One universal truth of nudism is that when you’ve been exposed to naked bodies in a non-sexual context enough, you stop noticing that people are naked.
Almost everyone who’s new to nudism has this epiphany, often during their first nude experience: you forget that you’re naked, and that everyone else is as well. It might be the first time most people in our modern society realize how useless and limiting clothing can be. It’s one of the most wonderful realizations you can have, as a new nudist.
Many people extend this idea to a very positive conclusion: that any human body, without adornment, without artificial coverings, and without the feelings of shame and fear that society has instilled us, is beautiful.
I disagree.The mere fact of existence, of physical being, is not in itself beautiful - or if it is, then every living thing is also beautiful. And that is enough to render the concept almost meaningless.
From the point of view of physical attractiveness, being clothed might hide aspects that society deems “flaws”, or might accentuate certain characteristics that are conventionally considered attractive. Being naked might reveal parts of the body that fail to conform to society’s standards of beauty, or might show heavily sexualized body parts in an alluring way. Neither clothing nor nakedness have a monopoly on attractiveness.
As a nudist, I think there is only one way to resolve this question of beauty, and that is to ignore it altogether. Because beauty, physical beauty, is irrelevant for those of us who share in the philosophy of social nudity. The very concept of beauty is completely irrelevant to the naturist ethos.
To truly accept the naturist philosophy, I would argue, one needs to reject the concept completely, and recognize that the physical reality of a person’s body is not relevant to the worth of that person. Instead, the naturist must strive to accept each person as they are, regardless of the characteristics they present to the world. It is the whole person, not just the person’s appearance, that is of interest and value.
So are nude bodies beautiful? Are any bodies beautiful?
The naturist answer is: the question is irrelevant. The beauty of a body - whatever that means - does not affect the worth or acceptability of that individual.
Of course, whether or not we judge our own or others’ bodies, society is going to judge, rate, and assign its assessments to bodies, both nude and clothed. It would be naïve to assert that beauty didn’t matter to society, or that some bodies will be judged as more or less beautiful.
Those messages have been sent, overtly and subtly, all our lives. Young girls are complimented on how pretty they look. Advertising all around us is filled with images of attractive people (with their natural features Photoshopped away to make their images conform even more closely with beauty standards). Good-looking people are given higher status in the world, in big and small ways. It’s nearly impossible not to internalize some of those messages after a time.
As naturists, though, we know that we don’t need to buy into that way of thinking. By stripping away the need for clothing, we gain an acceptance of people’s bodies that transcends society’s long outmoded ideas of beauty. This gives us an even more important role: to change the way people think, by being leaders of this new way of thinking.
Part of it is what we say. I’ve written before about not complimenting other nudists, but it goes beyond that. Never complimenting anyone on their appearance might be a bit extreme, but it’s worth expending a little more effort to find something to compliment about the person instead of their body or features. (Those compliments may or may not be welcome, but they are almost certainly less likely to seem creepy.)
But it’s much more than policing our words. It’s about changing the way we think altogether. Stopping ourselves from making judgements about other people - good or bad - is not easy. But neither is being a nudist in a nudity-averse world.
Cultivating this judgement-free way of thinking is perhaps one of our most important tasks as naturists, though. If naturism is to be the truly open, welcoming, and inclusive society that most of its proponents want it to be, then we must start by being truly accepting of every person.
To achieve this approach of radical acceptance, we need to start by committing ourselves to the idea that beauty is not a useful way to judge bodies. Once we stop associating value with the subjective attractiveness of people’s bodies - including our own bodies! - we will be ready to move towards the truly egalitarian, accepting, and positive world that naturism promises to give us.
Have you found naturism has changed how you think of beauty standards? Do you think naturists have the potential to change our society’s thinking for the better?
Many people think that nudism is a risky business.
Trying anything for the first time always has an element of risk. That’s a fact. To many, nudism seems to carry a huge amount of risk with it, often because of society’s many negative messages about nudity, perpetuated through our media for decades. For first-time nudists, it often feels like you’re defying every moral and convention in our society when you think about taking your clothes off with others.
But in large part, the risk is in our heads, and far smaller than we think. Here are some of the biggest risks that nudists perceive, and the reality of the risk that is (or isn’t) there.
Some people work in fields where they handle sensitive information, or people at risk (including children). Others have public positions where any deviation from societal norms is considered problematic. These positions could include jobs where they work with children or other vulnerable people, or where they are in a position of public trust.
The risk is predicated on the association of nudity with sexuality, of course. If you are willingly nude with other people, you are probably a sexual deviant, or at least opening yourself up for blackmail or extortion. You are not, the reasoning seems to be, a trustworthy person if you are a nudist.
In addition, if you do not work in a positive work environment, the revelation that you are a nudist could prompt other workers to make unwelcome comments or insinuations. Because society is often unsympathetic to nudism, you might also feel that you cannot complain about those comments, even if they are egregious. That can seriously degrade the quality of your working life.
