RichardJ

I feel the French government's support for a burkini ban is a natural reaction against attempts to import a less free culture. A solution is at hand, use the burkini issue to promote a clothing optional culture everywhere. Remove ALL dress code requirements for clothing on beaches and everywhere else. Couple this with a 'clothing freedom advertising campaign with people bathing naked, in full business suits and everything in between. Extend this to everywhere on the grounds that anything else is an unwarranted intrusion on liberty.
Western. Most people will not object but of course some Christian and other groups, will complain but this will show up their own authoritarian outlook.

Reading Joanna's excellent rant set me thinking about exhibitionism. She wrote 'I enjoy being seen nude, and have no problem at all being okay with the idea that someone might find the sight of my body to be beautiful and sexually appealing. I don't want to be the object of someone's fixated lust when that type of attention is not invited or appropriate, but I'm also not going to recoil in disdainful horror if someone is aroused by the sight of my nudity and wishes to respectfully inquire as to whether such an interest might be mutual.'
Now I consider my 70 year old body with its flab, droopy bits and operation scars to be 'interesting' rather than particularly sexually attractive but I did get a degree of pleasure on the WNBR in Brighton being seen by all those people. Does this make me an exhibitionist?

I do not become aroused to the extent of even the beginnings of an erection in such situations but there is a definite sexual frisson when I wonder what people might be thinking as they look at me. I also get a similar buzz when I post a naked photo on the Naktiv site. I have never been one to make a display, dressing up in fancy clothes to get noticed, more often when clothed I feel awkward and wrongly dressed. This often occurs because I wear the most casual outfit I think I can get away with and then feel embarrassed that I might look too scruffy – probably I often do but I just don't like clothes. However when I'm going to be naked in public, on a WNBR ride or to a lesser extent on the beach, I make a real effort to look my best, hair washed and brushed above and below, nails trimmed etc. I even planned body paint last time at the WNBR but the queue was too long.

So yes I do like to 'show' the question is where does 'showing off nude' stop and 'exhibitionism' with all its negative connotations start? I like to believe that the negative side only starts when some kind of aggression or threat is implied. What do others think? Do you get a sexual buzz from being seen naked as I do?

Since becoming open about being a naturist, my dreams have changed. It used to be that I quite often dreamt that I was naked in public, especially, at work. I used to work in a retail environment where dress was important, shire tie etc. I would dream I was serving customers naked or in just a short nightshirt which concealed nothing. The realisation of being naked would distress me and I would start to hunt for my clothes. I would then awaken in a state of some discomfort at the thought of the situation.

I have recently become a 95% barefooter going about my daily life without shoes as a matter of course. Two nights ago I had a dream where I got into a heated discussion with my manager about being barefoot at work and how it was not permitted for employees even if the occasional customer was. I responded to say it was ridiculous to require me to wear shoes when I was otherwise naked.

The realisation I was naked in the dream made me think, 'perhaps I should wear clothes if I have to wear shoes? Have I got some somewhere?' The thought awoke me as before but this time I thought 'let me go back to sleep I want the dream to continue.'

That dream has become a daydream and I look forward to more sleeping dreams like this one.

After sunning and swimming naked on Hayling Beach four times – see my previous blog http://www.naktiv.net/blog/559/liberating-hayling-beach/ I just had to go once more before the school holidays began, I thought after that might cause trouble with parents. I went there on a very hot afternoon. Unfortunately it was a very low tide and I was worried about swimming nude as I would have had to cross 30 yards of flat wet sand and then wade out 100 yards before I was waste deep. As there were a goodish number of people around this was very risky.

I settled down on the pebble beach well back from where people walked but in full view. The nearest person was 200 yards away so I wasn't crowding anyone. A woman arrived after me and settled down about 50 yards away and proceeded to sunbathe topless, sne was near enough to have seen I was naked before she sat down so I felt I had some support.

After Half an hour I was so hot I just had to go in the water to cool off. There was a gap in the dog walkers so I decided to brave it. But I didn't dare to be totally open and took a T shirt with me balled up in my hand as a cover. (I was determined not to go home with salty shorts that needed washing). I successfully entered the water with nobody coming near and lay down in 1.5 feet of water, and cooled off. It was Lovely!

There then happened something I was not prepared for. A couple came and set them selves down about 10 paces from my towel and shorts. Other walkers were approaching too. I left the water holding my T shirt as a sort of screen. No problem. But then three youths emerged from the sea, far out and approached from behind me. 100 yards away and they spotted my bare bum and started making crude remarks 'put your pants on' disgusting etc and later in very loud voices.

