As I recently posted, the new naturist anthology Beneath Healing Skies released last month. The anthology includes dozens of stories by naturist authors. All of the stories relate in some way to the theme of the healing aspects of naturism - an idea that many naturists deeply connect with.
I have placed stories with two previous anthologies put together by the same group, Murder in the Nudist Colony and Romance in the Nudist Colony. Those anthologies had a clearer focus; the common theme was more straightforward. This new one was a novel challenge.
The problem, for me, is that the theme suggested a straightforward plot: present a problem; introduce nudity; problem solved. For many nudists, this is a satisfying structure. For most non-nudists, it’s trite, bordering on nonsensical. I was determined not to take that easy route.
As it happens, I have a number of story ideas lined up that I’m working on, so I tried to make them fit the anthology. It just didn’t work. Some stories related to the theme so tangentially that I couldn’t in good conscience use them. Others would end up too close to the trite structure I wanted to avoid; no matter how much I buried it in other devices, the problem–nudity–solution dynamic would, at least to me, shine through.
For a few weeks, I noodled around on this. And only a couple of weeks before the deadline, I hit on the idea I needed. Funny how deadlines have a way of sharpening one’s brain, isn’t it!
The idea I came up with involves a man who runs a naturist park. He has worked hard to make the park as visitor-friendly as possible, even though no one ever seems satisfied with what he’s done. And as the story begins, he has gone too far - nature, in a way, has burst through the carefully manicured edges of the park, and She is not happy.
This idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, because I have seen it in action in two naturist clubs I’m familiar with. There is a constant tension for these clubs between creating a beautifully managed space that will attract and retain visitors, and keeping the rustic, natural beauty of the environment as an important part of the experience.
Isn’t this the crux of the problem with modern naturism? The entire naturist philosophy is based on a set of values that are often at odds with the realities of a commercial operation. A historic example: in the 1970s, nudist beauty pageants were the only way some clubs were able to get any press at all (because newspapers would not run ads for nudist resorts). And yet beauty pageants run exactly counter to the concept of the natural beauty inherent equally in every person.
In more modern times, clubs might use photos of slim, young nude bodies to promote themselves, even though the reality is that these images do not represent the naturist experience. And clubs hold highly sexualized events and dances to attract traffic, even though sexualizing nudity is the opposite of what we hope to achieve as a movement.
In my story, the main character is similarly violating naturist values, not by sexualizing nudity, but by removing nature itself from the equation. My feeling is that, one way or another, nature will heal herself. And if we do not constantly keep ourselves aligned with our naturist values, we will not be healed; we will be the wound itself that nature heals.
I submitted the story with, I admit, some trepidation. While the story addressed the theme clearly in my own mind, I could not be sure that readers would see it the same way. I worried that I was being too obscure, or missing the point.
To my relief, the anthology compilers (Will Forest, Ted Bun, and Paul Z Walker) were okay with my approach, and the story was enthusiastically accepted. There were a couple of rounds of editing, but Will and Paul are highly competent editors, so I accepted their suggestions gratefully and gladly. And soon enough the story was complete.
I am proud of this story, as I have been proud of all the naturist fiction I have published. I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Beneath Healing Skies - and if you have, let me know what you think of my story, as well as the rest of the anthology, in the comments below!
Last month, a new naturist anthology was released. And I’m happy to say that my short story, “The Natural Look”, is among the stories in the anthology.
Why buy this anthology? Here are some good reasons.
So… get on it! You can buy the book on Amazon, or at one of the many other bookstores around.
If you do buy it, let me know what you think of it in the comments! I’ll have more about the process of writing my own contribution to the anthology soon.
I'm back, folks.
It's been a while, I know. With some personal challenges and health challenges, I've been away for a good long while. But I'm back.
I will not be posting regularly here, at least to start, as I have become only too aware of my limits. However, I am still very much a naturist, as well as a proponent and advocate for naturism.