This risk is one of the few perceived risks that is at least partially grounded in reality. People do have negative stereotypes about nudists, and they could make the association between nudism and sexuality. If you work with vulnerable persons, or indeed in any position where you have a “morality clause” or something similar in your employment contract, it would be worth considering whether social nudity is something you can partake in.
You might have to be careful about who you tell about your recreation activities, too. (That can be true for any unconventional hobbies too - video games, sports, and crafts can all seem strange to others sometimes.) Some co-workers can’t be entrusted with this level of personal revelation. And if you have to worry about the reactions of some co-workers, you really have to worry about all of them: sometimes word gets around in any organization, and it always seems to get to the wrong people.
However, the reality is that you’re far less likely to have to worry about this than you may think. While there are occupations that might be sensitive to nude recreation, most are not. Unless they explicitly state the limits on what you can do while you’re employed there, being a nudist outside of working hours should not be a problem.
And that leads to the best way to handle this risk: if you’re worried about professional ramifications of nude recreation, just don’t tell anyone. Your co-workers don’t have to know about what you do with your free time. If they ask what your weekend was like, you can just omit the part about being nude at the time. “I went swimming and read a fantastic book” is enough - you don’t need to include “with a bunch of other nude people” at all.
“What if I run into someone I know?”
Here’s the nightmare scenario: someone you know in your clothed life - a friend, acquaintance, co-worker, even a family member - ends up at the same place as you. Now you’re without clothes in front of someone who’s never seen you nude before!
Imagining the embarrassment and awkwardness is almost too much. Now this person, who has only known you in the controlled environment where you’ve been able to cover up to your own comfort level, is suddenly able to see you - all of you. It’s a level of intimacy and exposure that you might never have wanted with this person. What’s more, they now have some knowledge about you that they can use against you - they know you’re a nudist!
This is one of those problems that might seem huge, but in fact is a minor problem at worst - and a huge opportunity at best.
Running into a friend or family member while you’re both nude can in fact be a very positive experience. Now you have something in common you didn’t know about before! This could lead to having someone new to hang out nude with, or someone to go to nudist venues with in the future. There are so many new possibilities when you know other nudists!
You might have been nude in front of only a very small number of people in the past, and they were probably close to you. It’s natural to think that, if you expose your body to a large number of people, especially people you don’t know, you’ll be judged for all the flaws you perceive about yourself - every part of you that you’ve looked at in the mirror and felt was wrong, inadequate, or unattractive.
In a nudist context, whether at a beach, a resort, a gathering, or any other kind of social nudity venue… no one cares.
That’s right. You are alone in judging your body; no other nudist is going to notice all of these flaws and deficiencies. Because in a nudist space, everyone is exposed. We’ve all got ourselves fully on display, and that’s because we agree, collectively, that none of that matters.
In fact, being around other normal nude people can be quite uplifting. It’s one of the few antidotes to society’s ideas about what we should look like, or even what is acceptable to other people. Spend an hour or two among other nude people, and you’ll quickly see through the myth of how anyone is supposed to look, and what a body is supposed to be. It might be the most affirming and positive experience you’ll ever encounter.
You could agree with all this, and get past all the other fears and hangups that society puts on nudity, and still worry that when you get there… you won’t like being nude. Nudists are definitely a minority in our society, so there are many who don’t enjoy social nudity - maybe it just won’t be for you.
It’s natural to feel some trepidation about something like social nudity, because you’ve been bombarded with negative messages about nude bodies all your life. But let me tell you from experience, all of those messages - without exception - are false.
But sure, there’s a possibility that you won’t actually enjoy it when you try it. Maybe the vibe isn’t right, or maybe you’re unable to really let go and get comfortable. Not everyone tries nudism and becomes a convert.
So you put on your clothes and go home.
Really, it’s that simple. If you don’t like it, you can back out at any time. No one is going to demand to know where you’re going. And if you decide later that you want to try it again, no one is going to hold it against you. This is about as un-risky as it can possibly be. And if it turns out that you just don’t like nudist environments, there’s nothing wrong with being nude at home, in private!
The real calculation that you must make is whether the risk is worth the potential reward. The risks, I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate, are actually minor - all are much easier to handle than they might seem before you try nudism for yourself.
But the rewards can be huge. It’s not simply naturist propaganda to say that many, many people have found their lives irrevocably changed for the better when they started going nude. That’s why there are nudist clubs, and resorts, and beaches - because thousands and thousands of others have tried nudism for themselves, and decided to adopt it as a recreation option - or even as a way of life.
It won’t solve all your problems, it’s not a cure-all, it might not even change the world. But it definitely isn’t the big, scary, risky thing you have probably led yourself to believe it was. And the rewards could stay with you for the rest of your new, nude life.
If you’re a naturist already, what did you think the biggest risks were before you tried nudism for the first time, and how did they work out? If you haven’t tried it yet, what are the big risks that are preventing you from going nude for your first time? Let me know in the comments!
When you’re a nudist, it sometimes feels like 90% of the world is porn.