I still had to sort out the issue of approaching very near the new couple in order to retrieve my shorts. A breach of the etiquette I had set for myself. I held my shirt between myself and them, not behaving as though nudity was natural as I had reserved. I then sat down and at this point the youths, still 50 yards away made more remarks 'sitting on the beach with his cock out' and then as I put my shorts on 'Hes putting his shorts on' (laughing).

Sufficiently discouraged when perhaps I should have been yelling defiance I walked up the shingle to where I had seen someone sitting up looking around but otherwise hidden. Sure enough it was another naked sunbather, a man about my own age. As he was sure to have heard the youths I greeted him from 30 paces. 'Hi it's great to see somone else with the bottle to strip off.' A friendly chat ensued and I finally went and sat down again further along the beach but not 'hidden'.

Now for a question. Should I have been more 'discreet?'

I don't usually upload beach 'selfies' but this one has a point. http://www.naktiv.net/photo/13853/2014-06-23-16-37-51/albumid_2057/ This was on a textile beach. Albeit very empty with the only people on it more than 100 yards away. It's the Hayling Island west beach opposite the golf course. The idea it to open it up by getting people used to there being naked people on it but without offending anyone. So I have sunbathed nude yards from any others. On this day the tide was very low and I funked skinny dipping at first as there would have been a thirty yard paddle before I was in, and then a dry sand bank appeared and I found a dry place to leave my shorts quite near the water and went for a dip.(this paragraph is a repost of my original comment on the photo.)

The following visit the tide was high. Again I sunbatherd 50 Yards or so from the nearest other people. This time I swam without fussing but was inhibited by the danger from paraboarders.

By my next visit I was really getting comfortable and confident. Again there were people 50 yards away. The nearest couple had absolute minimum swimwear. The woman was topless. I stayed for over an hour and went in the water three times. A great day on a lovely.

The last time, yesterday, I set up just the same and swam then read on the beach topping up my tan. The not very near other people could easily have seen I was naked should they look especially as I dropped my shorts whilst still standing. A man with a dog arrived after I did settling down about 15 yards away and swam with his dog, keeping his shorts on. Now was the test. I decided to go for it and swam again. The tide was well in so it got deep quite quickly and I was soon covered but there was a considerable current. The swimming man drifted towards me. I behaved normally as 'there is nothing wrong with skinny dipping.' he swam back again against the current. When I came out I dried myself standing in a natural, non hiding way.

I swam again when a woman with a dog was 20 yards away and approaching, I stayed in the water until she had passed,no problem but she didn't look back as I came out of the water.

All in all a dozen or so people saw me naked on the beach with reaction or comment, albeit not close up. So now I consider west Hayling beach 'liberated' and will continue to use it. I hope to see other skinny dippers there before the end of the summer. Here is the location https://goo.gl/maps/9orS7

As well as reading and reviewing novels I am trying my hand at writing one. A future world sci-fi fantasy about a society where clothing is the exception rather than the rule and it's conflicts with surrounding cultures.

Here it is Ank of time Chapter 1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6xyca9xwlbztnbb/Ank%20of%20time%20Chapter%201.pdf

Please let me know what you all think.

Richard

Since downloading and enjoying Naked Crow I have read lots of books with a naturist theme, downloading as many as I can find and reading most of them. My Kindle is filling up with them.

This post is an attempt to analyse my reactions to what I have read. Some are excellent and well written others are less good. I would like to emphasize that this only my feelings and opinions and I don't expect everybody to agree with me.

The books I will be talking about are as follows.
1. Naked Crow: P Walker (Paul Kater)
2. The Bare Necessities John David Harding
3. The Midnight Girls David Ellery
4. The Incredible Naked Adventure at Batsto Jayne Louise
5. Naturist Red in Tooth and Claw Stuart Pitsligo
6. The Au-Naturel Girls R Richard
7. Nude Town John D
8. The first nudist (short Story) Janice Daugharty

Most of the books seem to be 'light fiction' in one form or another and many of them seem to 'promote naturism in some way. They seem mostly to be aimed at a young audience. The majority on the characters are under thirty and a good proportion of them are teenagers. Some are sexually explicit whilst others are almost 'squeaky clean'.

