This is the question that kept us awake one night in the early spring of 2020. We had been active on social media as naturists for years and although we managed to create quite a genuine community, we were still often disappointed, discouraged, and disgusted when we received yet another dick pic or sexual comment. Had these people learned nothing from our posts? Was all our promotion of non-sexual nudity just an illusion? And most of all, what do aspiring naturists think when they do their research online and get confronted with all this? Would it be possible to create an online platform for naturists without harassment and perversion?
Our epiphany
Let’s rewind a couple of days because this question didn’t pop up in our heads just like that. We had tried out several naturist social media and had long given up on the idea that it was possible to keep them creep-free. That was the first thing that we said to our friend George when he pitched us the idea of creating yet another naturist platform. We just couldn’t see how ours would be different from the others. How we could discourage the dick-pic-enthusiast from polluting our platform and the voyeur from stealing the photos of our members.
It just wasn’t possible, we believed. But George had planted an idea in our heads that we couldn’t get rid of. How did other social media cope with this? Obviously with their strict “no nudity” policies and extensive moderating teams. Two things that we couldn’t afford. What did Pinterest do? YouTube? TikTok? WhatsApp? Google?
Suddenly, around 3 AM, we were sitting wide-eyed, straight up in bed. Well, we like to remember that it was in the middle of the night for the dramatic effect, but it could well have been in the late afternoon. Anyway, Google! When Gmail got started, you could only get an account if you were invited by someone who already had one. For them, it was a brilliant marketing strategy, but for us, it could be the golden ticket to a genuine platform.
Naturist Hub v1.0
We talked to George the next day and he agreed. This could be our chance for success. Many Zoom calls and a lot of technical stuff that we don’t really understand either later, Naturist Hub v1.0 was a fact. We had a platform with exactly 2 accounts. George and ourselves. From there, the snowball effect would have to do its trick.
Our number one rule to keep the platform safe was “to only invite people who you are willing to vouch for”. That’s when it dawned on us. We may have a huge network with many thousands of readers, viewers, and followers, but we don’t actually know all those people. We can’t vouch for all of them. And as co-founders of the platform, the last thing we wanted was to be the ones who let the first creep in.
Luckily, we do know some naturists from around the world of whom we are sure that they would be the perfect pioneer members. Linda, Scott, Gerardo, and several others joined, and Naturist Hub became our fun little online naturist club. Which was absolutely great, but not what we had in mind. With fewer than a handful of posts per day, we couldn’t call ourselves a serious platform. And many of the new members got discouraged by this rather empty box and never took the effort to log on again.
The AANR-Effect
Fast forward to the summer of 2021. Naturist Hub had become a great and safe community. It was growing steadily, but the snowball we had been looking at refused to increase in size. We had embarked on a naturist cruise on the Adriatic Sea, and when we returned to the mainland it was as if a bomb had been dropped. During the time that we were offline, the number of Naturist Hub members had at least doubled.
The reason for this sudden growth was that the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) had, with the launch of their new website, also embraced Naturist Hub. And they made it possible for their members to request an invitation. This was the push in the back that we had been looking for.
The Future of Naturist Hub
This sudden growth has more consequences than one would initially expect. Our Zoom calls with George are now filled with words like “network speed”, “disk space”, “servers”, and “load balancing”. And while we used to know every single member of the platform, it’s now filled with strangers. Or rather, friends we haven’t met yet.
All of this forces us to think about the future of Naturist Hub. Technically, but also organizationally. Where do we want to go from here? What do we want our platform to become? There is still a lot to consider, but we can already tell you this: Both George and ourselves believe that we need to stick to the initial concept: To create a safe online environment where naturists can be themselves and feel free to express themselves. This is, and will always be, our value and our goal.
A question that is probably burning on your tongue right now is whether have we been able to remain creep-free. Unfortunately, we have not. Even in our protected area surrounded by an invitation-firewall, some people with the wrong intentions have managed to get in. Just like they get into resorts from time to time. But we are happy to tell you that we can still count those cases on one hand. Which is, given that this is the internet, quite a success if you ask us.
