You are not going to believe this… The other day, we received a message from a reporter at an online magazine, asking us to comment on a message from a reader who feels uncomfortable when his nudist girlfriend spends time naked with her dog. Even claiming that “it’s something out of an illegal adult movie for her to be naked with an animal all the time”.
We thought it was a joke. Until we did a bit of research and found out that there was an actual article going to be written about this topic. This is a real case, and the person in question claims not to be jealous of the dog and actually enjoys her being naked all the time because “she has a rockin bod”. But the combo seems to freak him out.
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Why does she go naked?
A part of the reason for this message obviously lies in his perception of nudism. He likes that she’s a nudist because “she has a rockin bod”. There’s no info about why she is a nudist, maybe it makes her feel better about herself, maybe it boosts her body confidence, maybe it gives her more comfort, and maybe, cuddling naked with the dog gives her a stronger sense of connection. It’s obvious that although he doesn’t think that there’s a weird sexual relationship going on, he very much sexualises nudism and sees it as entertainment.
Luckily, this is an extreme case and the first time we hear about such a thing in all those years when we’ve been naturists and have been creating content about naturism. But the concept of seeing nudity as a form of personal entertainment is not new at all. There must be millions of people out there who would love their partner to be naked more often. As long as it’s for their eyes only.
Strip clubs have existed since the moment that people started wearing clothes. They have the sole purpose of using nudity for entertainment and purely exist because of the sexualisation of nudity. In the arts, on the other hand, nudity is also frequently used, but much more often as a celebration of the body rather than for sexual reasons.
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Seeing naked people
Everyone will agree that the pictures by Spencer Tunick don’t have any sexual purposes while for the dancer in the strip club it’s only about that. From this, we can conclude that a lot has to do with the purpose of the “content”. Spencer wants to make art and that’s how people see it. The stripper wants to arouse the viewer so they would put $5 notes into the last piece of clothing being worn.
Why is it that in naturism/nudism, the purpose appears to be less clear? One reason we can come up with is that nudism is still a rather new concept, especially compared to art and strip clubs which have existed for eternity. A more important reason though is that nudism is not meant to entertain other people. In all nudity that you ever get to see, whether it’s in movies, strip clubs, or museums, it’s always meant to trigger a feeling or emotion in the viewer. Whereas in naturism, there is no viewer. There are no emotions to be triggered in other people, only in ourselves.
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How to change the public opinion
The easy solution to this problem is to put up fences, which is what naturist clubs have been doing for decades. Create spaces for people who understand what naturism is, and keep everyone else out. The problem here is that it becomes very hard to grow a movement. Only in the last decade or so, you can see more and more naturists coming out of the shadow and making public appearances.
Last weekend was the first Dia al desnudo (naked day) in Mexico City, after the success of last year in the other Mexican City Guadalajara. Local naturists get the chance to take off their clothes for a march through the city centre, with the goal to normalise nudity and celebrate the human body. From the pictures we’ve seen on Twitter, they had quite a large group and also a pretty large audience. Does everyone who came over with a phone in hand understand what naturism is? Will they all give naturism a try after this day? We very much doubt it. But that doesn’t really matter. The goal is not to make the whole world naturist, but to change public opinion. And this can only be done by going wide in the open.
You can compare it to the Gay Parades that are quite common in Europe. Far from everyone who joins is gay, and we can’t imagine that people become gay from going to such an event. But the visitors have a great day among gay people, have a chance to meet them and to party with them. If we look at the acceptance of non-straight relationships today, although it’s still far from what it should be, there is progress.
¡El día que desnudamos Guadalajara!
Quitando prejuicios una prenda a la vez. #marcha #nudista #diaaldesnudo #nudeday
Foto tomada por Juan Marcos Castañeda pic.twitter.com/OrYnT0Oj8Y— Dia al Desnudo (@DiaAlDesnudo) July 3, 2022
Man vs dog
Where does this leave us with the guy who thinks his girlfriend shouldn’t be naked around her dog? He probably still has quite a way to go when it comes to understanding nudism and non-sexual nudity. But the only way to get him to this point will be to keep doing what we’re doing. To keep bringing naturism out of the shadows and from behind the fences.
Unlike what some people believe, we don’t think that normalising nudity means that everyone should go naked. It’s about making people comfortable being among nudity and making them understand why we enjoy it.