And yes, I've been writing - not as much, but that's changing. I recently submitted a short story for the upcoming anthology, Beneath Healing Skies, which is coming out soon. I want to discuss my motivations for that story but I'll wait until the anthology is released before I post about it in more detail.
I know my departure was sudden and prolonged, and I appreciate those who reached out with concern when I was not able to answer. I continue to enjoy being part of the wonderful naturist community and I look forward to being a more active and engaged member starting now.
I just wanted to leave a quick note to say Happy New Year and to let you know that I am taking a small break.
Recently an article made the rounds about a house for sale:
It's about a nice little house for sale. It's very cheap - probably about half the asking price if it were in the nearest city (Hamilton, Ontario - my home town). And! If you can believe this! It's in a nudist resort!
I've seen the article reposted numerous times lately on Facebook, reddit, twitter, and the like, and I noted it because it's located near me and I've visited the Ponderosa Family Nudist Resort many times.
The writer of the piece, Lauren O'Neil, clearly spent a lot of time poring over the Ponderosa's website. She found a fair amount of information about the resort and its amenities and policies. But there is a certain amount of vagueness in the article too: "the listing does not specify", "leading one to assume", and the like.
The areas of question are all quite straightforward. So why not contact the club and ask them? That's what a journalist would do. Is this not supposed to be real journalism?
The article's publisher, BlogTO, is a reasonably reputable website in the Toronto area. Their coverage of local events is widely followed, though their style has given rise to a number of parodies over the years. But they do purport to be a legitimate news website. O'Neil is a senior editor and staff writer. She is an experienced journalist.
So why didn't O'Neil call or email the Ponderosa?
It's the usual, I think: the deep fear in our society of anything associated with nudity. Even the idea of phoning or emailing the club was too much, although it made the article much weaker.
I'm glad that the article got so much attention, because it tells people that nudism is a thing, and for many that there is a club in their area. But it's another disappointing example of the kind of journalism that we nudists have to put up with.
At least there were no stupid jokes or puns about nudity - it could have been worse.
It's warming up here in Ontario, and while COVID has kept us more or less shut in at home, I'm still alive and safe and half-vaccinated. I hope everyone who's reading this is doing well!
It's been a long time since I've posted on here, and that's because there is actually a lot going on - unfortunately leaving me very little time for writing. But I'm working on what I feel is a very important series of blog posts; I am also working on some changes to this website, and a new book on nudism. More on those things soon.
In the meantime, I'm also changing the look of my existing book, How to Take Your Clothes Off. The fantastic art that Cleo from ToplessTopics did for me is now featured on the cover, and I am hoping to get more great work from her to help fill out the site's look and feel. Keep an eye out for that! And check out the cover design, which is coming soon to fine bookstores everywhere:
If you don't have a copy, here's your chance! Search for it at any e-bookstore you like, or check it out at Amazon here.
As I’ve been quite active on Twitter in the last couple of years, specifically within the naturist community there, a few patterns have emerged for me.
Twitter has become one of the best social media spaces where nudists can gather. The administrators or algorithms (or both) have overreacted to nudists on Twitter in some cases, but by and large we are allowed to be - and to be ourselves. The community is large and thriving. (Taylor Lorenz published an article on the subject in the Atlantic Online in 2017, and surprisingly, not much has changed since.)
The nudist Twitter community is also vibrant, and vocal. There are a number of nudists who have plenty to say about social justice, inclusion, and diversity in the nudist community. Some are locked accounts (which is a shame, but understandable) but you would do well to start with someone like @AlmostWildBlog to see the kinds of fruitful discussions that are emerging on the platform these days.
One of the primary interests of nudists on Twitter, though, is promoting nudism itself. Campaigns like #NormalizeNudity and #NakedInNature are designed to capture non-nudists’ attention (and bare skin always seems to grab people’s attention) and then hit them with positive messages about non-sexual social nudity.
Others try to promote nudism by putting themselves out there, unashamedly nude. The thinking is that showing real people enjoying themselves nude - not models, just regular people with regular bodies - will send the message that nudity truly is for everyone.