How to become a member
Before you start asking us to invite you to Naturist Hub, we would like to remind you of the one thought that made all of this possible. The epiphany that came to us at 3 AM (or PM). We can only keep this place safe by working with a “friends invite friends” concept. So we are really sorry, but if we don’t know you personally, we won’t invite you.
The good news is that because we now have so many more members, there is quite a chance that you already know some of them. So our tip for you would be to just ask around. Do a shoutout on social media: “Can anyone invite me to Naturist Hub?”. Ask the people from your federation or club. Ask your friends, colleagues, and your aunt Amy (we have 3 members who are called Amy, one of them is certainly your aunt!). This is the only way to ensure that if you do become a member, you will know that you are in a safe place.
NOTE: As Naturist Hub is a secure and private medium, we can’t publish photos from the platform. So we’ve used some Instagram photos instead 🙂
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Could we join the Hub? We are a couple based in Edinburgh who like to visit naturist resorts. We’ve been to Orient Bay in St Martin twice (Club Orient RIP), Hawksbill in Antigua, Vera Playa (3 times), Vritomartis (twice), and several other beaches such as Wreck Beach in Vancoiuver and Maslin Beach in Australia.
I should have mentioned that we are members of British Naturism but as we are ‘warm weather naturists’ we don’t join in local events and don’t know local members.
We’ve joined several newer sites (including Naturist Hub as ANNR members) hoping to find ones that have less creep factor than the big one that has been around for a while. The problem is that none of the newer ones have critical mass yet, and the big one does have a good layout.
Going for the masses is easy. Just create a decent website and put it out there and people will come. But there’s no control of who joins, which means that it’s a new opportunity for creeps (who are always seeking something new).
Naturist Hub is a 100% volunteer project, meaning that it doesn’t have the funds that mainstream social media has. As a comparison, Facebook had a revenue of $85 billion in 2020. Naturist Hub had $0. So don’t expect the features that mainstream social media has. But on the other hand, we’re not kicking out people who share nude pictures of themselves 😉
Can i get an invite
So what is the point of Naturist Hub? Is it a meetup site? Are you listing nude beaches and resorts? . Are you recruiting new people to the movement?
I have been a practicing nudist for more than 40 years. My rock climbing days are over, so I am now probably too old to get to most of the beaches I want to visit. I have stayed in Cap D’adge in France, Costa Natura in Spain and Laguna del Sol in Northern California. I have been to dozens of nude beaches in various parts of the world. I would be interested in joining your Naturist Hub, but we have never met personally.
It’s not a meetup site, but it is used for naturists to connect with each other. It’s not a listing/directory site either, but the members do share a lot of their favorite places. You can mostly see it as a Facebook for naturists, where you can talk about naturism and where nudity is allowed.
Probably being thick here, but I’m slightly mystified as to how we’d know whether we have friends who could invite us…
…one of our problems is living in a sparsely populated area is NOT knowing many other naturists personally😟
Yes, we realize that for some people it will be hard to become a member. But being picky about who we let in is the only way to keep the platform safe.
Of course, safety has to be the priority. We’ve seen what happens elsewhere😟
Maybe this will encourage you to get out and network. I also live in a sparsely populated area (300 in my town and it’s a three hour drive to the next town of 5000) but a few times a year I make a point of engaging in social naturism with others so now I have good friends and acquaintances all over the place. Being remote doesn’t have to mean that you are isolated.
Great words Karen!
And they are not the only one. I’m sure that there are more people with the same idea.
NaturistHub.com is registered 2020. I have registered EuroNudist.eu in 2006, build the initial version of the web portal in 2012. But I haven’t completed it fully and promote it as I should.
Now as I am myself .NET web app developer, I have started rebuilding it.
And as I will have finally more free time from the autumn/summer 2022 onwards I am determined to develop proper naturist online platform.
I will not build that system only for sharing photos, chatting, etc. It will serve the greater purpose of protecting the naturist rights, promote naturist lifestyle, be a tool for organised naturism, etc.
At the moment I am working on a commercial contract.
But once I have more free time I will contact you (Nick&Lins) to discuss any potential involvement by you (ideas, suggestions, etc. …) … surely if you don’t mind.
