Most of us are quite clear in our mission. We are going to #normalizenudity and bring naturism into the mainstream consciousness by posting everyday people doing everyday things – naked – on everyday social media platforms so that simple nudity becomes more commonplace, and thereby, acceptable amidst society-at-large.
How’s that going… exactly?
And by the way, I’m hoping readers will participate in this discussion by either commenting here on the blog, or on… ahem… social media.
I recently took the plunge back into the Instagram-Facebook shark-infested waters after my previous IG account (@naturistdan) was deleted about six months ago, along with some 14,000 followers. As most of these stories go, I was never able to identify exactly what got me in trouble on IG, nor was I able to elicit anything more than an automated response from the Zuckerberg corporate gods. That said, a slew of trolls on other platforms stepped forward with offers to help me recapture my account, starting at a price tag of about $100, to be sent to an anonymous account with a bona fide guarantee of “I can help you fix it!” I didn’t take the bait.
A few weeks ago, we took to the roads (and the skies) again to resume our naturist travels as the grips of the pandemic have started to ease, along with reduced restrictions at international borders, so I thought I’d take another crack at it. (You can find our new IG account here, in case you’re interested.) Don’t know that I’ll garner a following like my previous one, as internet naturism enjoyed something of a boon while we were all sheltering in place. Virtual Nakation was better than no nakation at all, and even travel writers from major publications like CNN, The New York Times, and Forbes were getting serious mileage with essays about the virtues of naturism at home and abroad. It was fun to watch our blog and social media numbers spike as I imagined hundreds of thousands of sequestered people sitting in front of their screens all aglow, making pledges like, “As soon as this freaking pandemic is over, I’m going to throw off all my clothes, run naked into the streets, and I’m not gonna stop until I’m up to my waist in the ocean 100 kilometers down the road.” In that regard, the pandemic was good for naturist dreamers.
It remains to be seen whether COVID-19 and all its variants are actually nearing containment or not, but one thing’s for sure: It’s becoming increasingly difficult to contain humans who have grown exhausted by solitary confinement. All over the world, most places where social nudity is allowed and encouraged have opened up again, and people who are truly curious about experiencing social nudity are either getting out there to give it a whirl, or conceding that it was only a delusional whim, and it’s time to squeeze back in that ill-fitted swimsuit and purchase a beach badge for the Jersey Shore.
In the meantime, I’m back on Instagram. This time, trying to focus specifically on creating a travelogue of location reports in hopes that readers will discover a naked place they weren’t aware of, perhaps one closer to their home than they might have even imagined. Additionally, when we visit a naked place where we think the proprietors have figured out the naturist hospitality thing particularly well, we’re eager to do what we can to help promote that place under the banner that all boats rise when the tides of holistic social nudity gain acceptance in the mainstream, textile web-o-sphere.
I’m frequently reminded that Twitter is one of the only mainstream venues that is, at least, somewhat tolerant about posting nudity, though Naked Earthlings, a popular blogger with a devoted following, just got booted from that platform for featuring nudity in their profile pic. (This is explicitly forbidden by Twitter, though they don’t seem to have a problem with highly eroticized, scantily clad women in a profile pic with a username like @xxxcumwithme. (I just made that user name up – I’m afraid to check and see if the account actually exists.) I’m sure I’ll hear from reddit fans about all the possibilities there, but I’ve found that even simple interactions on that board can become strangely contentious and argumentative, even in response to a simple trip report. And if you’re simply feeling grumpy and seeking companionship on that front, you can read a previous post about the “devolution” of Tumblr, where I have an account that has been left to wither and die. [SEE: A Eulogy for Nudity on Tumblr]
So that’s my long, rambling, wine-induced if not outright whiney set up to the question of the day. “FOR THOSE OF US WHO CONTINUE TO UTITLIZE MAINSTREAM CHANNELS OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN AN EFFORT TO NORMALIZE NUDITY, IS IT ACTUALLY DOING ANY GOOD?”
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve enjoyed the sense of community that has emerged over the Twitter airwaves with people who appear to be genuinely invested in the virtues of holistic social nudity, and similarly, I’ve enjoyed my interactions with several people I’ve met there. But is that still not simply preaching to the choir? Attempting to convert the converted?
I’ve also been experimenting with a few other channels where naturist banter does not typically take place, with a renewed effort to post TripAdvisor reviews about naturist places, post appropriately brief comments (along with a few choice pics) in the comment section of Google maps, (along with a comprehensive Naked Places index,) and most recently, establish a presence as The Meandering Naturist on a Wikiloc account, which is a trail guide that is widely utilized in Europe. (Seems I’ve picked up a couple new blog followers from the latter, which I take as a good sign.) I think it’s important to note that in each of those forums, the objective is not to identify naked people who enjoy travel and good food, but more accurately, to engage travelers and foodies who are not immediately put-off by the concept of casual (non-sexual) nudity.
What’s more, I remain intrigued with developing a presence on Medium, yet another platform that, as far as I can tell, seeks to encourage people who enjoy writing in a decidedly subjective manner, and all the better if your essay has a narrative quality about it that creates a sense of empathy amidst your readers. That, to me, seems like a perfect platform for advocating for social nudity, as you’re likely to find the aforementioned audience that wasn’t intending to stumble into a naturist community, but instead, was searching for something else when they found a piece that caused them to deduce, “Maybe those naked people aren’t nuts after all!” [SEE: Doing the Naked Macarena]
Maybe the objective here is not to #normalizenudity, but instead, to demystify (or decriminalize, even?) those people who already think nudity is normal. Those of us who’ve been at this for a while know that the demographics of the naturist community are remarkably reflective of the cross-section of humans you’re likely to meet at a grocery store, a (textile) waterpark, or on a commuter train from New Jersey to New York. If there is a case to be made, maybe it’s not for the normalizing of social nudity. It’s pretty likely that everybody knows a “normal person” who enjoys social nudity, and the only abnormal part of the entire equation are the societal mores that would cause someone to even think that social nudity is… well… abnormal.
Enough of all that. I need to get back to posting to my IG account so my naked friends will know I’m a real naturist. But in the meantime, maybe a few #normlaizingtextiles folks will stumble into my TripAdvisor or Wikiloc account and decide to visit a clothing-optional B&B in Spain, just to give it a whirl.
That would be a win!
Best way to tell if it’s “worth it’ is to see how many earnest naturists have joined. The noise of all the naysayers and critics who are just talking out of their textile butts tend to drown out the real voices, but don’t let them.