But there is another kind of “promotion” for nudity, one that the nudist community has to reject fully and completely.
A number of accounts post a steady stream of photos of nude people, often with similar hashtags about promoting nudity and nudism. The photos are all pretty much the same: slim young people, almost always women, almost always white. No two photos show the same person: they come from a variety of sources, including porn sites, voyeur photo collections, and - infuriatingly - legitimate nudist Twitter accounts.
There are a couple more significant characteristics for these accounts as well.
That last point is really the problem. They’re not promoting nudism, they’re promoting a business. And they’re exploiting nudists to do it.
And nudists not only let them get away with it - they help them out.
The reason I know so many of these exploitative spam accounts exist is because other nudists - real, legitimate nudists, as far as I can tell - help them out. They follow these accounts, like their posts, and sometimes even retweet them.
Maybe these legitimate users think they’re helping to promote nudism when they help promote these accounts. Or maybe they notice that their retweets of nude women get them more likes and follows than they usually get.
In the long run, though, every like, retweet, and follow is damaging to the nudist movement.
These accounts play into the same narratives we know are barriers to our society’s acceptance of nudism: nudism is about seeing attractive nude people. Nudism is about sexualizing bodies (especially younger, slimmer, female ones). Nudism is about looking at naked people, not being naked oneself. Nudism is reserved for people who are young, slim, and conventionally good-looking.
And by following, liking, and retweeting their posts, nudists are complicit in spreading these damaging myths.
Every interaction with these accounts is a step backwards for naturism.
So please, nudists, be careful about your activities on Twitter. Avoid these transparently problematic accounts. Don’t give them any more attention than they deserve. And most of all, stop helping to exploit and commodify your fellow naturists.
What do you think of these accounts - are they helping or hindering nudism? Are there any problematic accounts you’ve seen other nudists promoting? What can we do about it? Tell me in the comments!
I’ve been writing some nudist fiction lately, and the experience has given me reason to think about nudist fiction in general. I know of a number of nudist authors out there right now, actively self-publishing their fiction. Some are extremely prolific, publishing several or even dozens of short fiction works every year. Others are more in the traditional author mode, writing and publishing a full-length novel every year or two, and doing plenty of promotional work in between.
I’m impressed with how vibrant and industrious the nudist fiction world is. I read as much nudist fiction as I can, and I like and respect the authors. I even count some of them as friends, if only online friends.
But writing good naturist fiction is difficult.
The problem isn’t about the writing or the stories themselves. Instead, it’s the essential problem with nudism and fiction. As I have written more fiction, I’ve found that there are a number of traps that are far too easy to fall into.
The problem is that there is nothing amazing, nothing even remarkable, about nudity once you’re a nudist. You’re naked? Well, sure, whenever you can be. It’s nice to be naked? Yes, that’s true. Others around you are naked? Sure, nothing crazy there. It’s barely worth commenting on. You’ve seen it all before.
That means that, as an author, I find that my stories tend to go in one of two ways: the “nudism is great” direction, or the “nudism is unremarkable” direction. Neither results in good storytelling.
One of the easiest traps I fell into when I started writing nudist fiction, whether I imagined my audience to be nudists or not, was to have characters who tell each other how great nudism is. Any character who is even halfway curious about nudism - say, a protagonist who wants to be romantically involved with a nudist, but is reluctant to shed his or her own hangups about nudity - becomes a reason to talk about how wonderful nudism is. And by the end of a story, I find all my characters agree: nudism is great, and we should all be naturists.
Any story needs a good antagonist, and the obvious choice is a character in a position of legal or moral authority who is against nudism. They’ll want to make a nudist beach clothing-required, or arrest nudists, or make them lose their job - the typical fears that most nudists live with every day. This is one of the few sources of conflict for a group of nudists, and the story quickly becomes focused on neutralizing the antagonist’s threat. But when I head down this road, the antagonist starts to sound like a cliche. I think this is because I’m not thinking about the antagonist as a real person, but trying to fit one into the nudist world.