If you think that it’s better to have a chat earlier, please feel free to contact me.
Best of luck in what you are doing!
We’d be happy to talk more about your project
Yes, we will definitely have at least a chat about it.
It’s up to you. If you want now, please send me email with pointing out a suitable time for you and preferred media channel – Zoom, Teams, Messenger, …
If not, I will “chase” you again when I finish my commercial contract and I can dedicate my time fully on developing the naturist online platform.
Mogen we ook lid worden? Zijn er kosten aan verbonden?
We hebben sinds 1978 meer dan 80 naturistenterreinen in Zweden, Noorwegen, Denemarken, Duitsland, Nederland, België, Frankrijk, Zwitserland, Spanje, Portugal (jullie hebben daar onze camper gefotografeerd op Quinta do Maral en hebben elkaar daar net misgelopen) en de USA. Ook gingen en gaan we regelmatig naar naturistenstranden (persoonlijk vind ik naaktstrand een lelijk woord. Ik gebruik liever de benaming naturistenstrand of voor de Engelstaligen Nudist Beach. De niet naturistische-, Nudist- of FKK-wereld spreekt over naakt, ik liever over bloot).
We volgen jullie Naked Wanderings en hebben veel terreinen en stranden bezocht die jullie ook hebben bezocht en beschreven en die voor ons herkenbaar zijn.
Zeker Pieter! Je zou al een uitnodiging moeten ontvangen hebben
Due to the translator our message has been changed. I wrote you have token a picture of our camper at Quinta do Maral, where we missed you. You left in the morning, we arrived in the afternoon. You visited many places we did too and we had good rememberance to them.
As a single man of 66 , I do not have the social contacts to ask of people if they are naturists HELP !!!
You can always ask around on social media 😉
We have been naturists for 16 years and 11 of those have been full time. Love the idea and all the work you have put into this. I think maybe you should contact fcn in Canada and they can also contact all their naturist clubs and maybe the owners would be able to invite their members in good standing. Hope everything works out for you. We belong to a naturist club in Ontario and also in Texas.
That’s a great idea guys, we know some of the board members of FCN and will pitch the idea
Fcn – 1-416-410-6833. Or. 1-888-512-6833
[email protected]
Sunward. – [email protected]
Bare Oaks – 1-905-473-6060. Or. 1-888-373-9124
Here are a few contacts, let us know if this helps and if you need any more help from this end.
I really admire your way of life. You are a role couple to us.
Thanks a lot Gabriel!
Nick and Lins would you invite Naked Dreams Africa Tours & Safaris to the Naturist hub?.
Naked Dreams consist of me and 3 additional directors and 48 members.
Naked Dreams is purely just naturism and strictly NOT a dating or sexual organization.
Hi Jacobus, unfortunately we have no experience with your company and as mentioned in the blog post, we have to be careful with who we invite. Maybe you can ask your South African network? There are currently about 50 South Afrikan members on the platform including Lofty (Joxilox tours), Vonks (writer), Juanita (popular promotor of naturism).
Hiding true naturist content behind a login for a limited group will foster the perception for non-naturist outsiders that naturism is something covert, something to be ashamed of, something suspicious. If real naturists fold back to restricted websites, search engines will lead those interested in naturism to that category of websites that present themselves to be naturist but are not at all. This would be a pity for the general acceptance of naturism.
In that respect it would be better to allow read-only access to everyone, and to only limit adding content and other user interactions to the limited number of trusted people.
We definitely agree that our concept doesn’t benefit the general perception of naturism and we personally believe in tearing down the walls instead of pulling them up. We know that what we’re saying now is the complete opposite of what we do on Naturist Hub.
This being said, we just don’t see another option. There is a reason why public places like beaches attract many more creeps than private venues, and that reason is the security gate. This difference exists on the internet too, but times 1000.
There are generally two types of people we try to keep out: exhibitionists and voyeurs. The exhibitionists can be kept out with the solution you propose, giving them read-only access. But that doesn’t keep the voyeurs out. We want Naturist Hub to be a safe place where people don’t need to fear that their stories and pictures will soon appear on porn channels.