This isn’t about when you’re actually nude, or when you’re nude with other people. It’s one of life’s ironies that social nudity can be among the least sexualized situations imaginable. There’s no leering, no peeking, and (obviously) no mentally undressing each other. The shared vulnerability of nudity makes it innocent in a way that is surprising to most people.
That’s not what pornographers are after, though.
They know that to non-nudists, nudity is intrinsically sexual, so more nudity is more sexy. And situations where multiple people of mixed genders are nude together are very rare in general society, so they must be taboo. Finally, the idea of nudists being real, regular people is set aside, and mostly athletic young women (and a few slim, muscular men) are the focus.
We’re not going to eradicate pornography from the internet any time soon. But if you're looking for nudist information or communities and not images of young nude people, what do you do?
The word “nudism” has been forever corrupted by the online porn industry. Even sites that present as non-pornography sites are trading on exploitation of nudists - often minors, and usually female minors. The fact that they are engaging in (apparently) nudist activities is simply a cover for a business that sells titillating images of naked women.
And apparently it’s good business, because these sites tend to dominate the search results when you use a term like “nudist” or “nudism” on most search engines. You’ll find perhaps some ads for legitimate nudist resorts, and maybe a wikipedia link, but mostly it will be TABOO FAMILY NUDIST PHOTOS NUDE GIRLS sites, fake “nudist” dating sites(link to community post), and the like.
So you’ll have to refine your search terms significantly to get anything usable. If you’re searching for places you can go nude, you’ll want to be more detailed, like “nudist resorts near toronto”. If you’re looking for nudist online groups, try “naturist forums”.
The words you use are important too. The worst word to use is “nudism”, which is a keyword that is dominated by porn sites. Try “nudist” instead - the results are far more legitimate. Even better, use “naturist” or “naturism”, because these words are apparently less erotic, and thus not primary keywords for porn sites.
Even better, unless you’re not looking for some particular site or topic, is to avoid search engines altogether. and go to more authoritative sources of nudist information.
Start with sites of naturist organizations that are already established. You can go to your national association and check their web page out - most national associations list their affiliated clubs and regional groups, and might also provide information on other locations where nudism is allowed or tolerated. (Many of their sites also have a robust privacy and ethics policy - definitely a good thing for nudist content!)
You can also find sites with naturist communities (though I’ve written about why online naturist communities seldom work, so be warned). If you find an active community that truly shares in naturist values - that is, one that isn’t just a trading post for nude photos - they might have some information you can use. Or if you are looking for something specific, you can search the forum’s history, or even just ask. (And you can read my book too, if you want some suggestions on getting started!)
While social media is largely unfriendly to nudism - and nudity in general - there are still some vibrant communities growing on some platforms.
You can find a number of nudist groups on Facebook, often focused on geographical areas - if you’re looking for information or discussion, that would be a good place to start. And if you consider reddit a social media site, their nudist subreddit has won praise as a well-moderated and very active community, and they don’t allow photos either. It’s a great place to search for useful posts or ask your questions. (Full disclosure: I’m a moderator of r/nudism, though I receive no compensation of any kind for it. I’m just a strong proponent of the community, and love to help build quality spaces for naturists!)
Above all, there’s Twitter, which has a loose but surprisingly large community of nudists. While some hashtags might lead you only to porn, #normalizingnudity and #naturism appears to filter better results. Using these hashtags, you can find tweets or accounts that are run by real nudists. You can even get involved and connect with others in the naturist community by tweeting yourself.
While I’ve provided some strategies for finding valid nudist content on the internet, consider how much time you’re spending searching, reading blogs (like this one!) and forums and articles… and how much time you’re spending just experiencing nudism. After all, you can browse all that content while practicing nudism in your own home.
The internet should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. Even in the midst of the COVID pandemic, it’s far better to spend your time finding real nudists to interact with. That doesn’t have to be in person - there are an unprecedented number of nudist gatherings these days, whether through informal Zoom chats or organized events (check out British Naturism’s events!). There are even some nudist resorts and informal meetups going on - respecting social distancing guidelines of course.
Searching for legitimate and valuable nudist content isn’t easy. But the best part is that you can close the search engine any time you want, drop your clothes, and join an incredibly freeing and supportive community.
Are there any online resources for nudists that you prefer? Where do you go for real nudist content? Drop your recommendations in the comments below!
Last year, I put together a list of my favourite naturist podcasts. (That post is available here if you missed it.) Since then, some more podcasts have either appeared or come to my notice, and it’s time to give them a bit of attention too.
Before I list these podcasts, though, let’s think a bit about why naturist podcasts are so important, both in our current pandemic situation and in the long term. Of course podcasts in general can be a great source of information and food for thought, but nudist podcasts in particular are important for a number of reasons.
First, they humanize nudism. If you’re not an active naturist, but you’re interested in it, it can be really encouraging to learn about the real people with all their different personalities, backgrounds, and motivations are part of the nudist scene.