And of course, encourage filmmakers like myself to tell real stories. A few lines in a tweet or a blog isn’t enough.
Fair enough. But what’s the real story? Seems we’ll have gotten someplace when being a naturist is not, by itself, a story anymore than being a windsurfer is a story. The leading character might be a windsurfer, or a naturist, but unless it’s a documentary, that’s not a story.
I would love your feedback on this as I’ve given this a lot of thought in attempting to fold naturism into “our stories” about experiencing the world through travel. I’m never quite sure what to say after I get to, “We went to the beach, took out clothes off, and read a book.” Hardly a page-turner! 😂
Very relatable and a good read as always! I chuckled at the Reddit bit — we are active there, but have had a very similar experience. We try to keep spreading the good word regardless, though I need to learn when to disengage sometimes.
In general, we’ve been doing the social media naturist stuff for a much shorter period of time than you have, but we would like to think there is still hope. Expectations of nudity becoming the norm in society as a whole? Unfortunately that’s probably not going to happen. That said, we’ve questioned our goals with this endeavor and have revised our non-existent business plan a few times already, but at the core of it we are sharing our story and our journey in hopes that it helps to provide insight or inspiration to others. Whether it’s “worth it” or actually having an impact will differ from person to person and situation to situation… but in general we figure “why not?”
The one thing I am especially conscious of is attempting to avoid this becoming a chore or an obligation, because then that quickly leads to resentment. Naturism has been a tremendous lifeline, stress reliever, and overall escape from everything else for us. While I tend to want to evangelize anything that I’m passionate about, I don’t want to get so caught up in its promotion that I lose sight of the underlying purpose, experience, and joyous euphoria provided by practicing simple social nudity.
Really well said… especially the last part, which I also find to be something of a conundrum at times…
Like everything else in life, the more deeply you get involved, the more difficult it becomes to check your emotions at the door. Even in writing a review, we want to be encouraging, and give the benefit of the doubt even if our experience was less than ideal. But that can become a credibility issue as well, as creating unrealistic expectations for a follower will likely lead to disillusion or dissatisfaction in the end. Not every experience, especially when traveling, will be euphoric. But it may well have been worthwhile for myriad other reasons.
To that end, a social media feed that is simply an endless thread of glib memes of encouragement, while the intention is an expression of that joyous euphoria, may fall short of making the case to the skeptics.
I’m very much intrigued with the psychology of positive persuasive, and what it is that actually causes someone to reconsider a previously held “truth.” Selling the virtues of social nudity is a very interesting case study for that cause. 🤔
99% of all nudist social media is only consumed by other nudists. I suppose it keeps up morale of the true believers but does nothing to advance the cause.
If you really want to “normalize” something, you have to preach to the Great Unwashed. Sell just the idea that recreational nudity is a good thing without trying to convert anyone. Free to be you and me, Different is not wrong.
To the extent we are all still in the closet to varying degrees, I am not optimistic this will happen. There’s also the sense of being special and exclusive, which you’d lose if nudity somehow did become more generally accepted. And there’s the people for whom nudism is a hobby, an occasional itch, easily scratched with an occasional weekend at a club or a beach or just the back yard hut tub. They see no need to expand anything.
It would be great to piggyback on a larger movement but I suspect many nudists wouldn’t accept that, either for political reasons or for dogmatic reasons.
I totally agree with you, except for the part where I don’t. 😂
Having visited a truckload of nudist parks in the last couple of years, I can most certainly confirm that there are plenty of places where people would be very happy to be left alone in their exclusive clubs, with no desire to perpetuate social nudity as any sort of a cause beyond their own personal right to imbibe. That becomes the foundation of SO many membership based camps and organizations that make it harder to join than to vote in a primary election. 😬
But given the fact that I hang out with a lot of 20-somethings, I’m intrigued to see what will “trend” in the post COVID era. I think we will see a backlash against the social norms of the last 20 years, but far be it for me to predict as to how that will pertain to perceptions of social nudity. But there is most definitely a sense of pushing back on trying to keep up with the demands of the digital era. It’s all just too much!
I’m not even sure if that’s on topic! 🤪😂 But I guess my point is that I think change is in the air. ☀️
We can only hope.
“99% of all nudist social media is only consumed by other nudists”.
We agree with that, and it creates a dangerous bubble. Being surrounded with likeminded people is great encouragement, but it doesn’t stimulate us to think outside of the box. The #normalizenudity posts on Twitter get hundreds of likes, but how many of those come from non-naturists? And if most come from naturists, how will they ever normalize nudity?
Maybe even more dangerous is the “us against them” idea that those groups tend to create. By spending a lot of time at naturist resorts with “real life naturists”, we’ve learned that most naturists don’t feel like the world is against them, but it’s an idea that’s widely alive in naturist groups online.
We have always tried to make naturism a “light” topic on our blog and social media. To spread the idea that you shouldn’t overthink it, but that it’s just something fun to try. Dan mentions in a previous comment that “the more deeply you get involved, the more difficult it becomes to check your emotions at the door”. True, but we believe in positivity and in spreading a positive message.
With our naturist travel series on YouTube, we’re really trying to break out of the naturist/nudist concept and reach a wider public. If you watch our videos about Spain and Italy, they will be 50% naturist resort related and 50% general travel. More or less. We’re sure that they can be a help for naturists who want to travel to those countries, but we also hope to reach an audience that’s interested in what to visit or eat in Italy but isn’t necessarily naturist. By watching our videos, they’ll find their information, and meanwhile, they will get a glimpse of what a naturist resort looks like and maybe get inspired to visit one of those too. Or at least, get to see that it’s not all that weird or perverse.
Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. Naturist organizations have been trying to normalize nudity by exposing people to full frontal nudity for decades, and it’s not that they have been making such a huge difference. So we think that our idea is well worth a try too 😉
Hahaha… our posts are crossing in cyberspace, but the redux is clear: Mixing naturism in with “textile tourism” has the potential to reach an audience who doesn’t care to subscribe to any “ism,” but is quite likely to visit a spa in Germany or a nude beach in France. In fact, nearly 100% of the people who we’ve successfully introduced to nude recreation entered through one of those doors. That breaks down the stigma, and from there, who knows what.
