Some time ago a friend brought it to our attention that one of our photos had been used by a Twitter account called @BeNudeToday. Without our approval of course.
This has happened before to us and honestly, what can we say? Ever since the beginning of Naked Wanderings we have been “stealing” pictures from the internet as well. Before we started this journey we didn’t particularly have a huge album with naturist photos and we could certainly not find the necessary pictures of our own to document all the topics we wanted to talk about. So we took pictures from Twitter and the internet as well, always with the mention that if someone recognizes their own photo, they can ask us to remove it and otherwise we’d be happy to mention them in the credits.
This has happened before to us and honestly, what can we say? Ever since the beginning of Naked Wanderings we have been “stealing” pictures from the internet as well. Before we started this journey we didn’t particularly have a huge album with naturist photos and we could certainly not find the necessary pictures of our own to document all the topics we wanted to talk about. So we took pictures from Twitter and the internet as well, always with the mention that if someone recognizes their own photo, they can ask us to remove it and otherwise we’d be happy to mention them in the credits.
Although we were technically stealing, we’ve never considered it such a big issue. We were using someone else’s naturist images to promote naturism. And that’s what it’s all about, right?
Therefore we’ve also never made a big deal about others using our pictures. If they help to make the world a little more nude friendly, please use them wherever you can!
This time, however, the purpose of our image wouldn’t exactly be promoting nudism.
Therefore we’ve also never made a big deal about others using our pictures. If they help to make the world a little more nude friendly, please use them wherever you can!
This time, however, the purpose of our image wouldn’t exactly be promoting nudism.
Naturist scams
At first sight, there didn’t seem anything wrong with the picture. The account is called Be Nude, an expression we certainly stand behind and the picture was given a quote “As a nudist couple, we enjoyed life better”. We can’t remember having said this and the past tense of the sentence makes it sound a little like we’re not a nudist couple anymore, but other than that these could certainly have been our words.
Then we clicked the link.
Then we clicked the link.
We were taken to a website called nudistescapes.com, apparently a dating site for nudists. Although we don’t really appreciate our photos being used as a commercial promo campaign, even until this point nothing was really wrong. But alarm bells started ringing.
We had checked this website in a small Canadian town called Arnprior, a village with about 10 000 inhabitants. Yet Nudist Escapes already showed us on the first page 12 women between the age of 26 and 40 from this little place looking for a nudist partner.
Really? This must be the lonely naturist hearts club of Canada!
We had checked this website in a small Canadian town called Arnprior, a village with about 10 000 inhabitants. Yet Nudist Escapes already showed us on the first page 12 women between the age of 26 and 40 from this little place looking for a nudist partner.
Really? This must be the lonely naturist hearts club of Canada!
We didn’t even have to register to find out what was really going on here, Naturism Of Color had already done this for us. Of course, it was yet another scam trying to empty the pockets of lonely single men. They are all over the internet, using fake profiles with stolen photos attracting visitors via certain niches. This one focusing on the naturists.
Sadly we can understand that this works too.
Sadly we can understand that this works too.
“Hey, a naturist dating site! Here I can see my future partner naked before I even meet her in real lifeā¦ How cool is that?”
Not so cool buddy. And if that’s your way of thinking, maybe you’re worth to be ripped off. Of course, as long as you keep paying, they will keep stealing our pictures and misusing the term nudism.
So why not trying to find a partner at a bar? Or a real dating site.
Not so cool buddy. And if that’s your way of thinking, maybe you’re worth to be ripped off. Of course, as long as you keep paying, they will keep stealing our pictures and misusing the term nudism.
So why not trying to find a partner at a bar? Or a real dating site.
Some history of nudist photography
People take pictures all the time. Now more than ever of course with our cell phones and DSLR cameras and memory cards that can contain thousands of photos. But even when we were still using film, we took pictures of ourselves and others. They are our memories. When we do something fun we want to have a snapshot of it which will bring back the happy memory years later when we find back that photo album.
For naturists, of course, lots of those fun moments happen when they are naked.
For naturists, of course, lots of those fun moments happen when they are naked.
Although naturism already exists for more than a century, for a long time it has happened exclusively behind hedges and fences. The first time the lifestyle was brought into the open was probably as a result of the revolutions at the end of the sixties, the moral got less tight and it was time to show the world what we were really doing. And not only that, we needed a way to connect with each other and to tickle the interest in naturism for a bigger crowd. Back in the day, this had to be done via magazines.
