be dishonest to live a life of lies and deceit. I know many closet nudists don’t tell their families, church and professional friends. I pass no judgment on these people who are lovely people. These are personal things and it’s for them to decide on their own. I’m only talking about myself here. For me, I can’t live a life of secrecy. So I decided to tell EVERYONE.

The first thing I did was of course to discuss the matter with my wife and kids. But my wife had no problem with it. She said she had always known me to be a naturist anyway. My kids were of course quite accepting of naturism. They couldn’t see why the human body had to be sexual in the first place. And then I had to tell everyone else. That’s a lot of people.

And of course it’s not easy. I couldn’t possibly contact each and every person I knew. So I came up with an excellent plan. As it so happened, a few months after I could legitimately consider myself a naturist, there was a gathering organised by the Taiwan Naturist Association. I went to the gathering.

And I took lots of pics, ie selfies. And when I came home, I posted my photos on Facebook. That way, ALL my friends and relatives could see – it’s the easiest way to tell EVERYONE with just a few clicks of the keyboard that I was a naturist. And nobody will think I was just joking, as I was wont to do.

For  a while, there was quite a storm of protest. Some church friends avoided my eyes but they were not unfriendly. I think they were just embarrassed. Some closer friends asked if my wife was getting a divorce. Don’t forget – I live in an exceptionally conservative society. So I took it upon myself to initiate a conversation about what naturism really meant whenever I met people who were too shy to talk about it. It became clear to me that my church friends thought I had gone for an orgy in Taiwan!!! In some of the photos, I was seen standing next to a woman and immediately they thought we were having sex. That’s how warped the textile world can be. I told them the woman’s husband was the one who took the pic.

Thankfully, I have a very understanding wife. I showed her all the photos. There was one photo in which I appeared to be riding a motorcycle and a naked woman posed on the seat behind me. My wife very cleverly called it my “Fonz” photo, if you remember the guy from the old comedy “Happy Days” who would ride motorbikes with scantily dressed ladies riding pillion. I showed some of my church friends my Fonz photo and told them it was my wife’s favourite.

Most people know what a sensible woman my wife is. They may think I was capable of a bit of eccentricity but everyone regarded my wife to be as straight-laced as the incarnation of virtue itself. If my wife could make a joke about such a photo, they figured it was impossible that I had done anything immoral. As you know, church folks are always very concerned about immorality. Last year, when I took my son to a nudist beach, that of course confirmed, at least in their minds, that there was no hanky-panky in my naturist holidays.

A lady I knew told me that the one thing that convinced her that my naturism was decent and non-sexual was the photos. I’ve mentioned this before. Nothing speaks more than an honest sincere photo. That’s why photos are important to me. They are the best tool for the promotion of nudism. Conversely, photos with faces blotted out are, in an insidious way, harmful to naturism. It tells the world that nudity is embarrassing even for a supposed nudist.

I do try to inform people that I’m a naturist in many creative ways. Recently, I met a lot of my relations at my aunt’s funeral wake in church. When distant cousins and aunts asked what I’d been doing, I took the opportunity to tell them that I had just returned from a nudist gathering. Of course they demanded a fuller explanation and I took the opportunity to ‘preach’ naturism, for want of a better term.

Since January 2013, I have posted hundreds of naturist photos of myself online.  Similarly, I have posted hundreds of my clothed photos too. As I have said, it’s not obligatory to post photos. Some people just don’t. But I am famous for taking selfies (I do it even in church with me clothed of course) and I’m well known for posting them online. It would be suspicious, surely, if I post many photos of myself clothed but I refuse to post photos of myself naked. It MUST mean that I’m either ashamed of my own nudity or I don’t view my nude pics in the same way as my clothed pics. Then, how natural is nudity to me? Surely it can’t be all that natural? This is something people must come to terms with, the same way I came to terms with it on that day in January 2013 before I took a firm decision that I have never wavered from.

Do I regret my decision to be open, honest and sincere about my naturism? It’s impossible to regret honesty and sincerity. Let me ask a different question then. Do I regret taking the decision to be an open naturist instead of joining the textile world? In other words, are there repercussions from my decision to be openly honest.

Bear in mind that I live in a super-conservative country with a very strict anti-nudity law. Nobody would even dare to suggest having a specially designated nudist beach. The person would be immediately accused of propagating immorality and threatening societal peace. It’s as serious as that. And unlike in some other countries in the West, there is no nudist church or nudist Christian group or any nudist group for that matter. So, understandably, the church would probably not tolerate nudism.