You’re on to something Naked Wanderings! Run with it! 🤠
And oh… another thing regarding dangerous bubbles…
If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last five years in the United States, it’s that internet bubbles can be very dangerous, indeed, especially given the digital algorithms that keep telling people what they already know and believe. Any opportunity to introduce a concept or ideal to an audience that may hold a different opinion, BUT MAY BE OPEN TO OPINIONS OTHER THAN THEY’RE OWN, can only lead to constructive solutions to difficult societal challenges. Now there’s a concept that I could get behind in regard to ALL social media, not just that pertaining to naturism and social nudity.
Of course it is!
I like to think of an activity itself is what one wites about and the nudity is just part of the background. When every few sentences we get hit by the “ecstatic feeling of sun-drenched nakedness,” well, that may be what some nudists feel but it isn’t going to grab the imagination of textiles. If you were a textile writing about being at a beach, would you constantly remind people of the swimsuit you were wearing and how grand it was?
I can’t guarantee my own blog is advancing the cause a whole lot, though I have had encouraging conversations. I’m more interested in simply getting simple nudity accepted as unremarkable than I am in converting anyone.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with exposure of potentially friendly communities to nonsexual nudity. (There’s a pun in there somewhere!) Every time you see live nude humans in a public context, it loses a bit of the shock value. But it isn’t nudists who populate the World Naked Bike Rides and the number who participate in the Bay to Breakers has shrunk from hundreds to a hand full. We need nude events like this as often as they can be supported.
I’m not saying I have found the secret to success. I am saying that mainstrean nudist organizations are much too tentative and do not really have a strategy in mind. There has been no real market research on the issue. I don’t see any effort to ride the coattails of other successful movements. And they are completely AWOL when it comes to devising tactics.
It is kind of up to the rest of us to stumble through.
If you can skim through it, here’s a master’s thesis on the history of British naturism. You might want to skip to part 3 or even go straight to the conclusion. They succeeded and we’re moving backward. Maybe we can learn something.
https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=history_dissertations_theses
Thanks for this, Fred.
As I’m somewhat familiar with your web presence – naturist and otherwise – I think your thoughtful writing on so many varied topics lends a great deal of credibility to your writing about social nudity. It provides a context to the reader that suggests “this is really a thoughtful and intelligent author.” I find so much of the material about social nudity, including that published by those “organizations,” to be one-dimensional, if not outright patronizing at times. As to those same organizations assuming a stronger role in the overall advocacy/marketing campaign, perhaps Nick and Lins will comment on that, as that is a topic that they have particularly intense feelings about. (I think we’re all very much in agreement about the lack of a long-term strategy!) I’m eager to read the piece about British Naturism as, indeed, it seems they’ve really figured it out – especially in these difficult pandemic times.
Any time you raise the issue, the response will either be “No money!” Or “Getting nudists to agree on something is like herding cats.” And both statements may be true. But then, look at their membership.
I think TNS is the better of the two big US groups. Just not great.
I’ve come to the conclusion that naturists are making a big mistake by trying to use social media to promote naturism. It’s not because social media are generally hostile to naturism (which they are), but because the approach is simply wrong. On social media, naturists are mostly preaching to the choir. (Do I hear choir music in your post?). I fully agree with Fred’s comment. It’s fun to write and blog about naturism and post pictures of naked people’s backsides (all that most social media allow). But only naturists appreciate it for the most part. The general public hardly even knows it’s there. (Who’s going to admit to their friends that they follow naturist social media?)
Think of it as a war (a war against entrenched ideas in this case). For over 100 years, warfare has invoved both air and ground action. In WW II, Germany attacked England mostly by air. There was no invasion by German troops across the Channel. Their effort against England was to no effect. The Allies waged ferocious war against Germany from the air. But what really turned the tide was when troops hit the ground at Normandy.
By analogy, naturists can’t achieve much through the air (social media). They MUST have troops on the ground. That is, naturists must reach out personally to their friends and acquaintances to sell them on the goodness of naturism. In the U. S. there are just too few good naturist venues, so knowing that there’s a really great naturist place to go – only 500 or 5000 miles away – hardly matters. What naturists need to do instead is make their own homes the naturist venues of choice. But we know most naturists are afraid to “come out” and do any of that. The troops have mostly all stayed home, so the war is going nowhere.
Please read the book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen, by Damon Centola. He’s a sociologist who really knows what he’s talking about. His main point is that in trying to sell an idea that’s likely to meet strong resistance (such as naturism), it’s necessary to use a carefully planned strategy, with the right techniques, to reach people who are best-positioned to persuade others. Most people will change their minds about novel but controversial ideas only if they are persuaded by people they know and trust. Not some eloquent writer on social media. Naturism is NOT an inherently infectious idea that spreads virally like cat memes or Covid.
“Most people will change their minds about novel but controversial ideas only if they are persuaded by people they know and trust.”
Yep. I think that’s spot on. And I’ll look up the book. Sounds like a great read and right up my alley. And I think all the banter about “preaching to the choir” is all on point as well, particularly as that pertains to people who don’t wish to follow naturist accounts on social media as that will show up to their other social media friends. But I’m still not totally convinced we haven’t fully exploited the concept Nick and Lins are exploring, finding a way to advocate for naturism in the greater context of experiencing life and the world at large. This leads to another one of your points…
Nick and Lins have written a lot about their experiences in Europe, where there are a wide variety of quality naturist places all over the continent. But as you pointed out, the quality of possible naturist venues in the US is VERY uneven, (and in the middle of the country, almost non-existent) and even in the best cases, the locations are much more difficult to reach than most any naturist place in Europe. (I found a place in Idaho this summer that I’m very fond of, but it would take longer and cost more to get there than to visit nearly ANY naturist place in France.) But the concept holds, and as I noted in a previous comment, our best experiences in introducing friends/acquaintances to naturism have been related to the fact that they trust us and admire other elements of our livelihoods, including our proclivity for travel, food, and conviviality.
In short, it’s all a matter of context. Thanks again for the book recommendation.
We definitely agree that nothing beats word of mouth and that one of the most important struggles in naturism today is that people are just afraid to talk about their way of living with friends and acquaintances.
But we also believe that social media can play a big role in this. “Influencers” (we hate that word, but just use it because its commonly understood) don’t do much more than word of mouth on a large scale. But, of course, if all your friends and followers are already naturists, there’s not much convincing left to do.
That’s why we believe in breaking out of the boundaries. France has been seeing an uprise in young naturist families over the last years, which was partially caused by an uprise of eco-awareness and sustainable traveling. Many just realized that naturism fits perfect in that picture. How did those people get to see that link? For the majority, probably because someone told them. Probably on social media.