Of course, at the time, nudity in magazines was not particularly well accepted. Ours didn’t contain naked supermodels either, you could see men and women of all ages and sizes, families too and (God forbid) naked children. The first of these magazines were immediately banned, the publishers were sent to court and it took several years and lawsuits before some smart judge pointed out that we had the right to be naked. That this was a human right. We had won this fight, naturist magazines were back on the printers.
Paying to see someone’s nude holiday photos?
It didn’t take long before someone with less ideologic ideas saw an opportunity in the market. Now you could easily publish naked people in magazines, just make sure to call them naturists. Add some philosophical naturist text to it, “As a nudist couple, we enjoyed life better” for example, and there you go. Completely legit. A gate had been opened which was impossible to guard.
And then came the internet, a technology which has unfortunately been neglected hugely by the naturist society. While the naturists were focusing on their magazines and newsletters, frauds started buying naturism related domain names and started spreading pictures and movies of naked people around. All under the name naturism of course and all with the same little texts saying something about the advantages of the lifestyle.
It will take us quite some time before we’ll be able to catch up with all this malicious content. When you google something like “nude beach” or “naturist fun”, how long does it take until you end up on a porn website? It’s sad to see how a lifestyle about non-sexual nudity can turned into something sexual so easily.
It’s wrong in so many ways.
Not only are our pictures used to turn on some pervert and eventually empty his pockets, they are also completely boycotting our cause of promoting non-sexual nudity and even worse, because they make people believe that nudism is something sexual, they are sending people with the wrong intentions to our nudist places. People who will eventually cause problems and create a bad vibe.
Not only are our pictures used to turn on some pervert and eventually empty his pockets, they are also completely boycotting our cause of promoting non-sexual nudity and even worse, because they make people believe that nudism is something sexual, they are sending people with the wrong intentions to our nudist places. People who will eventually cause problems and create a bad vibe.
We can imagine that many of those who visit naturist places for the wrong reasons are pretty disappointed when they finally get there. When the porn industry noticed that the naturist scene, although everyone is naked, might be a bit boring for the average porn viewer, they have created their own “naturist images”. Often featuring young models who are rubbing each other with sunscreen or sitting with wide spread legs towards the camera, winking at the photographer. When they arrive at the nude beach the amount of models is disappointing and there are no winks when they take a photo, the only attention they do get is from the big guy asking them to leave.
But still these websites flourish, a good example is Purenudism.com who ask their visitors to pay for legit naturist photos and movies. Now please tell us, why would a genuine naturist pay money to see someone else’s pictures? Not only do we see real naked people on a regular basis, for us naturist pictures are the regular holiday pictures. We don’t really like it when people ask us to spend hours going through the photos of their last holiday or Christmas party. Let alone that we would ever pay for it.
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As a naturist and a photographer, I say, “spot on!” and “thank you.” Nothing flatters me like someone copying my photos with due credit and a link to their source, but nothing angers me like copying them with neither.
On the one hand, posting on-line is an invitation to share with everyone. On the other hand, using someone else’s picture for commercial profit is wrong. The worst part is using any photos for fraud, and fake dating sites are criminal fraud. Sad that such sites exist. I feel sorry for the men who are so lonely and desperate that they pay for even a slim chance of honesty.
PureNudism is PureGarbage. Itās nothing more than a front for pedos.
āTrueNudistsā, one of your sponsors, is trash too though. Itās a far cry from being a real nudist website. That place is full of jackers and creeps. They recently made the news when people were arrested after talking about incest and pedophillia in the chat room. That place is exactly what you are complaining about; a place for some guy to make money off the pictures of others.
yes the True Nudist site is also spam charging everyone to see everyone’s photos & stolen photos
About TrueNudists we have some doubts. On one hand they are very bad in keeping the creeps out and we’re pretty sure that they are not kicking them out on purpose because of the money.
On the other hand, while we were in Asia we met several closet nudists who claimed that TrueNudists was their only gateway to finding likeminded people in countries where nudism is forbidden.
From what we hear, our estimate would be 60% crap and 40% real. Although “real” might include several swingers as well.
Agreed that many of the self-proclaimed ānudistsā on TN are really just swingers. Most of them you look up have accounts on both TrueNudists and TrueSwingers (both sites are owned by the same guy).
TN has been nothing but a money grab for years for the owner. He may have started with good intentions, but his real purpose became clear years ago; make money at all costs.
I have read on “truenudists” that approx 2 years ago, when that site was “reformed” to paid one, people have lost the access to their own photos!
Very bad.
Additionally, that site seemd to be full of fakes, because people created many groups named “nude nudists”, “really true nudists” etc.