Yet another trap is to keep adding characters who are nudists, wannabe nudists, prior nudists, and free spirits who really think nudism is something they want to try. You need multiple nudists just to have a useful range of points of view to examine the nudist ideas in the story. The problem is that it’s highly unrealistic to find so many nudists in one place, unless you set the story in a well-populated nudist resort.
It’s also far too easy to find oneself, as an author, lecturing the reader. Of course, I want my fiction to represent my values as an ethical naturist. But that just leads to long-winded lectures, from one character to another, about the positives of naturism. The health benefits. The improvements to mind and soul. The philosophical reasons for shared nudity. Their own personal inspirational story.
Of course, because I do believe what the characters are saying, they deliver the lectures to an eagerly listening audience, without any substantive objection. Just for variety, I’ll throw in a comment - “Yes, I agree, and...” or “Well what about [easily countered protest]?” But what I’m really doing is creating a backdrop for the speaking character to expound on his or her personal philosophy. But I know that this is unrealistic, because in real life, people tend to avoid maniacs who talk like this. (People often think that nudism is a kind of cult, and it doesn’t help to write about it as if it is!)
I realize that what I’m really doing is telling nudists that nudism is great. It seems extremely unlikely that anyone would be more interested in trying nudism after reading this kind of writing.
When I step back from my work and discover it’s gone in this direction, I realize it’s unlikely that someone unsympathetic to nudism would even get through the story. I think I’m really writing these stories for myself, not for the reader. The plot is a thin veil that covers the real reason for the book: to talk about my own interest in nudism.
There’s nothing wrong with a happily-ever-after ending, or writing about the positive aspects of nudism. But fiction also needs to be interesting and engaging. If I don’t sincerely tackle difficult ideas, it won’t attract a reader - and that’s not a success for a writer.
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum. Too often I’ve started out a story where the main character is a nudist, possibly with a spouse or family, who are also nudists. They live in a nudist-friendly area, like the south of France or a nudist community in Florida. They have some nudist friends, but for the most part they don’t find anything remarkable in being nudists - it’s just a normal part of their lives.
Usually I’ll find some kind of minor conflict to bring in - say, something with the board of their local nudist resort, maybe a project that they are undertaking, maybe someone unfriendly that they have to contend with. So they deal with whatever issues they have, at least mostly successfully. Often I’ll bring in other nudists, or include a nudist gathering along the way.
In writing this kind of story, I take pains not to even reference people’s bodies or nudity, because the characters are so used to nudity, it wouldn’t occur to them to mention it. They might note some nude activities, like practicing nude yoga. Instead of the characters talking about being nudists - which, again, once you’re a nudist, you rarely do - I might have them note, in passing, nudist magazines sitting around the house, maybe some nude art on the walls. And they will cover themselves when a non-nudist stops by. But for the most part, nudism is there, in the background, just a regular part of their reality.
This approach accurately reflects, for me, how many nudists live their lives. When you’ve been nude around the house a few times, you stop thinking about it. When you’re nude all the time with your spouse, you don’t notice their breasts or penis any more than you would notice their t-shirt or boxer shorts. It’s nothing crazy, nothing to get excited over. It just is.
But when I realize that this is where one of my stories is going, my reaction is… why?
It might be a realistic depiction of nudism, and that’s a good thing. It’s an approving and sympathetic view of nudism, which I definitely want to promote.
But it’s always so dull. So very, very dull. If I were the reader, I doubt I’d make it past the third or fourth page.
Although I haven’t set out specifically to write this kind of story, it’s a common nudist trope, and one that I’ve found some story outlines straying towards as I plan out my work. The setup usually involves one person discovering that another person is a nudist, then reluctantly trying it out. (For the sake of tension, it’s typical to make them of opposite sexes.)