REPERCUSSIONS I FACE

None. Absolutely none. Apart from the initial uproar when people equated naturism with an orgy, there has been no repercussion or negative impact from my open naturism. When the Penang Nude Games case happened last year that resulted in police arrests, prosecution and imprisonment, I was in Europe. Friends immediately wrote to me to ask if I was implicated. But I was not. I have confined my naturist activities to legal ones only. All the photos I post of myself are legal photos – taken either in a private place such as my own home or at a nudist resort or nudist beach in a foreign country of course. There can be no legal nudist resort or beach in my country.

One of the reasons why people around me seem to support my naturism is the sincerity they see when I practise nudism. I think people would be quite miffed if the only time they knew I was a nudist was when they chanced upon that fact on the internet. Most people prefer folks who are open, honest and sincere. As it happens I’m a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. I don’t say something but mean something else. I hate all kinds of deception and hypocrisy.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

So, what’s my conclusion? That every nudist should do what I do? Of course not. This is a personal decision that only the nudist himself should take on his own.

Because I live in such a repressive and conservative society with a draconian anti-nudity law, quite a few of the naturists I know from my country and the neighbouring country are naturally closet nudists. Since the Penang Nude Games case that fractured further this already fragile and tiny nudist community, the situation is much worse for naturism. I have never encouraged any of these people to do what I do. I may tell them my personal story and that’s that.

As I have said, I have nothing against closet nudists. Many nudists I know in my country are in the closet. But they aren’t the loud hypocritical closet nudists that I take exception to. Closet nudists in repressive countries with stringent laws tend to be quite decent people. They don’t post regular exhortations to other nudists not to be ashamed of their bodies, etc. They don’t openly post OTHER nudists’ photos but blot out their faces when they post their own photos. These decent closet nudists just don’t post photos and that’s perfectly legitimate and honourable.

The bottomline is it’s for the individual to decide whether they want to be in the closet or to be out in the open. But it’s not wrong for me to say that hypocrisy and insincerity are disgraceful traits which everyone, both the textile and the naturist, should get rid of.

Solidarité avec Paris !

May the blessings of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost be upon France and the brave people of France.
Article photo par @NuEtHeureux.

Source: Solidarité avec Paris !

The Plot Thickens

You will remember the little disagreement I had with the cloptzone blogger. Click here to refresh your memory.

A mere correction of the cloptzone blogger’s atrocious grammar that effectively turned his meme into an anti-naturist slogan (which is, let me add, against his intention) is now being construed as something sinister.

I thought my blog post was clear enough. But from the tumblr post below by a nudist from Arizona, it would appear that quite a few people fail to understand the purport of my post.

Just to recapitulate, the cloptzone blogger posted a meme that was grammatically incorrect so that its meaning was anti-nudist, which wasn’t his intention. My post (see the link above) pointed out the error and I explained the grammar behind the error and I also gave an illustration in which I used Angela Merkel’s name rather irreverently, I’m ashamed to say.

That’s all.

Anyway, this nudist from Arizona posted this on tumblr. I reblogged it and gave my explanation on why he is wrong. My explanation appears in the second half of the attachment below.

Unfortunately for me, brevity is not one of my many virtues. I’m only kidding so please don’t start another blog post that goes, ‘Lim is a boastful man. He claims to have many virtues.’ My explanation of why his post was wrong is even longer than his post. But long-windedness isn’t a crime. And if you look at what I write, I’m usually ‘long-winded’ for a purpose. I want to make sure every point is addressed. This is needful in the profession I was trained for and it spills over to my private life as well.

But many people just don’t read what I say if they think it’s too long. They form the wrong opinion of me and the tumblr post below illustrates this perfectly. The writer seems clueless about my ‘argument on grammar’ and he says he’ll leave that unaddressed. But that’s the crux of my post. My post was ALL about cloptzone’s ungrammatical meme. If you leave it unaddressed, you leave out my entire post.

But I suppose some people (the cloptzone blogger included) know perfectly well that if they are to address the grammar point that I raised, they’ll have to admit I was right. That’s what some people don’t want to do if their intention is to paint me as a nasty chap. They would rather put words in my mouth and insist I say things I did not say. If that is your agenda, I will let you have your fun. But I know fair-minded people will read my blog post in its entirety (see the link above) before coming to a decision. And I don’t give a flying toss for the opinion of those who aren’t fair-minded.

http://ramblingnaturist.tumblr.com/post/133323282884/when-the-stakes-are-low

MEAN MEME’S MEANING

When I first saw this blog post which consists of only this meme and nothing else (absolutely not a single word more), I was rather disappointed. I had a spat with this same ‘cloptzone’ blogger once. I had remarked that he never posted his own nude photos showing his face although he was always encouraging others not to be ashamed of their nudity and he was not averse to posting OTHER people’s nude pics or pics from the internet and even when he finally wanted to ‘prove’ that he was not ashamed, he posted a black-and-white photo of himself with his face somewhat obscured by some light reflection.