If naturist “influencers” would focus less on saying what naturism is (and definitely on saying what naturism is not) but instead on saying what naturism could be or mean for people, we believe that progress can happen quickly. And to do this on a large scale, we need mainstream social media.
After years of posting nudist articles on my literary blog, I realized that the two could not coexist. The social media world tends to pigeonhole bloggers into one category or the other, and that’s the thing that really bothers me. Most textiles view us as having a cult-like mentality; we’re just weirdos obsessed with flaunting our naughty bits. The notion that we can be regular people, with regular hobbies, who just so happen to see nothing wrong with the human body, is too foreign a concept for them to accept. So I gave up posting nudist articles on my lit blog and moved them all to a my nudist exclusive blog, “Being and Nakedness,” which, unfortunately, does little but preach to the choir. I have long maintained that if we are ever to go mainstream, we must branch out into other media, and maybe drop the -ism label. I wouldn’t put my next book, “The Feral Girl,” into the nudist category. It is, first and foremost, a fantasy adventure survival story. The fact that the heroine so happens to be nude is a side-issue, but one that, I hope, will challenge readers to consider the norms of our society.
Hmmm… So I totally believe you, but what evidence do you have that all readers have dismissed you (us) as a weirdo(a)?
I also find it intriguing that while my blog gets anywhere from 500 to 2000 hits a day, I only hear from/interact with a handful of readers. Perhaps less than 100 in total over the eight year life of the blog. Which causes me to wonder what the silent readers are thinking. 🤷♂️
Totally with you, however, on your last point. “Not a nudist book, but a story where naked is not extraordinary.” Seems that’s the goal, all around.
You’re correct in that I really do not have any good evidence for what a majority of people think. I only have circumstantial evidence. Most of the people who read and review my books are nudists—to the point that Amazon automatically puts my novels into the nudist category, so it ends up associated with naturist travel guides, instead of more similarly themed titles like Tarzan, A Princess of Mars, or Conan. My last book, a fantasy adventure fairytale, The Princess of Aenya, which has NO nudist characters in it and really NOTHING to do with nudism, was linked to a book about nudist history, because of my name and the people who follow me.
Seems the same bots that are censoring nudity on social media are tracking Amazon book sales as well. SO absurd. They say that artificial intelligence will soon outpace humans. Maybe that’s not actually in future tense at this point. Scary.
Isn’t moving your nudist articles to a dedicated nudist blog an approval of the idea that nudism is something that should be separated from all other things? We believe that mixing up nudism with other topics is actually the way forward.
“Hey, I’m a writer, a dad, a cyclist, a miniature train enthusiast, and a nudist”…
I agree with the sentiment, and I would have loved to have kept a mix of the two, but after almost a decade of trying, I couldn’t escape the assumption that I cater to a niche audience. I’ve long argued that a gay writer doesn’t necessarily write gay fiction, nor a black writer black fiction, nor a Catholic writer Catholic fiction, but by virtue of my being a nudist, it seems, I am assumed to write “nudist” fiction. To be fair, I don’t even think it’s a group of people deciding this. I think it’s the way the Google and Amazon algorithms work, the way people get put into categories.
Yup. (Seem my previous comment) Same algorithms that attempt to distinguish an elbow from a butt. :/
Oh boy, the things we could write about naturism on social media…
But eventually, it comes down to this: It’s great that some people keep fighting censorship, we need activists on the barricades and maybe they’ll be able to change the future of how we communicate online. But personally, we prefer to search for ways to promote naturism within the boundaries of the “community guidelines”.
We’re often asked why we don’t leave FB, IG, and YT behind and move to more “liberal” places like MeWe and Vimeo. But that wouldn’t solve our problem. Those platforms are fine to communicate with our existing audience, but we have our blog for that (which is our own and where we can do whatever we want). To gain a new audience and make our words go as far as possible, we need mainstream social media…
But what I want to know is could you PLEASE include more frontal nudity in your posts? 😂🤪😂🤪😂!!!
On a more serious matter, I think you guys are thought leaders on this front, and I particularly appreciate your recent approach (video and otherwise) that broadens the nakation thing to the “destination” thing. At the risk of being redundant, simply talking about nudity doesn’t actually sustain much interest, unless combined with other activities, like hiking, boating, eating, (😍) wine-tasting, etc. Our narrow audience may not be a symptom of the naked part, but that we’re not playing to the imagination of people who like to do OTHER things while on nakation. I think you published a post about this phenomenon about… umm… 30 minutes ago. I’ll give it a read and let you know what you said! 😂😎😜
Here’s a thought:
If social nudity is a very alien idea to you, why would you like to talk/read about it?
If social nudity is a very normal idea to you, why would you like to talk/read about it?
I’d love to include more experience-based posts, but we do not all have the opportunity. Some of us are stuck behind our computers, having to muse philosophically about a more accepting world.
I get it. I keep saying so in the blog, but we feel incredibly fortunate for our ability to travel. We NEVER take it for granted.
Some random thoughts for Dan and Nick & Lins from a long-time, 62 year old USA resident naturist:
“Is it worth it?” From my perspective, yes. I very much enjoy reading each of your writings, and in the case of Naked Wanderings, watching your videos. Even if I never get to any of the places to which you have traveled, I love living vicariously through you. As for the blog writings on the various naturist-related topics, so what if they are mostly preaching to the choir? Some of us may need the reinforcement. Some of us may refer your writings to a friend as being an expression in support of naturism worded better than we could express it. And maybe someone outside the choir may find your writing/video, and chose to join the choir. So yes, I argue it is worth it. Please keep it up.
As for full-frontal nudity, let me offer the rest of this comment:
I always enjoyed being nude as a non-sexual existence, in addition to a sexual existence, going back to before my sexual awareness. I had no idea if that was normal or not, and didn’t much care. I was a teen when the streaking craze of the mid-70’s hit the USA. While I never partook, I did enjoy sitting naked in my backyard at night enjoying the air after my parents and sister were asleep or if they were away. I knew there were such places as nude beaches and “nudist colonies” but had no idea where they were, and couldn’t imagine ever going to any.
Fast forward to the late ’80’s and meeting and marrying a woman who had been to such places, and was open to a clothing-optional home life.