Second, they normalize nudism. With nudism regarded as a far-out fringe practice, it’s easy for solo nudists or even nudist families to feel like their beliefs are really as strange as society repeatedly tells them. And for new nudists, it can be a real battle to work against those meaningless taboos that we’ve been taught all our lives. Hearing people talk about naturism as though it’s a positive, everyday thing helps to normalize it in our own lives.
Third, they build community. The podcasts help all of us identify the common values that bring us together as naturists, and make us think about the ideas that the podcasts present. It may sound trivial, but it’s an important means of reaffirming what draws us together. And in the current lockdown situation, these disembodied voices from across the ether can be a way of staying in touch with other nudists - and with our naturist selves as well.
With that, let’s talk about some podcasts I’ve been listening to lately.
Blake and Elle are residents of Olive Dell Ranch in California, they are both committed naturists, and they’re at the younger end of the demographic. If you’re looking for the future of the naturist movement in the USA, these guys are it.
They take a very casual approach to their podcast, whether they are interviewing guests or just chatting on their own. The laid-back style is engaging and fun, but it’s also very topical: they are involved in the many nude events at Olive Dell, and even organize some of them. The only drawback I find in listening to them is that California is so far away, but I hope to get to Olive Dell one day!
Find the Our Naked Story podcast here.
The Naked Nerd is another young nudist. He hails from Australia, and although his podcast is nudist themed, he spends plenty of time talking about his various nerdy pursuits, particularly Doctor Who. However, he’s an active naturist and has had his nudist friends and members of Young Nudists of Australia on as well. Each episode is refreshingly brief and focuses, and a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy both nudism and nerdism.
Find the Naked Nerd podcast here.
Scott Cline presents this podcast that is directed at new nudists - or potential nudists who are interested in the idea but haven’t tried it yet. (Hey - sounds like a good idea for a book, too!)
Scott hosts interviews with other naturists, from complete newbies to longtime nude veterans. He also provides a roundup of naturist news, and other interesting tid-bits with each episode. Highly recommended for anyone who is thinking about making those first steps into the nudist life.
Francisco Agosto is a father of a bunch of kids, and they enjoy nude recreation together at local nudist spots. (His spouse is not a nudist.) The podcast includes a lot of perspective and advice about family nudism, and issues that teen and child participants may deal with. He confronts some fairly weighty and daunting issues that are particular to younger nudists, like body development, body image, and being nudists in a clothed world.
It’s a very honest and positive podcast. Even nudists without kids (like me) will find it enjoyable. Francisco’s focus on nudist values and philosophy make the podcast very much worth listening to.
Find the Our Simple Nude Family podcast here.
Did I miss any podcasts this time? What podcasts, blogs, and twitter feeds do you look to for nudist news and views? Tell me in the comments!
In my recent post, I pointed out that nudist communities don’t usually work online. I’ve never run an online nudist community before (although I do moderate one), although I’ve been a member of many of them.
But I do perceive some fundamental problems with nudist communities - not with any particular nudist communities themselves, but with the concept of nudist communities in general. And these problems mean that no nudist community, at least with the typical membership-participation model, can really succeed.
The biggest problem, and this goes back to my previous piece on the subject, is authenticity. It’s like the New Yorker comic from back in the late 90s: on the internet, no one knows whether you’re really a nudist. Authenticity is really difficult to verify. And unfortunately there are many nudists on the internet who are not who they say they are.
I’ve seen this problem first-hand. About three years ago, a new nudist forum started up, run by a husband and wife team. It garnered a great deal of immediate interest, with two hundred users signing up in the first week. The owners asked for volunteers to help moderate, and I raised my hand. I, along with two others, were made moderators.
The site had a fair amount of traffic over the next couple of weeks. Members were actively discussing a wide range of topics on the forums, and were also posting photos of themselves to the member pics gallery.
Then I received a message from the site owner.
He asked me to send him a photo of myself, to prove I was who I said I was. I did so immediately, and then we chatted on Skype.
The owner had discovered that one of the other volunteer moderators, who was a younger and very enthusiastic nudist, had been using photos gathered from the internet in the photo gallery, cropping them to make them look a little different, but undoubtedly not the person’s real photos.
The owner wanted to ensure that other moderators were as they presented themselves, and soon we had a smaller moderation crew. But the owner’s attention for the site waned; it lasted only a few more weeks before it was, sadly, taken down.
This is the first problem for nudist sites. We all want to connect with other people, find the ones who share our interests. We want community.
But nudism is already a community of outsiders, apart from the mainstream. Most nudists are guarded about themselves. And many want the short-term attention and interest that comes from being a younger, attractive, and female naturist, even if none of these are true.
So unless there are very strict, human-moderated processes in place, nudist sites will almost automatically have fake profiles. And those processes will inevitably drive user participation down.
Which only exacerbates the second problem.
When you put a group of nudists together online, the opening conversations usually cover the following:
This takes a while, of course; there’s usually discussion about the pros and cons of naturist venues people have visited, and whether family members know, support, or participate in nudist activities.