Need an alternative. And alternative nudist sites are exist.
The only decent alternative we know about is Naktiv, but they have a rather crapy website. Feel free to share others if you know them.
Nakitv website sucks hard.
Whoever is building that thing for them has made a mess of it.
I used to really enjoy Naktiv until an update made it very hard to use.
If you don’t mind using an old-school PHPBB forum and reading about naturism from a Christian perspective, naturist-christians.org is very well moderated.
Disclaimer: I am one of the administrators there.
Yep, same here, Naktiv used to be ok, we were really looking forward to the update but it only made things worse.
We know about the naturist-christian.org website. It has once been our inspiration to write a blog post about naturism and religion which unfortunately never got finished. It’s such a delicate topic and we don’t know enough about religion to create a decent article about it.
Wow!!
Now this is something different!
A person really has to be an ass to take some1 elses pic and pretend to be them…
Eventho many say its not ok or maybe even more ,to take/use some1 elses pic, but as u said .. u used it cause u didnt have choice, u never pretended to be at a pic u posted that isnt urs, or if some1 is on the pic, u never said its you ,so in my eyes thats ok , u didnt have bad intentions with it, u just used the pic as an addon to the subjects, specially because this blog isnt even about pictures, but about talking.
I honestly dont even look at other sites besides this, ive seen a few others and blogs, but this is where i am ,cause here ppl actually talk , i dont even need or want pictures for that.
As for thes truenudists or purenudists mentioned ,i dont know, well .. as NickLins said, one is called bad but at same time it helps ppl in Asia or something?
While the purenudists ask money for long videos, well maybe they are doing it to have money for traveling or something.
At the end of the day , isnt that called capitalism? Maybe they dont want just naturists to get the vids or so, but maybe some that are 50-50 if they wanna be one or not, i dunno, its like asking , why would James Hetfield buy a new Ozzy album, they are both musitians so whats the point?
I might add something else as well ,its kinda funny when there were no posibilites ,older times, to put all of this stuff in ppls faces 24/7 so they can get to know better the subject and for naturists to promote it ,or their resorts ect … or for lets say poor ppl to see places they would have never seen if there wasnt for internet, ppl were crying about it and all .. we cant be ..at least internet mainstream ,and now when those times have come, that u can literally see anything and everything u want, now its not good either?
Ppl make porn , family ppl.. that have brothers sisters parents kids .. and they make movies like that for the whole world to see (maybe their own family seen it too intentionaly or not) ,and noone minds that, its considered as normal? But when someone wants to sell movies or pictures of naturists/events or whatever,they are conisdered as fake ones or pervs(whatever that means) ,or get a “bad name” cause they show kids in it too? Isnt it a naturist rule no1, every1 can be a naturist?
.. how should we call football clubs that make us pay ticket to see the game and to give them support? We wanna give them support and we have to pay for that?..
No offence, but i think sometimes u guys (naturists) are overthinking things and are being way too …aaa.. i better not say it hah.
This happens to me all the time. People steal my nude photos from my twitter account @t3dus and repost them for their own personal gain.
I wouldn’t care if they reposted them if they asked permission first and gave me credit but they never do. Nowadays I just ask that folks give me credit if they post my nude photos
Iām sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately, there isnāt a lot we can do to prevent it.
FWIW, I had most of my photos on Flickr hijacked. On the one hand itās a compliment, I donāt think Iām much to look at, but it also puzzled me.
Your photos are very well done and PG13, so perhaps some commercial value prompted this.
I certainly hope you can stop it.
Arnprior … Iāve driven through there a number of times. Youāre correct itās a village.
Well, I think most is said and I agree to all, but one thing can be made clearer. I think that the censorship in social media is supportive to the problems we see. This happens to all (ethical) human behaviour getting āregulatedā.
NakedWanderings is one of the few viable Nudist Websites, but it is not a social media platform for chatting, sharing or teaming up.
This is a modern lifestyle and I donāt take it off when undressing. I am still the same person! But now being naked there is a broken link. FB groups are kind of boring/pointless, WhatsApp groups suck; MeWe is on first sight uncensored, but actually it a lot more effective in ācensoringā as you need an invite; that is an extremely strong filter. It would be easier to distribute flyers with your mail address on a nudist beach ??
Social Media for nudists could serve not only nudists, but open a door for (tentatively) interested to make one more step within comfort zone. Eventually it soaks up some of the edgy guys and confine them harmlessly.
But it could also build a brand for āreal nudism/naturismā against fake or commercialized nudism/naturism.