Something we forgot to mention in the blog post is that the invite-only principle is the only security level we maintain. We don’t allow users to create private communities inside the platform, or to post “friends only” content. Everything you post on Naturist Hub is visible to all members. So we just have to control who those members are. We actually got the idea for this concept from the naturist resorts. You need to get through some security checkpoints to get in, but once you’re in, there’s no hiding and there is just one big community.
adding a ‘post to members only’ feature would solve this. Maybe an idea for a future release?
A social space online for genuine nudists was really needed and I’m glad Naturist Hub exists.
The next, and tricky, step is to build engagement and a community because right now, I feel like an island in an archipelagos of other naturists. I’m hoping there will be more lively conversations happening. A chatroom would be nice, although I get the trepidation of building one and attracting the wrong crowd.
We totally get what you mean. At the beginning of Naturist Hub, there were only a couple handful of members who all easily got to know each other and automatically built a community. With many new members joining, the community became a bit restructured and this was not something we realized from the start. Naturist Hub does have a couple of functions that are meant to increase the community feeling, like discussions, polls, and groups, but these are not yet used as much as we would wish. Anyway, it’s a work in progress.
We are not big fans of chatrooms, because these need live moderation (or really well-programmed bots) and because these are easy targets for hackers.
Me alegra leer que estais intentando construir una comunidad “limpia”, espero estar por allí en breve. Gracias por hacerlo posible.
Their are alternative social media sites such as Gab, MEWE, Minds, Parler, Rumble, Gettr. Their’s an active Nudist groups on Mewe as well.
I just took a look at the first page and encountered “By logging into NaturistHub.com you agree to our Terms and Conditions of Use and acknowledge that you are over 18 years old and will encounter nudity”.
An adults-only rule is an instant failure, as I see it. Naturism does not do this! It can’t be a legal requirement, because there are other forums around where they let everyone in, and I’m happy to be a member of some of them. Change the terms at Naturist Hub and I’ll take another look at it. Sorry, I like most of your online material, but I really do think this is an important issue.
This is a choice that hasn’t been taken lightly, and it definitely doesn’t mean that we think that naturism should be 18+.
But we need this restriction to avoid problems. If a 12-year-old naturist starts posting pictures on Naturist Hub, and these pictures find their way out of the community and onto the wide web, we don’t want to be responsible for that.
If the sole objection is related to pictures of juveniles, then I think excluding them entirely is far too drastic! I’m certain it could be handled some other way. As I said, other forums allow everyone to join, though most of them are for talk rather than pictures, and perhaps yours has a lot of images. Could you change the rule to welcome everyone, but enforce restrictions on young people’s pictures, saying “We’re sorry, but it’s just too problematic”? I’d call that acceptable, but it wouldn’t satisfy Stephane.
I grumbled at you for posting videos on Youtube that required viewers to prove their age, too. It’s the same idea–the kind of naturism I want can’t be restricted that way. (But it’s easy to say this kind of thing when one isn’t actually trying to get things done in the world! I’m sure you’ve thought about all the issues here.)
Naturist Hub is a social medium (you can compare the look a bit to Facebook), so yes, there are quite some pictures shared.
We honestly can’t remember why we’ve set the minimum age of the members to 18 years. We’ll need to check again with George, but it has probably something to do with confirming that all members are consenting adults and thus limiting our personal risk if there would be any abuse.
About our videos with the age limit, that is not our choice. It’s YouTube that decided that those videos should only be available for adults. We try everything we can to avoid this age limit, but blurring all nudity for example, but it doesn’t always work.
Great idea! Excellent implementation! The only reason that I cannot fully accept this platform is this rule: “We strongly DISCOURAGE posting images of children. We CANNOT allow images with Children’s faces to be posted.” If I cannot post pictures of my naturist family vacation then it suggests that there’s something wrong with children being clothesfree in a naturist environment. There’s no general societal rule against posting children’s faces on social media. People post photos of their textile family vacation all the time. So why would there be such a limitation on Naturist Hub if it is truly genuine naturism?