And then it dries up.
As it turns out, there isn’t that much to talk about with nudism. Once you’ve gone a little bit below the surface, there is very little left to talk about. If a preference for nudity is your only common interest, your conversation will be over fairly soon.
For a nudist community to thrive solely on nudist content, it needs a large and constantly growing membership - not just in the first two or three weeks, but for multiple years. Those members must be actively interacting with each other, possibly finding a great deal of common ground.
For example, if there were an online nudist book club, where a group reads and discusses a nudist-themed book every month, might be a successful approach. The members would need to be consistent and completely dedicated, and some ground rules for discussion and debate would probably be useful too. But this is the kind of common ground that a group would need to gather around. (Incidentally, does anyone know of this kind of nudist book club? Want to start one? Let me know!)
This is different from an online blog or directory, of course, and I think there are many great reasons to have those (obviously). But a member-driven community needs more than just “we’re all nudists” to make it a long-term success. Dedicated interest to nudism only goes so far. Once you’ve got your clothes off, what else is there to say?
I’ve sounded pretty negative about online naturist communities in these blog posts. It’s not that they aren’t useful, it’s that they are far less useful than almost every other kind of naturist interaction.
There are two reasons people go to these groups:
The first kind of person is, of course, who all naturists are hoping to find online. The second is exactly what we don’t want, but it’s an inevitable part of the online nudist population - and often a significant proportion of the online population.
Now, consider who you’ll find at a naturist venue, whether it’s a small private gathering, an organized event, or a resort or beach. You’ll find a bunch of nude people, who are there to be nude. They might want to look at nude people for problematic reasons, but they have to have some - ahem - skin in the game. If you’re at a nude venue with clothes on, your motives are going to be questioned. It’s far less likely for people to be at a nudist venue solely for sexual stimulation.
There are bars to entry in a real-life nudist place that, typically, only real nudists are able to get over. Online, though, the hurdles are far easier to clear. Photos can be faked, accounts can be impersonated; anyone can be anyone with the shield of online anonymity protecting them.
So while it’s great to be able to find information, people, and ideas online, it’s far preferable to find others in real life. If that isn’t your ultimate goal, then online groups, unfortunately, aren’t really going to help you.
We’re in a difficult place right now.
I started writing this piece before COVID-19 upended our entire society. The option of going to nudist venues and meeting with other nude people is gone, for now. And the last thing I’d do is advise anyone to break their quarantine or violate social distancing guidelines. Our first priority is to stay safe and stop the spread of this disease.
That means no going to nudist venues (they’re closed), no getting together with other nudists (it’s illegal in most places).
Isn’t this a time when online nudist groups are more important than ever?
Maybe.
But the social aspect of social nudism isn’t about casting a wide net on some internet community. It’s not about your profile or your photos.
Nudism is about people relating directly to people.
If you can set up - as many people are doing, naturist or not - a video chat with other naturists you know, then by all means do so. And if the best you can do is to get into nudist discussions online, then you can do that too.
One day, this situation will end, and we’ll all be able to go out and socialize again. When that day comes - soon, we all hope - commit to yourself to take advantage of it.
Especially if you’ve never done it before, plan now to go out where other naturists are, and go nude. With all we’ve endured already, and all we’re likely to endure in the next while, moving from online to real life, nude or not, is the best gift we’ll receive.
I’ll see you in the sun.
Have you found any ways to socialize with other nudists during the COVID-19 crisis? What online naturist communities have you found that help you cope? And what real-world nudist place are you planning to go to as soon as the crisis is over? Let me know in the comments!
The internet was responsible for a big boost in nudism. You could search the internet for clubs and resorts, instead of sneaking an ashamed look at the back pages of naturist magazines. You could safely connect with other nudists without revealing your name or face. Nudists have always been relegated to the fringes of society, but on the internet, everyone is on the fringe.
However, it’s remarkable that nudist communities don’t seem to be very successful, as a rule. There is no single nudist community with a large membership that has stuck around for more than a few years.
There are some great blogs and blogger teams who have cultivated a large and active readership, like Naked Wanderings. There are some Facebook groups that boast membership in the tens of thousands. Active nudist associations, like AANR, TNS, and British Naturism, also seem to work as gathering places for naturists. But those aren’t really the kind of organic online communities that I looked for as a new nudist myself.
Online communities for nudists don’t seem to be successful, as a rule. Much as I would love to see them succeed, they tend to go in one of two directions:
Neither of these directions result in healthy, active nudist communities.
A few nudist communities have found at least partial success - though many are only partially successful, and have been at least affected by the problems described above.
A longtime success story - the site is the chief employment for its founder and his spouse - TrueNudists was set up as a Facebook for nudists. It has very active chat rooms, blogs, forums, and detailed profiles - some users have thousands of photos uploaded on the site. (You have to pay for a membership to see more than a few photos.)