These stories inevitably drive towards a scene where the non-nudist first undresses in front of the nudist. Maybe it’s because for those of us who became nudists later in life, the memory of this moment remains so vivid. As an author, I’m tempted to describe every sensation, physical and mental. This almost guarantees a sexual undertone at the very least. Even if I keep the story from becoming overtly sexual, its interest and drive is from the sexual tension that the nudity generates between the characters.
I’ve played with a variety of situations when I’ve attempted to outline a story like this. One character discovers that another is, unexpectedly, a nudist. One character convinces another that nudity isn’t so bad in one specific case (art, swimming, painting a house) and gradually convinces them to try it. But whatever the situation, the dynamic is the same, and the same well-worn tropes always seem to accompany it.
Despite having ideas for stories like this, in the end I am not comfortable with this kind of nudist fiction. This approach could exploit nudism, and reinforce the damaging narratives that we nudists are only too familiar with (You’re perverts! You just want to see nude women! It’s really about sex!). No matter how I approach it, I think I’d be writing erotica, not nudism, with stories like these - and probably not very good erotica, at that.
In the end, naturism is… pretty boring.
Narrative is driven by character and conflict. All three of these story types lack one or both of these. In the “Nudism is Great” story, there are no characters, there are only empty vessels that are used to spill forth nudist philosophizing. The “Nothing remarkable” story can have characters, but the conflict is absent. And titillation stories have characters and drive, but the conflict is inevitably cliche, and probably damaging to nudism.
So what should I do, as an author?
I have started to think more about the nudist fiction issue, and I have a few ideas about where to go.
First, much of the problem for naturist fiction goes back to the old writing advice of showing, not telling. If a character simply talks about nudism, its advantages, its philosophical grounding - that’s showing, and it does little to connect with a reader. Instead, as authors, we must find compelling situations in (fictionalized) real life where those theories are actually played out. That doesn’t mean a professor at the front of a room lecturing, nor does it mean a person among a circle of friends talking. It means nudists, living their lives, and experiencing the conflicts that inevitably arise with being nude in a clothed world.
Second, one of the problems is characters. People are complex. People have deep-seated conflicts and insecurities, they have values that are at odds with the ways they live their lives. Even the most committed naturist must run into situations where they confront a difficult decision or judgement, or an issue where they need to reexamine their preconceptions - and where they have to consider the consequences of one choice or another.
(This goes for antagonists as well. Yes, there are those people in the world whose view of nudism is simplistic; they don’t make for compelling fiction. Antagonists should have legitimate and interesting reasons to oppose the protagonists. Remember, the villain is actually the hero of his or her own story!)
Finally, there is a core issue at stake here, one that is not just a problem for naturist fiction, but for naturism in general: naturists are too often unwilling to grapple with deeper issues around naturism.
Too often, we naturists believe our own press - we don’t question the assumptions we make about their lifestyle and community. Naturism is inclusive - but what about black, LGBTQ+, and single male nudists, all of whom are often turned away from resorts? Naturism is non-sexual - but what about the resorts that purport to be nudist but cater to the swinger community? Naturism is accepting - but what about the many naturists who body-shame and sexualize other naturists, often in subtle and pervasive ways?
These are the problems that really need confronting in the nudist community. So our naturist fiction has to address them, rather than the more simple issues - moral scolds who want to shut down a nudist beach, or people’s nervousness or unwillingness to be naked with others.
Non-exploitative nudist fiction is a relatively new idea, and there is plenty of room to grow. It also seems to have a long and positive future ahead of it, and I want to be part of that future. As an author who wants to help advance the naturist cause, I’m trying to figure out how to bring out the issues that matter, with characters who live and deal with the issues associated with naturism, rather than talk about those issues.
But have high hopes for nudist fiction. Our community is full of smart, diverse individuals, including many writers. Together, we can work to build a body of work that can reach a wider, intelligent, thinking public - and above all, tell some darn good stories.
Who are your favourite naturist authors and which books would you recommend? What were the positives and negatives about their work? What would you like to see in nudist fiction? Tell me in the comments!