In 1991, my work brought me to Austin, Texas (and I subsequently moved to San Antonio, Texas). Somehow, I heard of Hippie Hollow (the only legally sanctioned nudity permitted public park in Texas), and had to try it. I loved it. Around the same time, I went to a bookstore in Austin which sold “Nude and Natural” “Internaturally” “Health and Efficiency” and a few other nudist/naturist periodicals (to bad they no longer do), containing photos normal looking people, of all ages, shapes, sizes, and hews, totally nude, yes, even frontal. This was eye-opening for me, and let me know for sure that I was not weird, and that nudity is indeed not inherently sexual. Seeing such people, in addition to reading about them, reinforced that notion. So yes, there is a value to full frontal nudity in promoting naturism, in my view. Granted, this was 1991, and for me as with most people pre-internet. In the years since, I have been to quite a few nudist/naturist/clothing-optional venues, and am a member of the Naturist Society, but there is no telling whether I would have had that comfort without those print, and later on-line, publications, with their words and photos.
Thanks for your good thoughts and encouragement, Bill. I think you bring up an excellent point, especially in terms of having resources to share with friends and “potential members of the choir.” In fact, I use a couple pages about OUR naturist story to send to friends and colleagues as that gives them an opportunity to hear our whole story at their own pace, as it were. In many cases, while we may not convert the reader, at least they understand a bit more as to where we’re coming from and what it’s all about.s
As to full-frontal nudity, I should clarify that was something of an inside joke directed to Nick and Lins, as we ALL can tell you that the requests for full-frontal nudity is perhaps the most frequent ask of a naturist blogger. Nick and Lins make an excellent point, simply from the position of staying within the guidelines of social media censorship, there is really no other choice than to censor themselves. (And even then, we’ve both had accounts deleted that were clearly within the guidelines!) Your point is well taken as to having access (In a real bookstore! I remember that as well!!) to naturist publications as a source of making it all seem a bit more normal, but I would suggest that with internet access to SO many publications, (let alone websites for naturist places,) that we have at our fingertips today, it’s not difficult to find real images of real non-sexual nudity. (If you haven’t come across it on your own, check out https://www.naturisme-tv.com/. It doesn’t get much more normal than that. 🙂
Thanks again for your kind remarks.
Don’t get us wrong, Bill, some of our content has been created specifically for “the choir”. Every time we talk about naturist organizations, for example, we don’t expect the non-naturist or beginning naturist to have a clue what we are talking about. It’s just that we don’t want to preach uniquely to the choir.
During our years of blogging, we’ve seen the same stories being told over and over. Often to the exact same listeners. Many times, we were the storytellers. We could write a book about why naturism isn’t strange or weird, about how wonderful it really is and full of tips for aspiring naturists, but if the only people who read it are already naturists, it kinda misses the point, doesn’t it?
About the frontal nudity thing, we believe that both explicit nudity and implied nudity have their pros and cons. Some people just need the visual push in the back. They don’t really believe the words unless there’s a picture or video that proves what’s been written. Others are more sensitive and in-your-face nudity will only be shocking to them.
One time, when once again someone complained about our censorship, we were in a kinda pissed off mood and replied: “If we wanted to inform you about polygamy, would a picture of an orgy drag you over the line?”. He never replied…
It’s something that has been bothering since the day that we started Naked Wanderings. You can clearly see that we are naked in amazing places around the world. Would some nipples, a vagina and a penis be such an added value?
We do understand the critics that by using censorship, we’re actually agreeing with it. But this brings us back to the start of the discussion… If we want to use social media, there isn’t really a way around it.
I KNEW you guys would deliver on that one! 🙂
A good argument, perhaps, for not including penis/vag pics is that you’re less likely to end up on porn sites. It stresses the nonsexual aspect of nudity.
I believe it’s necessary to think about the idea of “social influencers”. In ancient times, before “social media” existed, an effective influencer was somebody you knew personally in “real life”, so that you could judge whether his/her advice was worth serious consideration. That’s not so important if the advice is about something that has little significant downside – such as recommendations of movies or best-seller books. You think, “Sure, why not check that out?”
However, when significant downsides are possible, it’s a whole different ball game. I’d say that’s the case with naturism. You risk unpleasant consequences from immediate family, good friends, your reputation in the community, and perhaps even your job. Wonder why so many U. S. naturists these days are now of the older generation? Maybe it’s because they’re retired and aren’t worried anymore about what others will think.
In this latter case, you need to rely much more on people you know in real life. Is your friend Joe a naturist who doesn’t mind telling anyone and everyone about it, without having any problems? Other people who know both you and Joe are favorably impressed by Joe’s openness about naturism. Then you’re much more likely to consider his advice. They might even go with Joe to a naturist resort, or at least skinny-dipping at his home pool. But some random “social influencer” on YouTube or Instagram? Not so much.
As Dan observed, “our best experiences in introducing friends/acquaintances to naturism have been related to the fact that they trust us and admire other elements of our livelihoods, including our proclivity for travel, food, and conviviality.”
YESSSSS! Personal relationships are the whole point.
Here’s another thing. I’m now trying to organize a local naturist group via Meetup. Some fairly strange people want to join the group, but if there aren’t any obvious red flags, I admit them. Nevertheless, I really want to learn what they’re like in person – and they probably feel the same way about me. Most people don’t want to take too many chances about the people they might get naked with. So there’s lots of hesitancy about taking that step.
Agreed on all points! And I think the Meetup group concept is a good one, and seems to be gaining traction all over the country, though I think the lack of viable venues that serve as potential meeting places is problematic. It’s asking quite a lot for someone to open their home to total strangers, but unless you’re going to a known naturist place, there could be a significant risk in organizing such an event in a public space. (And don’t even get me started on the rituals for first-time visitors to American naturist places. That’s a whole new blog post!
Well writ!
BTW, I just searched for your made-up XXX media handle. Nothing “came” up. 😎
Seriously, people. Nudity is never going to be normalized as long as showing the pubic area or female nipples remains taboo, either in social media or on live bodies in places like public beaches and hiking trails. Until this taboo is overcome, naturism will make little progress, since people cannot enjoy it anywhere but in their own homes or a very small number of beaches, remote hiking trails, or campgrounds and resorts. Let’s stop kidding ourselves about that. (Speaking mainly of most countries except for a few in Western Europe.)
Britain has plenty of social neuroses of its own, but a lot fewer with respect to nudity than countries in North America. Being naked in public isn’t technically a crime there, and is actually practiced in many public spaces, such as country foot paths. The British Naturism organization isn’t shy about showing lots of full frontal nudity in its publications and websites. Have a look at the cover of the latest edition of its magazine (Summer 2021) if you can.