TrueNudists may be the best example of problem #2. Of the hundreds of thousands of user profiles (many of them dormant for years), a significant number are transparently fake. Doing a reverse image search on many female profiles, too often, shows that the images are old and stolen from various porn sites. While the site remains large and active, it is a magnet for photo thieves and trollers, and only a small core membership is really part of the site. And though these fake profiles might be reported frequently, they often don’t seem to be taken down, or at least not quickly. I’ve heard other users speculate that the fake profiles keep the user numbers up, attracting yet more new users.
With a focus on outdoor nudist activity, naktiv is a great example of what a nudist online community should be. It’s true to nudist values, does not emphasize photos (although they are allowed on the site), and has a large worldwide user base. However, they seem to suffer from problem #1: there isn’t much happening on the site. When you log on, you see very little new material.
Unfortunately, while I was writing this post, I learned that naktiv went offline for a while because of technical issues. They’re back now, with a smaller set of functions. They’re still worth checking out, but the more limited content on the site may lead to even less user activity.
Based in England, and boasting a mainly British usership, NaturistCommunity is another nudist Facebook community. Users can post photos and video, there is a small and mainly inactive chat room, and users can post in discussions, as well as on a main thread that shows up to all users when they log in. Although there are a few regulars, the site isn't much use for nudists seeking communities, especially outside the UK.
Nudist sites and forums seem to pop up all the time. Almost all of them follow the same pattern: an initial flurry of activity and growth, then a decline and eventual shuttering of the site. And if they allow photos, they invariably suffer from trolls and fake accounts. It's difficult to find any group that lasts more than a few months as an active concern.
There’s one exception to this rule, an online community that has continued to remain active for multiple years, without the same problems about trolls and gawkers, and with over a hundred thousand unique users every month. I know the community intimately, because I’m one of the moderators - and this is not a plug, because I receive no benefit from the community other than personal satisfaction.
The community is the nudism subreddit, located at https://www.reddit.com/r/nudism. I won’t get into reddit and how it works - you can visit the site and see it for yourself. But the popularity of reddit (one of the five most popular sites on the internet) certainly had something to do with the community’s success and longevity.
There are other reasons as well. There are numerous moderators, all active, all interested in preserving the community and its values. Those values are set forth with a set of rules, available to read in the sidebar, that govern the type of content people can post. And there are no image posts of any kind on the site - only discussion, and higher-value nudist content. It’s also on a free platform, so it’s not going to run into costs for hosting or other needs that will make it untenable to continue.
It’s surprising that the number of “good” nudist communities - active groups with lots of nudists and not dominated by trolls - are so rare. Since nudists can’t necessarily be candid with many people about their interest, you would think that the anonymity of the internet would make online communities more popular.
That anonymity might be the very problem, though. You can’t create trust in the community without reassuring the participants that everyone involved is an authentic nudist. The way people most often try to establish that trust is by asking members to submit nude photos of themselves. And then the gawkers arrive.
For sites not driven by photos, that authenticity is typically driven by interacting with other users. Their conduct in discussions builds a personality (or persona) online, and that breeds the authenticity that users are looking for. But even with sites that attract a lot of users initially, those discussions soon falter, and the site is left languishing with very little traffic.
Why is that? I think I know why, but I will discuss that in my next post...
What online naturist communities do you frequent? What makes those communities worth visiting? Are there any that you deliberately steer clear from? Why? Let me know in the comments!
Below you’ll find the conclusion of my interview with NV (see here if you missed the first part).
Be sure to follow @NaturistVintage on Twitter if you don’t already. And before we get to the rest of the interview, I’d like to express my deepest, most humble thanks to NV for the fascinating history, information, and perspective. I’m sure we’ll talk again soon!
Although vintage nudist magazines usually show real nudists and not models, they did often depict younger, athletic women (mostly) and men. They seemed to be looking to gain interest through titillation. Would you agree? Do you think there’s a place for this today, or does it diminish nudism’s profile and turn it into just another sort of (very mild) pornography?
Without a doubt. An unfortunate dichotomy of the early nudist movement was that while its primary tenet was non-sexual social nudity, it was essentially underwritten by the publishing business. The sale of the “official organ”—the specific publications to which that title was granted would change hands a few times—helped fund the early American Sunbathing Association and enlist new members, but a sizable market for these magazines (and the photography within their covers) was the textile public; quite naturally, men. In those days you couldn’t go pickup the latest Penthouse at the local liquor store. Obscenity laws forbade the sale of nude photography. A legally sold nudist magazine was the closest they could get.
And the magazines certainly knew this.
Of course, nudists would absolutely read and contribute to these magazines too, which in a pre-internet era were the primary way for nudists to connect and communicate with each other. The early ASA was run by a man named Ilsley “Uncle Danny” Boone, and he also owned the publishing company that produced Sunshine & Health Magazine.
Uncle Danny fought some major battles on behalf of nudism and his magazine, which was censored from delivery by the US Postal Service on multiple occasions. He sued the USPS and spent almost 20 years fighting this censorship in the courts, eventually taking the matter to the Supreme Court. With the argument that nudity is not inherently obscene, he ultimately won the right to publish his magazine. Due to this judgement, it became legal to publish nude photos if they were associated with nudism.