We agree. And we’ve had many talks about this. As Europeans, we don’t see many issues with posting pictures of family naturism, but our buddy George is from the USA and that’s also where the website is hosted. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to check if those children are actually yours. This is still the internet, and we’ve all seen “naturist family pictures” passing by that are obviously not taken with consent. We believe that Naturist Hub is a safe environment, but it’s not bulletproof.
We’ve been thinking a lot about a solution for this. But the only thing we can come up with at the moment is that you need to send us a model release with every picture you post of a minor. And that would be a bit of a hassle, no.
If you have an idea that would protect ourselves and the children in the pictures, we’d be happy to hear 😀
First, if the problem is the USA (and I’m not convinced it is a problem there) then why not move it somewhere else?
Secondly, why would releases be necessary? There is no need to have a release from the adults in the pictures. So why for the children? Is it somehow worse for a child to be posted without permission than an adult? Why is there no release for pictures of clothed children on Facebook? There are plenty of very embarrassing and humiliating photos/videos posted of children in the textile world. For children raised in naturism, mere nudity should not be a big deal at all. But if it is and they ask you then just need to take them down.
Our problem with the USA isn’t necessarily the laws about nudity, but rather the culture to sue people for whatever. Facebook has an army of lawyers, we don’t. And you are right, we could move the website to somewhere else. But as we mention in the blog post, until recently it didn’t really look like Naturist Hub would become more than just a small community. And we need to be careful with our investments. Now that Naturist Hub is growing, we can start looking into different options.
But this doesn’t solve our concern about abuse. We spend lots of time on the internet and we have to unfortunately admit that the amount of “dodgy” family naturist content by far outnumbers the “genuine” family naturist content. As Naturist Hub is a volunteer project, we need to build a safety net. Unless we have the resources to carefully monitor this, and the legal assistance to to tackle possible cases of abuse, we don’t believe that we can manage this.
But it’s not just family naturist content that can be “dodgy”. There is just as much, if not more, “dodgy” adult content.
The best approach to solve this problem is moving the Naturisthub away from U.S. jurisdiction. A naturist site will continue to face Liability and Due Diligence issues in a (legal) environment that reacts often almost hysterically to nudity. Instead harbor the site in the Netherlands, you’ll reduce your liability risk and simultaneously provide better privacy protection, thanks to GDPR.
“there is no way for us to check if those children are actually yours.” Indeed, but that’s equally valid for all people on pictures. Are you sure that all adult people on all pictures have given their consent? Instead of banning all children you may allow family pictures posted by parents and in which the genitals of minors are not visible. This is compliant with the GDPR legislation on minors.
As already mentioned before folding back behind virtual fences without access for aspring naturists and other people with a genuine interest in naturism will stimulate suspicion from the outside world. The exhibitionists can be kept out by limiting write/update access to only trusted people. Voyeurs may be countered by allowing trusted participants to choose themselves if a post is for all visitors or only for verified users, or alternatively you could grant unverified visitors only read-only access to the texts without giving them the possibility to view pictures.
Thanks for your reply, Jo!
We already partially responded to this in our reply to Stéphane, we also believe that moving the website to Europe could be a good step forward and it’s definitely something we’ll look into. Ideally, we should be able to do this in collaboration with a European naturist federation. We could indeed also further define the amount of nudity that is allowed for minors (e.g. no genitals), but we’re not sure if that is the solution.
About your proposal to show certain posts only to verified users, this is something we decided not to do from the beginning of Naturist Hub. We don’t even allow “friends only” posts. The principle of Naturist Hub is based on that of a naturist resort. You pass by a security barrier (invite only) and from there, everything you do is visible to everyone. You can become “friends”, but that only means that you’ll see those people’s posts in a separate feed. So you can look at what only your friends are doing, but all posts are public all the time. We believe that this is an important aspect. No private groups, no verification, because those things only create a culture of “I’m more member than you are”.
After witnessing some of the comments regarding the posting of pictures including naked children, I have concluded the asnwer as No, you cannot create a naturist platform. There will be too much scrutiny by law enforcement agencies investigating kiddie porn. As much as I respect you both, and naturism, I must decline from participating in this endeavor. Please remove me from the mailing list.