The other day, we were at a naturist resort and a couple arrived who clearly had no idea what “naturism” meant. Although they didn’t show, they were probably quite surprised to see a bunch of naked people around the pool. By the evening, they joined us, both wrapped in a towel. We left the next day, so we don’t know whether they eventually decided to give it a try or not, but what we do know is that they’ve seen what naturists do. Even if they decided not to try it after all, we’re sure that they won’t have a negative opinion about it, which they could have had if they never ended up at a naturist place.
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Not trying to be argumentative, but why can’t going a strip club just be about enjoying the female form without too much clothing on? I once saw a video of a girl doing ballet in the nude and it was an amazing experience for me and for my wife.
If a beautiful woman is doing very similar moves to ballet but around a brass Pole and Theatrical lights, isn’t it very close to the same thing?
I believe that it has more to do with the intent of the viewer to categorize it as to whether it is sexual nudity or non-sexual nudity.
In theory, it can. On practice, there is a large cultural context, within even larger context of patriarchy.
By the way, would you personally enjoy the male form without too much clothing on? Would you want to see a video of a boy doing ballet in the nude? Would you want to see a beautiful man doing very similar moves to ballet but around a brass pole and theatrical lights? Would it be the same kind of experience for you as with women?
I once happened to be in a night club where a couple performed and I was not bothered at all by the male.
Actually I was not bothered at all by both dancers. It was just a quite tasteful dancing performance, no one throwing $5 notes at the scene.
Definitely, and there might indeed be men who go to strip clubs just to enjoy the nude body as a form of art. But let’s be honest, they will be a minority
What does that even mean. A show at the strip clubs can certainly be described as a form of art. A form of art with an obvious sexual connotation, of course, but still, a form of art. What you probably want to say is that the vast majority of people going there are particularly interested in the sexual connotation, and that is certainly true. Because yeah, if you ignore the sexual part, the quality of the show is usually not particularly high.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and the creator. We imagine that there are porn directors who consider their movies art. But that’s not what this blog post is about. It’s about intention, about the emotion you want to evoke in others. Strippers obviously want to entertain and arouse the audience, whereas that’s definitely not the intention of naturists
“How to change the public opinion … And this can only be done by going wide in the open”
Easier said than done with a handful of legal and social issues lurking. Ready to devour the daredevil who crosses the faint winding red line.
Children stories advise to walk your way and not look into the eyes of hidden monsters. Then they have no power over you and they eventually disappear or die.
True, in some countries or for some people it’s more difficult than others. But we believe in being the change you want to see. When we started Naked Wanderings, we had no idea how our environment would react. And we did get some concerned messages from relatives and people close to us. But we chose to do it anyway.
During the last years, we probably talked with too many people who keep shouting that nobody understands naturism while they are afraid to even talk with their parents or children about it. That’s not how change happens…
“But we believe in being the change you want to see”
I could not agree more. The world follows our own attitude.
Thank you guys for your support and leading the way. You’re doing a great job.
“A more important reason though is that nudism is not meant to entertain other people. In all nudity that you ever get to see, whether it’s in movies, strip clubs, or museums, it’s always meant to trigger a feeling or emotion in the viewer. Whereas in naturism, there is no viewer. There are no emotions to be triggered in other people, only in ourselves.”
-Just loved this quote
Thanks! And yet it seems like such a hard concept to understand.
The guy worried about the wife and the dog together was clearly relating nudity to sex. In his defense when you have seen nudity = sex all your life its to be expected.
Seeing a stripper or exotic dancer is totally different then seeing a woman naked. The dancer is clearly trying to present herself in a sexual way. A naked woman at the beach or resort is not.
I totally think your wrong about that. A naked woman at the beach wants to be naked and show off her body the woman at the club might have a sexier body but you are also paying for it so it has to look good rhe one at the beach doesn’t have to look good cause the only one paying for it would be her husband, boyfriend, lover.
It seems like you don’t understand naturism. People who want to show off their bodies are exhibitionists. Naturists just enjoy being naked and don’t do this to entertain others.
With a handle like that, OF COURSE he’s not here for naturism. 🤣
You still seem to be confused. I’m naked for me. I want to be naked because it feels good to ME. I also like beaches and socializing so it makes sense that want to be around other naturists. When you come across naked women at a beach you can be assured that the vasts majority are there to swim, read a book and work on tans. I’m very interested in chatting with other people while I’m there but I have zero interested in being propositioned for a sexual purpose.
You seems to be a bit confused too. Let me explain how I see things.
For one thing, I enjoy seeing other people naked on the beach. I think it’s beautiful. Yes, seeing naked people enjoying their time at the beach makes me happy too.