Think about the psychology of naturists offering nothing but pictures of naked people showing only their backsides to the camera. The body language of that is, literally, turning their backs on the viewer, and communicating either exclusion of onlookers from naturism or else merely shame. Why would many people want to be naturists if such body language is required except in places noted above?
Are we going to allow porn media to deter real naturists from enabling members of the general public who might be interested to see unashamed naturists enjoying typical naturist activities – not merely in stilted poses carefully staged so as not to show what real human bodies look like from any angle? Are we going to allow porn media and Facebook et al to keep us from communicating what naturism is really like?
The fact that showing the truth is not allowed in most social media is one of the best arguments for naturists using, for the most part, means other than most existing social media to tell their story. There really is hope that media might change – someday. Only a very few years ago, showing naked butts (without any censorship) was as verboten as showing the frontal view is now. But are we just going to wait passively until, if ever, the censorship is relaxed?
Hey Charles! I think we all agree on all this. (Noting out loud that WE are those people of which you speak who cleverly turn their faces from the camera, for myriad reasons, but that’s a different post.)
And we’re most certainly dancing around the rabbit hole of censorship “for the good of the people” as determined by big cyber-business America. I’m a little concerned about media moguls deciding what parts of my body are appropriate for public consumption, but quite a LOT more concerned about those same moguls determining the moral values of a nation – even when I happen to be in favor of the censorship action taken. I think it’s a dangerous, and slippery slope!
But here’s another angle, altogether! We HAVE been successful in drawing a good number of 20-somethings into naturism, especially those who are fond of travel as well and can mix the two together. When we throw out the name of a place, their first question is, “Do they have an Instagram account?” One 20-something female friend is quick to assess, “The place might be nice, but their IG account is a disaster!” The point is that there’s a demographic who will go directly to social media, especially IG, to do their pregame research, and if it doesn’t make it to (or on) IG, as far as they’re concerned, it doesn’t exist. They won’t read BN, or TNS, OR the AANR bulletin. They MIGHT Google it and check out a website, but most likely, they’ll follow the place on social media to get a vibe on the venue and the people who go there. And they really don’t care how much skin is or is not showing (They already know it’s a naked place!) – they just want a sense of the ambiance, and that’s their main source of information.
I had sort of forgotten about that until you doubled down on the ineffectiveness of social media, but this is NOT anecdotal evidence. This is a real-time case study, in which a fair number of subjects (that I actually KNOW of) are participating. Who knows who else is looking on (that I DON’T know of) and making similar judgment calls. One thing for sure – if they’re contemplating a naturist experience, and the website and/or the IG feed is “a disaster,” I’m pretty sure that’ll be the end of the game. Better to stay dressed and go someplace with a stronger marketing angle.
Well, let’s look at the 20-somethings issue. In the first place, isn’t it true that as a group they have the least resources of time and money to do much traveling? They often have to work long hours at crappy jobs – and pay off heavy college debts if they’ve had the benefit of a decent education. Perhaps it’s easier for them in Europe, what with many hostels, railroad passes, etc. But in the U. S.? Are naturists supposed to address just the fortunate top 10% of them? Then there’s the issue that, for better or worse, most naturist clubs and resorts are largely populated by people (mostly men) who’re 30 to 50 years older than the young uns.
Regarding Instagram, I’m hardly prepared to give an objective opinion, since it’s near the bottom of the list of places I’d look for good information about almost anything. It’s mostly just pictures! Now, a picture may (sometimes) be worth 1000 words – but does it really convey pertinent and accurate information? I’ve just had a quick look at the websites and IG sites of the 6 main naturist resorts in California. Only Sequoians didn’t have an IG site. No surprise there. Even Olive Dell had one, which seemed fairly good to me – lots of pictures of happy naked people, and only the IG-required censorship. Yet the website had that late 90s vibe. All the websites except for Sequoians and Olive Dell looked pretty “modern” to me (which is not to say they were great at providing information). They just looked “cool”. Lupin had by far the best IG, showing a wide variety of naturists doing naturist stuff. Most of the rest didn’t even have many people in their pictures. Laguna del Sol had a very mediocre IG, even though it may well be the best naturist place in the state for a young person to visit. So if 20-somethings were to base their choices on IG, they would probably NOT be able to make the best choice. It’s worth noting that Olive Dell and DeAnza Springs probably have the best hiking trails – great for young people – but I don’t think that would be easy to discern from the IGs.
Bottom line: It doesn’t look to me, based on this small sample, that either websites or IGs provide sufficient information for anyone to form a reliable opinion of what place would be best for a particular individual. It would be far better to get information by word of mouth from a naturist friend in the same age cohort. If only naturists of any age would simply talk to their friends about naturism! That personal communication, so sadly lacking, remains the best way for promoting naturism, IMHO.
Which brings us back to the preaching to the choir issue. I think preaching to the choir is a good thing and needs to be done. But only if the sermon says the right things. What the sermon needs to say, over and over, is “Get off your naked butts and help promote naturism to anyone who’ll listen! Spread the faith!”
Naturists who band together to take the sermon seriously will experience significant rewards in two different ways. First, they will enjoy working together up with other naturists. They’ll meet other naturists they wouldn’t in any other way and make many mew naturist friends to socialize with regularly.
Second, the collective efforts of naturists working together to promote naturism will actually start to make headway in recruiting new naturists from the general public. That will have a snowball effect as there are more naturists to help promote the lifestyle. And that in turn will help weaken or eliminate anti-nudity laws, open up more public beaches and lands to naturist use, and eventually lead to the opening of new private venues for naturists to enjoy.
No doubt about the results of your online search and for the places you’ve mentioned, the website and social media aren’t the best resource for information. But we don’t agree with your conclusion that “It would be far better to get information by word of mouth from a naturist friend in the same age cohort”. That’s just not how it works. Younger generations ARE using the internet as an important source of information and it’s up to the resorts to adjust to this.
For us, the website and social media of a place is like their business card. If it looks old and crappy, we automatically think that this will also apply to the resort itself. It’s kinda like saying “at our resort you can’t charge electric cars”. It will work for a while, but more and more, this will narrow down their audience. The same applies to social media, they don’t need it to survive today, but they will fail to reach a certain (growing) group of people.
But, of course, word of mouth is very important too. Not just to inform others about cool resorts, but mostly about naturism in general. We believe that the main reason why the growth in naturism isn’t reaching its potential at all, is because so few naturists dare to openly talk about it. It’s easy to think “they won’t understand, so I better not talk about it”. But just because nobody talks about it, people actually don’t understand.