We have been (very active) members of naturist hub. Unfortunately, your main concept (“To create a safe online environment where naturists can be themselves and feel free to express themselves.”) does not worked.
We were religiously harassed several times and when we reported the incidents we were made the perpetrators.
Logically, we left the hub again.
We remember the discussions and we thought that we were pretty clear about our point of view. We don’t consider expressing your religious beliefs as harassment. But we do consider judging others for their beliefs as harassment.
😅 You still have not understood the point.
No, is the simple answer. You can never have a “genuine and safe platform for Naturists” online. The perverts will get through.
What you have to also realise is that people who participate in Nudism, Naturism or whatever you wish to call it, have hugely varying reasons and motivations for doing it that in the most part you’ll never know. I’m sure there are people who do it with no sexual motivations whatsoever, but I suspect they are the fewer.
You have only been involved for four years I think you have said. I have been involved in it for 50+ years and have seen and experienced many different attitudes and reasons behind certain individual’s motivation to participate.
You talk about AANR and the facility for their members to request membership of Naturist Hub. Well, a few years ago I was doing some research, also for a “naturist” website that I was planning to launch (in the end I didn’t), and part of the research involved checking out various results for search strings to do with naturism and nudism. Btw, I too am a web developer (amongst other things) and have been for 25 years now. One result that came up was linked to a post that came up on an exhibitionist (flashing) website. The post was by a husband and wife who described themselves as naturists and flashers. They posted many stories about the husband exposing his penis to women and young girls and the wife exposing her breasts and vulva to men and young boys, with descriptions of how they went about doing this and what reactions they got. And guess what? They were members of AANR and also frequented nude beaches where – they wrote in their posts – they openly had sex, masturbated, urinated and more, in front of strangers, and including the husband being masturbated by his wife intending to be and succeeding in being seen by their 14 year old niece who was staying with them. But they were “naturists” and members of AANR!
I doubt AANR knew about their member’s exhibitionist exploits though, and the couple could easily be invited to your site. Then once they’re in (and others like them) they can invite others with similar interests to join, and you’re non the wiser.
Then, as others have pointed out, putting it all behind a heavily restricted membership gateway both sends out the wrong message to potential new participants and blocks out many genuine people.
I’m a good example of the latter. I’ve been participating in (let’s call it) nude recreation probably 56 years (I was about 8 when I started sleeping in the nude – I’d call out to my parents to say I was hot and eventually they told me I could strip off if I felt more comfortable – thats really where it started for me) and I would consider myself as being genuine. But I don’t join clubs and I don’t really socialise. I go to nude beaches and I relax, sunbathe, swim, walk, run, explore – I interact with people I bump into, but unless I have been in a relationship with a female partner who has joined in with me, I haven’t had/don’t have social connections with others in this lifestyle. So there’s no way I could join Naturist Hub.
We agree that there is no bulletproof solution. The only thing we can do is implement measures that keep away the large majority of creeps. As you mention, being a member of a federation doesn’t provide 100% certainty either. But the federation does have a lot of information about you (real name, address, etc). Knowing this might stop people from posting “wrong” content. If a federation member starts posting sexual content on NH for example, we will inform the federation about this.
It is true that if you have no connections within naturism, it will be difficult to get invited. We are aware that this can be annoying for people, but the invitation-only strategy is the only solution we can think of to control who gets access to the platform.
The problem though, for such organisations as AANR in the case I mentioned, is that the couple involved in posting on the exhibitionist website did so there under aliases, for obvious reasons they didn’t use their real names on that site. The site itself didn’t require real names or addresses to create an account. But the couple regularly mentioned that they were AANR members. To AANR they may well have appeared to be genuine naturists, but behind that façade they clearly had some exhibitionist perversions.
The only way to run a site properly is to allow anyone to join, and to have the resources in place to manage the site efficiently. Posts and images should require moderator/admin approval before being activated, at least until a period of time has passed to assess the individual members and build trust.
This of course can take up time, but then running any large membership website takes up a lot of time and effort, it’s not something you should go into lightly. My advice to any customers thinking of membership sites is, if you don’t have the time to put yourselves 100% behind it, putting in many hours for little reward, don’t do it.