But. I also enjoy being naked myself around other people. It just feels good to be naked, and with other people, enjoying their company, even if that’s just random people I don’t really know. Just as much as I enjoy being around naked people, I enjoy being naked around them.
In the same style I can enjoy having a drink in a crowded cafe, watching people doing their stuff around, and being myself part of that crowd. But the beach is better, because some people are naked, and you can be naked yourself, which makes things even more enjoyable.
There was some talks about strip clubs. There a very strong difference here, and it is the commercial aspect of it. The person stripping at the strip club is not doing it for their own enjoyment, or on their own choice, heck, they could even just hate it and rather be doing something else if they didn’t need the money. No, they are doing it as a service to their customers. They just do that as part of their job. On the other hand, the person getting naked on the beach may be happy to entertain the other guests by their presence, just as much as they enjoy the presence of others. But they are doing so freely, not as part of a job. And that makes it completely different.
Personally I very much enjoy watching naked people at the beach. The fact that they are having a good time themself is an important part of it. I’ve never been to a strip club but really, I don’t think I would enjoy that.
Just as with everything in life, it’s not black and white and a lot has to do with intention. If naturists would dislike the sight of naked people, that would make things very difficult. Of course we like to see naked people. In fact, we think that the very large majority of people look a lot better naked than in a bathing suit. But we don’t go to a nude beach with the intention to look at other people and we definitely don’t think that the others are naked for our entertainment.
When we go to a nude beach, we know that others will notice us. And that’s totally fine. But we’ve also had cases where others position themselves in such an angle on the beach that they get the “best view”. That is not naturism anymore, that’s voyeurism (or exhibitionism in case they try to give us the “best view”).
Concerning strippers, there are probably a lot of them who actually enjoy what they do and who see themselves as performers. But even if they think that they have the best job in the world, their goal will always be to entertain others. In a performance, you’re happy when your audience is happy. Whereas in naturism, the others are not considered an audience (or performers).
I think you did not fully understand what Lilly was trying to say. Please Lilly correct me if I misunderstood, but let me give some specific examples. And I have plenty of them. As it happens it is the beginning of the summer season here in Spain, which means that I get to spend a large amount of time at the beach.
But first a digression. Spain has a lot of popular festivities, especially in the summer. Each town has its own festivities, in addition to the regional or national ones. If you did not experience this, this is probably difficult to understand. You get to spend a large amount of fun time with some people in the street. Some of them are acquaintance but the vast majority is not. The result is that you feel some connection with those people. You don’t go there to enjoy your time individually. No. You watch people, you are watched by people. This could be called a performance, but a mutual one. There is not an audience on one side, and the performers on the other. No, everybody is both of those at the same time.
Why this digression? Because I think the beach is the same. Of course, not every beach. Every beach is different. I’m talking about a specific kind of beach. I was at one of those beaches this weekend, a very popular one. And I must say this was a beautiful performance. The weather was perfect, and the beach was full of beautiful people enjoying their time, many of them naked. During my walks along the beach, a group of men and women caught my attention. Some of them naked, some of them not. Among them a women with beautiful tattoos, the kind where the person should be naked to enjoy it fully. And she was standing there, completely naked, talking with her friends, in a very natural way. And this is what I really enjoy about this place, where being naked is a very natural thing. Naked people everywhere, but some people wearing a swimsuit too, and nobody cares either way.
We don’t think that this is a correct comparison. We’ve seen the festivities in Spain, men wear their best suit, women wear colourful dresses and put on makeup, there’s a lot of focus on standing out, on seeing and being seen. You can give a stranger a great compliment by walking up to them and saying how nice they look in their dress.
Visitors of a nude beach don’t spend such an amount of time to enhance their physical appearance and walking up to a stranger to say how nice they look naked is considered not done.
As Karen mentioned earlier, a lot of people go to a nude beach to spend some time on their own, to relax, to read a book, to get a tan and a swim. But Lilly is right too, others go for the social atmosphere, to talk with people without artificial boundaries like clothes. And to enjoy the setting where everyone is happy and naked. But if you’re going specifically to look at other people or to be seen, you’re probably going for non-naturist reasons.
I have to disagree about the “non-naturist reasons” part. Naturism is specifically a social activity. If you enjoy spending time naked on your own, on a deserted beach, that is great, but that is not really what naturism is about. Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong about that, and everybody should be doing what they enjoy most. But being naked on your own, or with little interactions with others really is not an uncommon thing, I guess almost everybody take their shower naked, and I don’t think this is what naturism is about.