He hit the roof when he read my post and he rebuked me in the comment section in my blog post and I apologised to him for hurting his feelings but I could not in all honesty retract my statement about his hypocrisy. Hypocrisy may mean different things to us but in my books if someone openly claims that nudity is natural and wholesome and not something we should be ashamed of but at the same time, he blots out his face whenever his nude photos are posted online, he IS a hypocrite. I can’t change that epithet. I can only apologise for having caused hurt which I did. If you want to read more about the argument we had, go to my blog post here  which contains links to other posts and you can have a full picture of everything. I don’t believe in hiding anything.

I was eating dinner with my wife and kids when I first saw on my phone the above meme he posted, and my heart sank. Our past disagreement left him all livid and he probably now hates me with all his heart but when I read his meme, I was really quite concerned for him.  Unbeknownst to him, the message in the meme actually says that naturism is ‘not who we are, and it’s not OK’. I actually thought he was giving up naturism because he’s saying that naturism is not OK. I began to blame myself and I thought perhaps I shouldn’t have been so harsh and insensitive with closet nudists because now, here’s one who has given up naturism altogether.

But when I saw that his blog post was liked by our usual wonderful naturist friends and some other naturist bloggers reblogged it, I knew that the cloptzone blogger didn’t mean what he said and it was all just a grammatical error.

Let’s examine what the ‘cloptzone’ blogger says in his meme and why it actually means the total opposite of what he probably intended.

Naturism is not porn. It’s not who we are and it’s not OK.

Grammarians call this error a false antecedent. When you use a pronoun that can govern both the subject and the predicate nominative (the pronoun being ‘it’ in this case), special care must be taken to avoid an ambiguity. The pronoun will usually refer to the subject. It’s easier to illustrate this with an example and I’ll come up with a saucy one:

Angela Merkel is not a prostitute. She dresses provocatively and moves around in a flirtatious way.

The pronoun ‘she’ can normally be applied to either Angela Merkel or the prostitute. But Angela Merkel is the subject in the sentence and ‘prostitute’ is the predicate nominative and in such a sentence, the pronoun refers to the subject, ie Angela Merkel. So if Angela Merkel is furious with you for writing the above, you can’t say that you intended for the pronoun ‘she’ to refer to the prostitute and you have already said Angela Merkel is not a prostitute in the first sentence. Whatever your intention may be, the pronoun refers to the subject and the second sentence above is absolutely wrong, for it maligns Angela Merkel who, as we all know, is a wonderful virtuous woman and a naturist too (if some unconfirmed reports I’ve read of this amazing woman is true).

The example I’ve given is exactly the same as the two sentences in the meme. So the meme is actually saying:

Naturism is not porn. Naturism is not who we are and naturism is not OK.

That is of course the opposite of what the cloptzone blogger intended.

My advice to the cloptzone blogger is to come out of the closet of naturism and everything will correct itself including his grammar. Haha, I’m only kidding. Please don’t be angry with me!!!

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The cloptzone blogger really has no sense of humour. He’s responded to this post with an angry post again. He says I call him a ‘bad example’. That’s a lie. I did no such thing. All I’m doing in this post is to have a little fun with a meme he’s come up with that is ungrammatical and gives the wrong impression. But I don’t think the meme is nasty. I chose the title “Mean Meme’s Meaning” because it’s a tongue twister and it’s alliterative and it’s meant to be humorous. I don’t think his meme is harmful in any way. It’s just amusing because it says the opposite of what he intended. But he can’t see the humour in it and he takes it amiss. I thought the right response for him is to thank me – I’ve taught him how to say things correctly, haven’t I? LOL. Cloptzone, you’ve got to loosen up a bit; it’s not good for your blood pressure if you take things so personally all the time. It’s all right if other bloggers tease you about a meme that is wrongly worded. It’s all in good fun. You have to admit that your meme is wrongly worded and grammatically wrong. You must accept that. I’m not biased when I say it as you allege.

FURTHER NOTE:

Folks, I just discovered that that the person who blogs by the misleading name of all-nudist has entered the fray with his jaundiced view. I will be writing a new post soon about him. With the support of ample evidence, I will show that (1) he’s a liar; (2) he has a warped and pernicious view of naturism which will work against the very cause of naturism; and (3) his arrogant attitude towards other naturist groups is inimical to the cause of naturism.

