As so often happens during the cold winter months, I’ve fallen away from my blog. Winter is a particularly crazy time for me at work, and there simply isn’t much time to write, let alone give much thought to/about meandering naked.
But the weather is starting to turn here in the eastern United States, and it seems hopeful that despite blizzard like conditions all the way into April, there is some hope that it will soon be warm enough to work on the all over tan on the back deck soon. So in quiet anticipation, I thought it might be interesting to take a quick inventory of the developments in the naturist cyber-sphere that I’ve noticed over the past year.
I was sorry to see Felicity and Jordan give up the fight for YNA (Young Naturists of America) after working so diligently in advocating for normalizing social nudity. If you don’t know Felicity, she is a 20-something that grew up in a naturist family frequenting a club in New Jersey, and she and her partner Jordan were incredibly progressive in their efforts to move nude recreation into the mainstream of their peer group. I have yet to meet them, but it seems the task simply became too onerous, and I suspect they simply encountered “too much weird,” as so often can be the case when working for a cause considered deviant by many, intentionally exploitative by some. In any case, it’s a bummer. You can still find some of the best content from their old website on Felicity’s blog, though she has ramped up her banter about feminist causes in this new incarnation. I get it, especially in this political climate, but it does diffuse the energy a good bit as related to the naturist cause. One would like to think that people who embrace naturism have already gotten past things like gender bias and discrimination, though as I said in an earlier post, (The Demographics of Nakedness) about the only thing naturists have in common is being naked. So there it is.
She’s also started a series of interviews with everyday people from all walks of life who frequent Gunnison Beach near NYC. Interesting project. Interesting read. The Real Nude Beach: A Body-Positive Photography Project on Gunnison Beach.
I’ve become an avid fan of Nick and Lins from Belgium and their most excellent Naked Wanderings website and Instagram accounts. Was hoping I might actually meet them this spring as they are currently exploring naturist places in North America. They’ve amassed a huge following, and it appears they are somehow able to make a living writing about social nudity. In any event, they are wonderful ambassadors for the cause, and their website is becoming one of the best resources for naturism that gives a glimmer of hope to the under-fifty crowd for figuring this whole thing out.
Clothes Free International seems to be making a comeback. Back in the early 2000s they were a significant force in the young naturist movement, particularly on the west coast, developing a series of video shorts called Nudes in the News that highlighted news stories about social nudity, along with a nice variety of trip and beach reports. For a long time, the CFI message boards were about the best thing going for finding other naturists and discovering places to become one, but alas, the incessant banter about pubic hair and erections were about the only threads that could sustain themselves into oblivion. I, personally, became disenfranchised when one of the moderators erroneously deemed one of my previous blogs to promote swinging as he had misread one of my trip reports. Despite repeated attempts, I was never quite able to sort that out, and ended up jumping ship from their forum. But in any event, they seem to have a new crew with new energy and renewed optimism for the cause. And with ever-improving technology, their production values are quite excellent. A good resource, for sure.
It’s been someplace between amusing and astonishing to watch the Topfree in Ocean City debate burn up the airwaves, a perfect recipe for media frenzy. Seems a few determined women are eager to enjoy the rights of their male counterparts, but the mayor of this beachfront resort town is certain this will destroy the family values of what most would consider to be a ticky-tacky boardwalk wonderland. Have no delusions, Maryland is anything but progressive on matters like social nudity, with strict referendums passed a few years ago that banned discreet nudity on some of the most remote beaches of Assateague Island, where about the only beings you’re likely to offend are the wild horses who run there. I always wonder if scuffles like this one are more helpful or hurtful to the cause, especially in this day and age when narrow-mindedness is increasingly in vogue. I also wonder how hard one would have to look to find a topless woman on this expansive beach in the Mid-Atlantic? My guess is that you have a better chance of winning the Powerball than seeing a naked breast in Maryland.
In a somewhat related story, a young woman from Australia took on the establishment, or more specifically, the highly restrictive rules regarding the posting of nude photos on Instagram. Nude_YogaGirl had her account suspended, but instead of simply deleting her page, she fought back with a media blitz in the Australian press – and it worked! Her account has been reinstated, and as of this post, she is enjoying over 786,000 followers! A quick perusal of her photos suggests she had to agree to cover nipples and the pubic region, but it’s still a big step for nudity on social media, which has apparently garnered the support of nearly a million people who are not too offended to follow her account.
So here we are in 2018. Evermore paranoid about the exploitation of children to the point where their faces are pixelated in everyday newspaper articles, and absolutely freaking out about nippleage on Instagram and on the beach. All the while, stories about the President’s sordid doings with porn stars and Russian prostitutes surface daily on every channel of the media, which must be putting most parents in a way more awkward position for answering questions about morality and behavior that stretch far beyond simply acknowledging the existence of human anatomical parts.
It’s difficult to identify the naked truth when both words… naked, and truth, have become so controversial.
This is my second visit to this fabulous little place, and if you look it up on Trip Advisor, you will see that the young couple that runs the place, Patty and Golf, have developed quite a following in their first 18 months of business. (If you keep reading the reviews, you’ll also see there are some interesting challenges in running a naturist business in Thailand!) But as reported, they are gracious hosts, and have found a niche market in naturism, despite the fact that they are not naturist themselves.
It’s a smallish resort, but the rooms are among the nicest we’ve seen at any naturist venue, anyplace. Well appointed, clean and complete with kitchenettes. The pools are also relatively small, but the water temperature is perfect for floating and lodging yourself – mostly submersed – in a corner with a good book. Getting naked outside the resort is tricky, though they do run boat excursions during high season to smaller nearby islands, secluded enough to make a naked picnic on the beach. My timing was right during my last visit to take advantage of that, and it was truly a perfect naturist day.
I was pretty consistent about blogging about our naturist trek that took us down the east coast of Australia over New Years 2017, but I lost footing about the time we got to Byron Bay, where we stayed in what I guess you would call a naturist B&B there, named simply, 
While adhering to European naturist values, (Deb had a few interesting stories to tell about various booking inquiries) this is hardly your typical naturist place, and it took us a couple days to figure out the routine of simply coming and going. (I think we actually set off the burglar alarm one evening!) Our hosts were truly gracious in sharing their home, but as is often the case when staying at a B&B, it took a while to figure out what was ours and what was theirs, especially during the morning breakfast routine.
It’s been a few years since our visit to 
is far from the norm in this part of the world. Piet took us along on his grocery run one day so we were able to lay in provisions to cook for ourselves during most of our stay.
As opposed to the vast possibilities on Crete, we found naturist beach combing on Zakynthos a bit disappointing, particularly by late September, though hanging by the pool proved a worthy endeavor, which is where we spent most of our naked time chatting up a few regulars from The Netherlands. For that alone, Panorama is most definitely on our “get back to one day” list.
As it happens, there are several naturist enclaves scattered throughout Brazil, though perhaps none as renowned as 
Our stay there was nothing short of pleasant and nostalgic, if not a bit moist with a good bit of rain and humidity. At the time, the hotel was still unfinished, but our simple room on the ground floor was adequate, and the makeshift restaurant-nightclub on the top floor afforded gorgeous sunset views over the lake. Were we to return, I think I would try one of the rental cabins, as many of them seemed well appointed with covered terraces and screened-in porches. It seems that in it’s heyday, naturism was a booming business in this little valley, and while most of the houses and cabins – perhaps 100-200 of them – seemed inhabited, it was very quiet during our stay. Not quite the mid-summer French naturist resort vibe we had been hoping for.