The site model you’re using won’t work for the purpose it’s intended. You’ll still get “the wrong ones” slipping through, while rejecting most of “the right ones”. It will ultimately result in negative feedback and reviews, and at the same time, as others have pointed out, hiding it behind a big security fence will send the wrong message out to potential newbies and anyone you would prefer to be more accepting of nudity/naturism/clothing optional/etc.
A website called Naturist Hub should be open to anybody, should promote the positives about the lifestyle and contribute towards normalising nudity.
If you join Naturist Hub as an AANR member, there is a direct link between your NH account and your AANR membership. So if you misbehave, we can let AANR know exactly which member you are.
We agree that 24/7 moderation would be the perfect solution, but it’s just not possible. A week has 168 hours, if the average moderator works 40 hours per week, this means that we need a staff of 4-5 people. Who don’t do anything else than moderate every single post. Naturist Hub is a volunteer project, so this is out of the question. Unless we adopt a very commercial approach (for example, like Facebook and sell your personal data), but we don’t want to go that way.
The internet has given us the impression that everything should always be accessible for everyone. But we don’t believe that this is always necessary. There’s nothing wrong with a fenced community. And what does this say to newbies? They’ll find a login page for which they don’t have credentials. We don’t think that they will say “Oh, if that’s the case, we’re never going to become naturists”. Instead, they will move on and search for other places.
But where that falls down is that you have said that members can invite others to join, in fact other than the arrangement you have with AANR, that’s the only way someone can join. So, if an AANR nember then invites someone who isn’t an AANR member, and that person invites someone else, and so on, that’s where you lose control and don’t know who you’re getting.
By the Internet, I think you mean the World Wide Web. The Internet is merely the communications network. When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and launched the first website the following year, his intention was for it to be freely accessible to everone, respecting human rights and not imposing resrictions on access by individuals. So, it isn’t that “the Internet” has given us the impression that everything sould always be accessible to everyone, it was the whole business model.
I’m afraid I disagree with your views on a fenced community, whether on or offline, and I do believe it sends a negative message out to potential newbies.
Interestingly, and relevant to another discussion in another of your blogs, and supporting my views on the labels “Naturist” and “Nudist” which I have considered unnecessary and negative for many years, I dropped on a tweet on Twitter which was a photo of a nude girl kneeling in water, with the description, “A true #nudist / #naturist girl, the younger generations may not use those labels the days but they still enjoy being #naked”. And that’s an important point, younger generations are not using those labels, and in my experience they see them as negative as well as unnecessary.
So, in my opinion, if you call something “Naturist Hub” then block potential members from joining, you’re just going to discourage younger generations.
As you know, we’re not big fans of labels either because we believe that they prevent growth. On Naked Wanderings, we’ve tried several times to avoid labels by talking about “nudies” instead of nudists/naturists or about “social nudity” instead of naturism/nudism. But that was never very successful. Because even if you don’t want to call yourself a naturist/nudists, if you’re searching the web for a resort where you can be nude, you will use the terms naturist/nudist.
Which brought us to the conclusion that people should not be put into boxes or get labels, but there’s not much wrong with putting labels on places or things. Or at least, it’s very hard to avoid. You don’t have to call yourself a naturist to enjoy a naturist resort. We’re not calling ourselves vegetarians either although we regularly eat a veggie meal. Similarly, you don’t need to call yourself a naturist to enjoy Naturist Hub.
I presume you had the consent of that girl to publish her photo on Twitter, but that’s related to another blog.
Nick, Lins and George, I appreciate the endeavor you make to create a safe environment in cyberspace for the exchange of information between naturists. I understand there were technical, organizational and/or conceptual tradeoffs to be made. However the caveat remains that the closed group approach may lead outsiders to the wrong perception that inappropriate things are exchanged on this platform. The analogy between the site name and the name of another p-hub site may also stimulate this confusion. Extending the existing naturist hub with more extensive publicly accessible informative pages and/or links to other genuine naturist content (sites, blogs, …) to the Naturisthub can help to avoid this misunderstanding to outsiders. It would also be better to publish a kind of what’s about on the website’s root page instead of the login form. Lots of unsollicited site visitors will not know the purpose of the site andwon’t see the current About page nor your blog explaining this site.