I haven’t the time to write my new post yet. But I will just dismiss him as a liar quite easily. In his comment in the cloptzone blogger’s post, he said I became distressed after seeing the words ‘Nudism isn’t porn’ and he concluded that I had a twisted view of naturism, implying of course in his sly and dishonest way that I equated naturism to porn which is of course a dastardly lie. Read the above post. I didn’t say that at all. Either this man has turned senile or he’s a liar. I said the meme was so badly worded that it gave the impression that nudism is ‘not OK’. The comment of that all-nudist blogger exposes what I have all along suspected about him. He’s blatantly dishonest. Read the above blog post for yourself and see if you do not agree that this all-nudist blogger is a pathological liar. I will deal more with this wolf in sheep’s clothing soon. There is more about him that ought to be exposed and why I’m convinced he’s harmful to the nudist cause.  I will do so within the next few days when I can find the time. And I’ll give a link here.
Till then, cheerio!!!

Why Nude Photos are Important to Naturism

Excellent post. I entirely agree with the message in this post. This is precisely what I’ve been saying for a long time but the loud closet nudist lobby tried to drown me out. That’s what I’ve been doing in my blogs – posting pics of me doing normal everyday things in a naturist setting. I’ve been saying in my blogs that it’s only when naturists post our pics that the textile world can see how decent our pics are and they will stop associating nudity with sex. Closet nudists who are camera shy or worse, if they hide their faces in pics will only send the wrong message to the world – that they are ashamed of their nudity and surely something must be wrong with it. As I have said repeatedly, we nudists must walk the talk.

Asian American Naturist

This is an example of who we are. There is no shame, lust, or degradation.

Imagine if you will that this blog wasn’t about naturism, but about camping and backpacking.  In my theoretical camping blog I’d write about my travels, offer advice, discuss issues within the camping/backpacking community, and show you pictures of my trips.   No one would get upset about pictures of Yosemite or the Grand Canyon.  But in reality my blog isn’t about camping, but nude recreation and the naturist lifestyle.

Since its early days, naturism has been portraying the nude human body in photography.  In fact, it was nudist magazines that set the legal precedent for nude images to be published.  Up until 1958, it was illegal for nudist magazines to be mailed by the U.S. Postal Service. In SUNSHINE BOOK COMPANY v. SUMMERFIELD, The U.S. District Court of Columbia ruled that nudist magazines could…

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A Matter of Taste

In my last post, I mentioned the kind of food I love to eat which isn’t something a cardiologist will recommend. While my taste for food may be a dietician’s nightmare, my taste for drinks isn’t all that bad. I drink mainly milk and the strongest drink is probably tea. I don’t like the taste of coffee or alcohol.

How much of our taste is inherently and innately ours and how much is a product of the environment?

My wife loves the taste of alcohol or so she claims. She doesn’t drink milk at all. And she can drink black coffee which is one beverage I would rather not drink even if I had to die of thirst.

When it comes to food, my wife doesn’t seem to like fried food. I’m the total opposite. I can’t eat anything that’s not fried unless it’s dessert. My taste is simple. As long as it’s fried and greasy, it’s delicious. It won’t surprise me if KFC confers on me the ‘most loyal customer’ award.

But what makes our tastes to differ so much? We all agree that you can’t suddenly love the taste of coffee which is bitter. Or the taste of alcohol which is really quite foul. Or smoking for that matter. I’ve not known of anyone who can honestly say that he enjoyed his first stick of cigarette.

I think it’s a lot to do with culture and our need to conform. There comes a point in our lives when we feel compelled to put away our ‘childish’ taste and to take on what the world perceives to be the domain of adults. Alcohol and cigarettes are good examples. Coffee too. But the young person who first takes a sip of alcohol or a puff of a cigarette does not like it one bit. It’s an acquired taste, which means, you’ve got to keep taking it until you can tolerate it, and over time, grow to love it. In terms of pure taste and nothing else, it’s indisputable that a glass of milk is about a hundred times more delicious than a glass of beer which is really quite bitter.

But most of us feel the need to conform. There was a stage in my life when I too drank alcohol just to be like everyone else. We all go through that phase. We don’t like it but we keep drinking it until we acquire a taste for it.

But I soon realised it was silly. Today, I drink what I like and I eat what I like. But like what my Mum says, my tastes would naturally make me a good Mormon. But I’m not sure if the Mormons accept a nudist.