Ugh. Just wrote a long reply, but it vaporized into cyberspace before posting.
REDUX: No question that real humans promoting social nudty is the best possible outcome, but I think much of the stigma of social nudity in the US comes from the parochial nature of the nudist parks themselves. Even if they ARE on IG, they can’t be something better on social media than they are in real life. Upscale places like B&Bs, hotels in Palm Springs, and hot springs in CA and CO are showing that a different demographic is willing to pay good money for the opportunity to be naked, but they would never do that at a traditional nudist park. I’ve visited all the parks you mentioned in CA in the past year, and while a couple of them are nice, they are still… nudist parks.
Note that Nick and Lins found their way to social nudity by doing what thousands of Europeans do. They went to a spa where nudity is common. We’ve been to several in Germany and Holland, where hundrends of people gather on the weekends to relax and socialize, most of the time, naked – yet I suspect very few of them consider themselves naturists! Don’t know if that’s ever in the cards for prudish America, but I’m told it wasn’t that long ago when even men wore shirts and long trousers as a bathing costume at the beach. Things do change.
I think that what’s missing in this discussion is that it seems to assume naturism is all about naturist campgrounds and resorts, as well as other commercial services like spas that naturists can enjoy. But there’s a whole other side that seems to be left out. Naturists also like nude beaches, skinny-dipping in small lakes and rivers, socializing with other naturists in their homes, hiking naked on public lands, and so on. Even sunbathing in public parks in a few of the more enlightened countries. The naturist world is NOT only about businesses that supply services to naturists in exchange for payment.
There are many things that humans like to do that aren’t dependent on entrepreneurs fulfilling what people want in exchange for money. People are free to organize with others ouside the commercial sphere to fulfill their wants with each other. It happens all the time with things like amateur sports leagues, gardening clubs, photography clubs, etc. With naturists it can be socializing naked with other naturists while enjoying things like dinners, games, watching TV, swimming in home pools, etc.
Social media indeed can provide one means for naturists to learn about social nudity, but the actual things naturists enjoy doing take place in the real – not virtual – world among people who know and TRUST each other. Trust is especially important in the naturist world, for obvious reasons. And it needs to be built through individual personal relationships – people interacting with others in real life. (Think of the adage “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”)
It’s possible, of course, to establish relationships at commercial venues – assuming that people already have become comfortable being naked around others, or are sufficiently brave to leave their comfort zone and get naked at a naturist place without prior experience. But for many it’s easier to build up such comfort with nudity through interaction with trusted friends. (Sometimes friends need not be naturists themselves, just open-minded and respectful of others’ lifestyle.)
And in the U. S., at least, commercial naturist places are just too widely scattered and distant from most people to be worth the trouble.
“I think much of the stigma of social nudity in the US comes from the parochial nature of the nudist parks themselves.”
I interpret this to mean that the “stigma of social nudity” is a consequence of the shortcomings of “nudist parks themselves”. Now, firstly, I noted earlier that commercial nudist parks are far from being the only ways to enjoy social nudity.
But secondly, the quoted statement is a hypothesis, and hypotheses need to be tested by evidence and known relevant principles. In this case, economic principles. Let’s grant that most U. S. nudist parks have notable shortcomings. But why is that? Could it be that there aren’t enough naturists to patronize them, instead of the other way around? Economics is about supply and demand. In general, supply does not beget demand. The opposite is usually the case: demand begets supply. If there are many naturists who are dissatisfied with the shortcomings of nudist places, then new places will appear that try to do better, and old places that want to stay in business will improve. Why? Because if there are enough naturists, there is more money to be made.
But if the demand isn’t there because there aren’t enough naturists, the opposite will happen. Existing naturist places can’t afford to improve their facilities, and some will simply go out of business. New places won’t open, because they won’t seem economically viable. Loans won’t be available to start or improve a place.
In California alone during the past few decades, four naturist places went out of business. All happened to be in Southern Cal. – Elysium Fields, Swallows, Treehouse Fun Ranch, and McConville/Mystic Oaks. Swallows did suffer a devastating fire. I’ve been there before the fire, and it wasn’t all that impressive. But didn’t they have insurance? Or did the owner simply decide it wasn’t worth the effort to continue? Treehouse closed because they couldn’t pay the mortgage. In the other cases, the owners died, and the heirs didn’t have the economic incentive to continue. (That also happened with a popular private nude beach near Santa Cruz called “Red, White, and Blue”.)
Dan’s original post raised a very important question about the relationship of social media and naturism. It’s very important, since online social media are a new development that significantly impacts naturism. So it’s well worth trying to understand what the relationship is. Have social media been a good thing for naturism or not? Will they change naturism for the better or worse?
Supply and demand is something you can look at, but it will definitely not explain everything. Most nudists won’t go to a crappy place just because it’s the only nudist place in town.
We just returned from a place that is the perfect example. A resort in Belgium that has been around since 1969. During the last decade, it was about to die. There were 22 residents and almost no visitors. There were no activities and everything looked like it should have been maintained back in the nineties. The average age of the people was 70+.
Last year, a young family (30-ish with 4 kids) took over the management, was able to get some investments and completely changed the atmosphere, they organized activities, created a great vibe in the bar, etc. During the first months, 11 of the 22 residents left. In the months after that, 49 new residents came, to the point that it’s not possible anymore to become resident today because all pitches for residents are taken. Last wednesday, they organized an event. Nothing big, some body painting, line dance, a ping pong tournament and a band in the evening. There were more than 200 visitors. There were 30+ kids running around. Plenty of young couples and families. On the pitch next to ours were 3 Dutch girls in their twenties. And so on.
Nobody ever imagined that this could happen at this resort… And then it did…
If fact, this probably is a good example of supply and demand. As natives, you know Belgium far better than I. But Belgium is a relatively small country, a population of about 11.5 million in an area of about 12,000 sq. miles – population density almost 1000 per sq. miles, which is comparable to England and much higher than in most of the U. S. (In California it’s 240 per sq. mile.) Population density is good for naturism, because people don’t need to travel far to naturist places. According to online information, Belgium has about half a dozen naturist places, plus one (maybe two) clothing-optional beaches. You two discovered naturism at a spa center where nudity was compulsory. Clearly, there’s relatively high demand in Belgium for naturism.
You didn’t identify the naturist place you described. But with four or five other naturist places in the country, there’s non-negligible competition. It’s not surprising the place wasn’t thriving. Yet the new managers were able to get some investment. Investors don’t generally give out money unless they expect to get it back plus interest. So it certainly looks like existing demand was able to persuade the new managers to make significant improvements to their place.