I didn’t post the photo of the girl on Twitter. I said “I dropped on it” meaning I randomly found someone else’s post/tweet.
Funny that you mention the other P-Hub, because that has actually been the topic of a very long conversation between George and ourselves. At first, we thought that it was stupid to choose this name due to the possible link people would make. But then we thought “why should they win?”, “why should they get the right to use the word ‘hub'”. So eventually, it became some kind of internal statement.
We’ll give you a quick update about what happened recently:
Keeping control over the platform has always been a priority for us because we realized that as soon as we lose control, we’ll spend the rest of our days running behind the facts and removing posts and pictures days after everyone has already seen them.
But we also realized that this “control” shouldn’t be uniquely in our hands. In the end, Naturist Hub is a community. So we put an Advisory Team together with some dedicated long-time members. The goal is to pass new ideas by them, include them in the decision-making process, and use their presence as a way of moderation. Once this runs smoothly, we might be able to look into more public options.
Uitgenodigd worden in tijden van Covid is niet evident. De laatste 2 jaar ging bijna geen enkel zwemuurtje in Bredene door. Dan moet je ook nog het geluk hebben dat iemand van Athena Westland reeds uitgenodigd werd bij Naturist Hub. Waarom trekken jullie het principe dat toegepast wordt bij AANR-leden niet door naar bijvoorbeeld de FBN of INF-leden, of de nationale verenigingen zoals Athena, Zonneleven, etc?
Tip: kennen jullie de online groep Naturist Corner?
AANR was onze eerste case om Naturist Hub te linken aan een officiële organisatie. Aangezien dat een success was, staan we zeker open om dit principe ook toe te passen voor andere organisaties.
I am an AANR member and joined the Naturist Hub. It seemed to be heavily populated with males. Joined my AANR region Facebook site. It is probably 90% males. I go on Reddit’s Nudism forum. Seems to lean heavily male. I’ve seen comments that are fringe-cringey. I’ve heard how women get DM’d by tons of men whenever they post anything. Many of these men want to get together. If these sites were gender-balanced, it would feel normal and relaxing. The heavily-skewed number of males makes it feel creepy and the constant reaching out by males to females make contact feels predatory. Guys constantly asking, “How can I get my wife/girlfriend to be a nudist?” makes me wonder why they want so badly for their partners to participate. How about you just share the benefits of nudism? If she likes it and wants to try it, great! If not, why force it? Until the creepy vibe goes away, I will keep my nudist lifestyle within the privacy of my home.
Thanks for your feedback Christa, we thought a lot about this topic and you tackle a couple of interesting things.
It’s true that online nudism is very male dominant. As you mention, this is partly because many naturist women prefer to remain silent on social media because of the many DMs, remarks, and harassment that could follow. On the other hand (as you also mention), there are many men whose partner is not a nudist and who don’t want to go to resorts or think that they won’t be welcome. They too seek refuge on the internet. We believe that these are the main causes of why online nudism is male dominant. The important question is how to turn the tide. We can’t stop the influx of nudist men, so we’ll need to focus on increasing the online presence of nudist women. And we believe that creating safe online platforms for that could be a solution.
Naturist Hub is indeed male dominant, like any other online platform, but Naturist Hub is also heavily moderated and no form of harassment is accepted.
Could i join NH?
Is de manier om aan te sluiten bij Naturist Hub nog altijd via bevriende naturisten die reeds aangesloten zijn? Dan vrees ik dat dit ons niet haalbaar is. Athena Lid
er zit een uitnodiging in jouw mailbox 😉
THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME INSIDER CHAT GOING ON ! I THOUGHT ENGLISH WAS THE COOMON LANGUAGE !!
You can’t really force people to talk English to each other when they have another common language
Dude, it’s hardly insider chat – use Google translate if you really need to know what all of the comments say. 🤨
Hi DUDE, unfortunately I am not literate enough to enable that device on my laptop ! I bow to your greater knowledge ! Steve