What are the reasons that lead a person to not embrace naturism if the latter was offered him? This is the question I asked myself. Having partially gone around the classic question why to be a nudist, or what drives people to being naked socially, I think it is important to understand the motivations of the "textile" to remain so.
In order to understand where I found the arguments that I will explain below, it is important to know that my wife is not naturist, although she respects my nakedness and accompanies me on nudist beaches, where she generally keeps a swimsuit bottom. We have often talked about naturism. I also often tried to convince her to undress more often and consider naturist holidays together. I did however not (yet) succeed. But I don’t give up, someday, I will succeed.
This being said, here are the main reasons for refusing the naturism.
– Not wanting to expose her naked body, nudity is something private.
– Being comfortable with clothes, including a wet swimsuit.
– Not feeling, not rationally understanding the need to be naked.
– Binding nudity and sexuality, so leaving both in the private sphere.
– Seeing clothes as a differentiating element between human and animal.
– Not standing the sight of bare body.
– Being afraid to be judged by others.
– Not being sufficiently "well made" to undress.
– Being afraid of the excitement caused by the sight of other naked bodies.
In the end, one can consolidate these reasons under three themes:
– Belief – related to the "you cannot do this", religious or not.
– Trust – linked to the imperfection of his own body.
– Feeling – linked to the fact that we feel no particular wellbeing when we're naked.
If it is possible to influence belief and confidence, by reason and explanation, the feeling seems to be more delicate.
Beliefs can evolve. To a believer, you will always find a text that does not ostracized nudity and so create doubt, and have the dogma to be doubted. With a non-believer, it is possible to understand his refusal and to demonstrate that the opposite is also true. It seems possible, with patience and conviction, to turn off the “you cannot do this”.
Confidence is built with patience and gentleness. Self-confidence is a funny animal. By making a person aware that perfection is not of this world and that she must love her body, we can make her enjoy her imperfections, big or small, and gradually bring her to no longer be afraid to look in a mirror. So, to potentially accept the gaze of the other.
With respect to the feeling, the question seems different. The main reason why a nudist is naked is wellness. For my part, I never feel as good as while completely naked. This is no rational explanation, I feel well, full stop! If someone does not feel this well-being, how to make him feel? Certainly not by forcing him to get naked. This is the strategy that I set up with my wife. As long as I can be naked, she may be dressed in full respect for the choices of each other. On the other hand, when I am naked at the pool or I am having an activity naked, I share that I feel super good naked and that she should enjoy being naked too. She sometimes undress, slipping naked into the water of the pool for my greatest happiness, or stroll through the house in her birthday suit.
Over time, it is possible that the sensation of well-being of nudity settled in and that she sees "the light." I think that it is only with respect and deep listening that one can bring a reluctant textile to become a nudist. In the meantime, I remain naked.
I appreciate that you come up with this. Straight to the point where textile and nudist differ.
good reflexion
Perhaps at the crux of vast swaths of our attitudes and behaviour is mere social conditioning.
The normal human condition in modern times is to be clothed so nakedness feels very unnatural. Even the most confident in a challenging environment will feel vulnerable. On that basis it's easy to understand why many don't feel anything other than self conscious and uncomfortable when naked.
To cite Christian theology and history as a primary reason for modern attitudes is to entirely discard vast cultures and religions. Certainly from a "WASP" or similar Christian perspective it's a reasonable consideration. In a far broader context it doesn't account for the majority of Eastern cultures.
To a certain extent I think it's easy for nudists to fall into a false dichotomy. Because they prefer not to wear clothes, clothes and negative attitudes toward nudity are seen in a similar vein. The term "textiles" underpins this mindset to a certain degree.
In reality there is nothing wrong with being clothed nor wanting to be clothed. Equally there's nothing wrong with being naked or wanting to be naked.
What isn't so desirable is wanting for others what you yourself want. This is what leads to disappointment and conflict.
If you really want to fully appreciate how wonderful it is to be naked, just accept the fact that you are. Embrace the fact you are or can be naked at all in the face of everything that suggests you shouldn't.
If you do that you'll find yourself far happier overall. We're often so busy focusing on how we would like things to be, and analysing and trying to reason why they're not, we completely miss the true bliss we could otherwise be experiencing.
I agree with most of that, but we nudist would like others to experience this great feeling too hoping that it would change their whole idea about it in a positive way. That is maybe a bit selfish because it is mainly for our own benefit. We would like society to accept nudity as something that is just normal for the main reason that we will gain more freedom. But it would be so good if people would be more openminded and accepting other lifestyles without judging us.
Well Written. However I see the issue as a much simplier and far more complex one.
The issue is as simple and as complex as mind set. It is easy to say its just how you think about it. It is much harder to show that the way of thinking is based on misinterpretation and
male dominated religion for millenia.
The current social mores commonly called the Barbie/Ken complex says you must have the perfect body to be desireable. You must be in that less that 1% of the population that qualifies as cloths horses to be desireable by the opposite sex.
Now for the root of the problem let us return to a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
I refer to of course the story in Genisis of Adam and Eve and the apple.in short Eve in her quest for knowledge ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and enticed Adam to do the same. A close and further reading of the story reveals that upon looking for them Yahweh finds them hiding because they have learned they are naked and ashamed of this fact.
Yahweh is moved to anger not so much because they ate the apple as is belaboured in religion today but because they are ashamed to be naked and ashamed of his creation. The fact that yahweh was angry because they learned of their nakedness would also suggest that he was also the original peeping tom.
Fast forward to the time around 30-60 AD. There is a great deal of evidence that the church of Paul was fanatically anti female and remains so today. This is the church founded after pauls vision and followed by peter. There
are several explinations why this church was so anti female,
how ever there is no concrete proof as to which is correct.
Just a few are, they could have been early sufferers of what today is termed ED. They could have been so revolting in different ways that they couldnt get a hooker in a whore house. They could have been early fathers of the gay rights movement, IE homosexual, that is a charge that has followed the pauline church to the present day. Or.
Their egos were so damaged when The Great Rabbi left the leadership of his church to his brother James and The Magdalene not them. Modern clergy continues to brow beat the
taboo of nakedness into all of their followers.
(getting off soap box :D)
Very good analyses Marc.
There is another reason – the statement that "I accept and comply with the norms". An analogy – I like staying nude, but in the public, stay clothed in a so-called decent manner. At another level, I absolutely hate dressing up in a suit and tie, but I wear them to every job interview". In this case, your "refusing naturism" is analogous to accepting a norm established in the corporate world, for good or for bad. So it is more like "going with the flow, when refusing the norms will bring disastrous consequences".
Other than protection from hostile environments there is no really good purpose for clothes. Nakedness is the natural state of humans.
Well written!