This led to a major uptick in competition for Sunshine & Health in the 1960s, and many of the publishers began to push the boundaries into more prurient content to sell more paper. Eventually Sunshine & Health folded under the competition.
In my opinion, these magazines (and books, films, etc.) enhanced the profile of nudism, which experienced its “golden age” in the 1960s. They also did inexorable harm to nudism’s reputation as a wholesome, clean way of living.
There’s not much of a market for magazines in general these days, let alone nudist publications that are pornographic. Of course, a simple search of the hashtag #nudism on Twitter or Instagram will turn up hundreds of exhibitionists and pornographers incorrectly claiming that label. Some true nudist publications do still exist. The Bulletin, which is the AANR member magazine (and has been in existence in some form or another for over 70 years) or N Magazine by The Naturist Society, are truly by nudists, for nudists. There’s nothing in those magazines that you could call pornographic.
My opinion is that nudism and porn are ethical opposites. I’m not anti-porn, but I think that naturism is about body positivity and freedom, while porn is often about abuse and violence. As a nudist, I don’t want my beliefs—beliefs which I am open about with my family and friends—to be conflated with porn in the minds of the textile public. If all one sees about nudism is how it’s portrayed in porn, one could really get the wrong ideas about how you choose to live your life as an ethical nudist. Who wants that?
To counter-balance that image, I think it’s all the more important for people to be exposed to non-sexual nudity (pun intended). Being nude around other people and seeing other people nude, with all their beautiful imperfections, can demystify the body, which so often gets objectified in our culture.
What do you think these vintage magazines tell us about nudism? What lessons do you think we can draw from them today?
Surprisingly, one thing that amazes me about reading magazines from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s is how much of the debate around nudism has not changed in the years since. Some of the issues they dealt with, such as maintaining a gender balance, or managing the understanding of non-nudists, are still in many ways the same.
However, there were also many hardships people in that time dealt with, and it’s important to remember those. In the early days, camps being raided by police and nudists arrested en masse was not uncommon. Nudism was criminalized much more. In many ways, those nudists had to really fight and sacrifice to pave the way for the leisurely poolside nudism we often take for granted today.
There was also a very fascinating optimism that these early nudists felt about their cause that I love. I’ve seen multiple articles that predicted a world in which everyone went nude all the time in public. Looking at this from the year 2020, that concept is downright hilarious. Of course, we don’t live in the same world they lived in then. They witnessed a wonderful growth in nudism during a general period of boom in America. There was a real romanticism in how nudism brought people together in the early part of the 20th century. The leisure-class lifestyle was brought about in part by the automobile and the highway system, both of which were still novel in the 1940s. They didn’t have air travel like we do today. Nudism today, it sadly seems, is in a comparative decline. What was once a legitimate social movement is now basically considered a recreation.
What’s in store for the NaturistVintage twitter account? What’s coming up, and what are your long-term goals?
This whole Twitter project is still new. The account has quickly gained over 5,000 followers in just three months. I have a lot of topics I’d like to explore with it.
My primary goal with the Twitter account was to locate an audience for this history. My hope is that it appeals to textiles as well as nudists. There are so many great stories to tell from this history that are relevant to life today. I would love to make converts for nudism, but even more I’d simply like to give people an understanding of the appeal of nudism and the importance of its history, even if they never have a desire to try it for themselves.
Long term, my goal is to make a documentary film. I’ve been a filmmaker for 17 years. It was from a desire to make a film that I first set out to research my family history, and it’s through this research that I’ve come to learn about how important this history is, and how in danger of being lost it is without storytellers to bring it to the world.
My intention with the Twitter account was to find people out there who are interested in this history, and have a direct line of communication to this potential audience. What I didn’t really expect was that I’d actually find a community of people with whom to share in the joy of nudism and its history.
Thank you again, NV!
What did you think? What would you ask NV if you could? Do you think vintage nudist materials remain important to nudists today? Do you have any yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Although the twitter account has been active less than four months, @NaturistVintage is already very popular, with over 5,000 followers. NaturistVintage concentrates on posting scans of nudist magazines and photographs, mostly from the 1960s and earlier.
Certainly the parade of naked women, even if they're usually in grainy black and white images, is the reason for much of the account’s popularity. But the owner of the account, who I’ll call NV here, often does more than just put up photos of pretty nude women.
Instead, NV is interested in documenting the modern history of naturism in North America. Often NV will post a series of photos of a single model, or on a certain theme. Many of the personages who shaped the early views of naturism in the public and in the naturist community are highlighted. And NV is actively researching the context around the images as well, often posting new findings in threads as they come to light.
I reached out to NV to ask about the account’s purpose, and to learn more about the person behind the account. My first questions, and NV’s answers, are below.
Tell me about your interest in nudity. Are you yourself a nudist? If so, how long have you been a nudist, and how did you come to adopt the nudist life?