Of course, this is also a matter of supply and demand. The demand has always been there, but wasn’t for “just” a naturist resort. Instead, it was for a nice naturist resort.
Another important reason for their success was COVID, which forced the Belgians to explore the options in their own country instead of traveling to France, Spain, Croatia,… But also here, the same logic applies. If it had been a crappy resort, the Belgian naturist would also have discovered it, but probably would not have come back again.
Thank you all for a fascinating discussion. Here’s my two cents worth. I am now 79, male, and I travel solo (my wife can no longer travel for health reasons) so I am immediately suspect in most places’ opinion.
In 1999 I discovered naturism through the nearly-defunct website http://www.naturistplace.com/ My first foray to a nude beach was in Spain in 2009, and a year later, a week at Solaris in Istria. The bug had bitten me. Since then I have travelled around N. America a bit (I’ll never catch up to Dan!) and reached some conclusions:
(1) Web sites are a good start for information, a personal visit is better, and respected recommendations from the likes of yourselves through blogs and reports are always useful. Reviews in Google etc., and even TripAdvisor may be suspect (except for Dan’s reports).
(2) Social media are a minefield of hate and rudeness; I don’t need that. I also refuse to participate in organisations that don’t respect simple nude humans, but glorify violence and foul language.
(3) My limited ‘exposure’ shows me that I like the European approach over the North American suspicious and commercially-oriented, but somewhat perfunctory approach, to facilities. I would choose a return to Solaris in Istria over a return to Cypress Cove in Florida. I would like to explore the French Atlantic villages. Camping no longer appeals (arthritis, degenerating vertebrae). In some descriptions, I am a ‘comfortable naturist’ (both words chosen carefully).
(4) I live in a community still somewhat suspicious of ‘simple nudity’ and the two clubs near me are family/camping oriented. The nearest alternative is a day’s drive and a border crossing away, both directions. I can wait to fly to Europe again, one day, maybe. In the meantime, it’s vicarious home naturism for me. I enjoy the publications of FCN and TNS, of which I am a member.
If you want to know more about my ‘journey’ to here, take a look at my diary on ‘Cat’s Chat’ which was one of my first sources for naturist information about 20years ago. http://www.chatbocks.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7445&sid=fefca21c3cb0d0a32f9a6da9ce32067c
Mark,
Naturistplace.com is my website – one of the first naturist websites (1996), and perhaps almost the oldest still around. Although much of the original content is out of date, the blog there is currently very much alive (https://www.naturistplace.com/theblog) [shameless plug]
As to your observation: “Social media are a minefield of hate and rudeness” that’s right on. For the most part. social media is benign. But like a minefield it’s not entirely benign by any measure. Just consider some of the horrible effects of social media on U. S. politics, and the politics of many other countries. There’s way too much malicious denial of climate change, vaccine safety, voting integrity, etc. As well as targeted activity of bots to spread misinformation. Specifically with respect to naturism, there’s both good and bad. But that’s what this whole discussion here is about.
Ok. It is possible to bring textile folks into nude accepting terrain. Pick your prospects carefully and play the long game.
You’ve all read my blogs. Neither one is directed at a nudist audience. My main blog “This is My Place” was primarily an anime log that grew into posts about anime, self care, science, natural history and eventually nudie-ism. I didn’t even claim to be a nudist, just a guy who loves being naked non-sexually. I literally outed myself in a post called “Out of the Closet and into the Frying Pan.”. They liked my WNBR posts and my Bare to Breakers posts. Never got any negative feedback on any of them.
My followers accepted it. I figured I’d willingly lose any followers who couldn’t deal but I didn’t lose any. Several people have said that because I seemed such a reasonable person, by extension, nudity seemed reasonable too. Even a couple of people have moved from, “Eww yuck!” to “No problem.” status. I’m not trying to sell anyone on the becoming nudists. I am letting people know that I’m a human being and being a nudie is one of my facets. Because they have already accepted me, accepting this additional facet is easy.
We don’t need an influx of new nudists. We need to lead textiles in more open minded demographic sets into a more accepting place. Do that and we could evolve into Europe. Don’t do that and we have no leverage.
Social media has to have some kind of role in this. That is how people communicate and form opinions these days. Public demonstrations have a role too. Every time you see naked people and the world doesn’t blow up, you become less sensitive. The legal system has a role in it. Free beaches have a role in it. There are branches of feminism that could have a role in it. If we could piggy back on the LGBT+ movement, that would be great because they, in turn, are piggy backed on the Democratic Party and that’s how they got their power.
Lest we all get too deep into knocking AANR and such….
Interesting story. Last Saturday i went to the Nude Comedy show at the Two Roads Theater in LA. (All attendees had to be nude.) I know the proprietor well, as he taught the acting lessons I took. In those classes, if you had an idea you wanted to pitch and it involved nudity, he had no problem with it. In fact, at one time he taught nude acting classes.
Most of the students in the nude acting class were NOT nudists. A dozen of the people who attended the show were not nudists. First timer’s, actually. They showed out of curiosity but an invite to a resort would never have caught their interest. Three of them were from the textile acting class. This one production did more to bring people into social nudity than a hundred random blogs.
If it were not for support from AANR and Southern California Naturists and and the Clothing Optional Bed and Breakfast Network, the theater would have gone under like so many others have.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/nude-comedy-la-los-angeles
After Instagram removed the Naturist Symbol account without any explanation, I refuse to use it ever again.
I never enjoyed Facebook. But it is sad so many people still use it. So every now and than, with pain everywhere, I do something to promote the Naturist Symbol on FB. And most of the time encourage people to choose FREEDOM and PRIVACY, by joining MeWe.
MeWe is still young, but growing fast. It has it’s flaws, but it’s so much more pleasant not to be manipulated by an algorithm. At MeWe you decide what the system shows to you. And you decide who can see your messages.
More info about it on my website.
So: choose the social networks you use wisely and keep on promoting naturism!
You are not preaching for your own church only… I mean many would like to join but are afraid to do. I think there is a vast amount of gymnophobic people with a naturist spirit but who fear the reactions of their community. Many would like to have nudity normalised and desexualized.
So keep up the brave work, thank you.
And it is good when naturism becomes politic like this brussels politician does https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/stadsnaturist-jolibois-naakt-de-normaalste-zaak-ter-wereld-2013-10-30