On the other hand, having a good day naked with other people, *that* is the essence of naturism. That includes watching and being seen by other people, or having some kind of interaction with them. Of course there’s some way to do it, you don’t stare at a single person for a large amount of time, just like you don’t do that in the street either.
I also have to disagree that visitors of a nude beach don’t spend time to enhance their physical appearance. Some of them do. Just look at the tattoos: some of them are clearly though to be seen while naked. And many people take care of their body so that it looks good (although just to be clear there is no obligation).
But it is also wrong to say that physical appearance is the main thing about Spanish festivities. Clearly, it is not. Sure, for the people parading, the costume is important. It is also important for carnival. But that is just one small part of the festivities. Many people join the festivities without carefully chosen cloths, and have a good time with the other people in the street, which is what the festivities are about.
Of course you don’t walk up to a random person on a nudist beach to say how nice they look. But you don’t do that in the street festivities either. Unless of course you’re very careful to make sure it is not misunderstood and you suspect the person will enjoy the comment. That is the same in both cases.
You are absolutely right that the social aspect has been part of the foundation of naturism since the very beginning. It’s even mentioned in the official definition of naturism. But the times are changing. Since the uprise of social media and also since COVID, more and more “home naturists” started to appear. They don’t participate in “real life” social events, but they are socially connected through Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. This also opened doors for people who don’t have any naturist venues nearby.
In the end, we’re talking about nothing but terminology here. You say that engaging in social nudity makes the difference between a naturist and a naked person, but don’t forget that there are many others who believe that you need to be a member of a federation to call yourself a naturist. What’s most important to us though, is that more and more people get a positive image of nudity.
You misunderstood what we wanted to say about people enhancing their physical appearance. It’s a common misunderstanding that naturists don’t care how they look. Of course they do, of course they’ll get tattoos and piercings and go to the gym. But most of them don’t do so specifically to go to the nude beach, whereas people who dress up for a party specifically do this for the party.
About complimenting people, we’ll give you another example. Let’s say there’s this person living in your street who you just say “hello” to a couple of times a year. One day you run into this person at a party. It’s perfectly normal to go over to say hello, look from head to toe and say “wow, you look great in that dress”. If you’d run into this person on a nude beach, it’s still normal to go over to say hello, but you’ll never scan their body and compliment on it.
That is a very capitalist conception of life.
No, a naked woman at the beach does not necessarily wants to show off her body. Maybe she does. Maybe not. Who knows. Should we care? That’s her choice. Maybe she doesn’t even know herself. Maybe it depends. Maybe yes but not really. Maybe no, but still a bit. Who cares, it doesn’t matter.
In any case it is a very misogynous claim to make.
And one more person who makes us talk about weird sexually loaded ideas nudity provokes in him. I’m pretty sure his partner doesn’t even have an idea about that. I imagine she’s around her dog as she would otherwise, it’s just that she happens not to wear clothes. If he had talked to her about that, I think that’s about the answer he would have gotten.
Moreover, I think one full day in the nude with her, including chores as doing laundry and washing the dishes would totally make that clear to him.
Would it normalize nudity if the textiles could see nudies runnig errands? And would it keep people from being irked by nudies around dogs?
I don’t mind being nude at home but my dog trying to sniff me or stares at me when I naked in front of her.
I am still naked and ask her to stop it.
“One reason we can come up with is that nudism is still a rather new concept, especially compared to art and strip clubs which have existed for eternity.”
You are very wrong about this. If one thing has existed for eternity, it is nudism. Maybe it was not called that way, because you don’t need a word for a thing that is just the normal thing. What is actually a new concept is the fact that social nudity is not accepted in most places. *That* is pretty recent. But even that, when you read Spanish anarchist authors from say 100 years ago, they all talk about how nudism is a good thing. Really, there is no way to say that nudism is a new concept.
Nudity and the acceptance of it is, of course, as old as humanity. But the use of the term naturism/nudism isn’t much more than 100 years old. This is important because nudism comes with a certain etiquette.
It’s like soccer, which originated in the 19th century. Before that, there were numerous similar games that included kicking a ball, but with different rules. And even before that, people probably kicked a round object now and then. But nobody will ever call that soccer, because it’s nothing like the concept of soccer we know today.
Social nudity was a big thing in ancient Greek and Roman times, but it wasn’t naturism/nudism.