Yes, I am a nudist, though I’m still getting used to saying that out loud. I’ve only been exploring social nudity for less than one year. I am a cottontail by the standards of some nudists, although I’m proud to say I have lost the tan lines.
I discovered nudism through research, naturally. In fact, this whole Twitter documentary project started first as a search into my own ancestry. My great great grandfather was a prominent American nudist in the 1940s and 50s named Rudolph Johnson. He started a group on his own land in rural Washington state in 1946 called the Cobblestone Suntanners, then went on to co-found the Northwest Sunbathing Association a year later. In 1950 he became president of the American Sunbathing Association (the ASA—now known as AANR), during a very tumultuous time in that association’s history.
I grew up with photo albums and tall tales of “Rudy the Nudie” all my life. When I was about thirteen, I spent a summer living on his land (which at the time was still owned by my grandmother) along with a cousin who was about my age. This cousin and I spent the summer fishing, catching frogs, and skinny dipping in the river that ran through the property. Looking back, it was easily one of the happiest summers of my young life, and since then I have always had a fascination with my great great grandfather, and a curiosity about nudism as a result. Growing up, I proudly told others of Rudolph and his nudist legacy, often to strange looks and mixed commentary.
It wasn’t until I became a father last year, and my own father survived a major heart attack a few months later, that suddenly collecting and preserving this heritage took on a new personal urgency and importance for me. I began seeking out any information on Rudolph that I could find, and subsequently discovered that he frequently contributed to old nudist magazines such as Sunshine & Health and American Nudist Leader. Many of these magazines contained photos of him, and some even had his writing. Reading these old magazines, it wasn’t long before my fascination with Rudolph blossomed into a fascination with the nudist movement of the mid 20th century.
Rabidly consuming this history, I eventually found the Western Nudist Research Library on the grounds of Glen Eden Sun Club, about an hour from where I live. I made the drive down and met the late Richard Hirst, a founder of the WNRL. He gave me a full tour of Glen Eden on his golf cart. Incidentally, it was the day of one of their biggest annual summer events, “Nudestock”. There were families and people of all ages jamming out naked to a live band. With that my interest was sufficiently piqued. I came back just one week later with my wife and son and we stayed two days and nights without putting clothes on once. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
Your posts of vintage naturist magazine scans get a lot of attention on twitter. Tell me about the collection of magazines you’re scanning. Do you own these? How long have you been collecting them? How do you go about acquiring them? Do you also find vintage photos online, or are these all scanned?
My approach has always been to document and educate (hopefully). I try to share what I learn, and include sources wherever possible. I’ve scanned a good portion of what I share myself. I find some of the content online. I’ve also bought dozens of magazines, books, and films through sites like Abe Books, Ebay, Amazon, or boutique sellers like Alta Glamour or Something Weird (two personal favorites out of Seattle). Nearly all of the content I share has been previously published in some form, and much of the physical material I've acquired gets ultimately donated to a research library.
I would not be able to do my research without the four American nudist libraries. These libraries are doing important work to preserve nudism’s history, which is in some danger of being lost to time otherwise. Since discovering the Western Nudist Research Library, I have become involved as a volunteer and now sit on the board. I have yet to visit the American Nudist Research Library in Florida in person, but they’ve been extremely helpful to my research remotely. They’re also an excellent resource for old nudist magazines; they sell their surplus copies for a reasonable donation.
In addition to these two entities, there’s also the Naturist Education Foundation Research Library in OshKosh, WI, and the AANR-NW Library Archive at Willamettans in Eugene, OR. These four separate libraries are even collaborating, on a voluntary basis, to digitize and share their collections together on the cloud, both for preservation and to make the material available to researchers of the future. It’s an impressive and ambitious effort, and it is very much in need of support.
How do you choose the themes you post? For example, you recently had a series on Diane Webber. How do you decide on your themes, and what are you hoping to achieve with them?
In general, I share what I’m learning. The primary condition is that it must be related to the history of nudism in some way, beyond just nudity or nakedness. I love the shared humanity of the people participating in this weird, social lifestyle together. There’s something both vulnerable and strong about a person who chooses to go as they are without cover. I believe that one of the best things that nudism has to offer society is a stronger sense of body acceptance and self love. I think it can have effective therapeutic results. I try to share bodies of all ages and sizes for that reason, not just pinup models.
Diane Webber is a great example of an exception that proves the rule. She, obviously, was literally a pinup model. She was also easily one of the most famous nudists ever. Plainly, she was an icon and a sex symbol.
What I tried to emphasize by sharing the wide variety of her work in one thread, was how prolific she also was as an artist and human. She was in films and television, featured on the covers of magazines and advertisements, and worked with acclaimed photographers and directors. I’ve seen her called the most photographed person in the world. I personally question the truth of that, but she was easily the most photographed nudist in the world. Everyone knows the hits; not as many people know the b-sides. So my goal was just to connect some of those dots.
Part Two of my discussion with NaturistVintage is now published! Check it out here!