Naked Crow I really liked, the naturist theme is set in a wholesome family nudist resort in the US and the plot of the story, where Sheila's friend and colleague disappears during a visit to the nudist resort, is a fantasy where people move into a different time reality. It is well plotted and well paced. My only criticism would be that some of the responses of Sheila and her friends to going naked, which they all do eventually, seem the be taken directly from a naturist flyer and rather artificially grafted on to the plot.

The Bare Necessities is a music romp which is a great laugh and once I suspended disbelief in the plot I greatly enjoyed this too. Not all the characters were right-on goodies and some responses to the nudist rock group were suitably salacious. Again the wholesome family naturist resorts were perhaps slightly over emphasised and the descriptions were rather like a brochure.

The Midnight Girls must surely be aimed at younger teenagers and is set in a fantasy village in the west of England or Ireland, the location is never made clear. The sub plot this time is teenagers and pre‑teens growing developing interest in sex. Some of the description of close investigation of each others genitals was overworked and seems to show a little too much interest on the part of the (male) author in young girls anatomy, whilst the responses of the young boy in the story are almost non‑existent, he observes with great interest but shows no signs of arousal, unlike the girls. Liberal attitudes to all forms of sexual interest are rather overworked as if the author was trying too hard to be inclusive and 'PC'. As a teen fantasy however the book was great fun.

The Incredible Naked Adventure at Batsto is a naktive romp which has three girls and a boat in an adventure which could have been written by Enid Blyton, except that they were naked most of the time. Good light fun for actual or aspiring naturist girls and boys. My only criticism is that there were no naked boys to balance things.

Naturist Red in Tooth and Claw is totally different in that it is a blood spattered Zombie story with a naturist, perhaps I should call it a 'Naktive', theme. One of the main characters' conversion to naturism from being excessively inhibited is a trifle laboured and then abandoned as the main plot gets going. The criminally horrific cold war science seemed artificial and lacked credibility, this was the least successful part of the story. As it is the only zombie book I have ever read all else I can say is it was an enjoyable and usually well written substantial read without being really my kind of thing.

The Au-Naturel Girls is something different. Definitely aimed at adults it has explicit sex scenes and characters who have issues with racism and violence as well as nudism. The sexual activity is not however directly linked to the girls choice the be home nudists; more that they are typical modern young adults who are also naturist. The main male character starts off with 'normal' laddish assumptions but these slowly change. The story is set in a rugged northern (UK) working class environment. In many ways the book is far more realistic than any of the others. It is also well written with believable characters and a good pace. It is more 'literature' and less of a popular 'light read' than many of the others. I recommend it providing you like things a bit earthy.

These last characteristics are unfortunately not present in Nude Town which is a novella length story about a town which declares itself nude friendly and swinger friendly in order to avoid bankrupcy. Most of the citizens agree to go nude and persaude each other to do so. There are several odd or unpleasant assumptions in this book. For example that children should never be allowed to go nude and that becoming a naked town would result in general swinging and licentiousness. (These two ideas are presumably linked). The whole idea of a town declaring itself to be a 'clothes free zone' is a nice one and there are a few good scenes but the characterisation is pretty thin. I didn't like this book.

To end on a lighter note The First Nudist is a delightful short story set it the southern 'Bible Belt' of the US where naturism is definitely taboo. Until………….. I won't spoil it for you.

Richard Jannaway

A recent thread on another forum I subscribe to the 'Society for Barefoot Living' discussed the response of animals, domestic and wild, to people being barefoot or nude. There were several examples of dogs, especially, being unhappy and hostile to people who wore shoes and friendly to barefooters.

One correspondent then asked a question for the naturists on the SBL forum: “ Have you ever tried running nude WITHOUT benefit of any odour neutralizing substances? I mean NO deodorants, no soaps from bathing, stuff like that? ”
My experience with animals whilst nude is minimal, although I do remember a red setter who came up to me whilst I was lying nude on a beach in Cornwall and started licking my genitals, so I thought I would ask the question on the Naktiv site.

Do animals prefer people without clothes or footwear?

We are thinking of moving to Lyme Regis. When researching the area I searched for a naturist beach in the area and one place popped up – Pinhay Bay. I could find little about it and wonder if anybody on the Naktiv site knows this beach and can say how well used it is.

A discussion in http://martinsworlduk.blogspot.co.uk/ and shared on here, resulted in a long and complex thread about increasing public acceptance of nudity. The most obvious example of this being the WNBR. Discussion and some disagreement followed about the use of nudity as a protest addressing other causes and questioned whether this help or hinder public acceptance of naturism?
In the context of this Richard Foley mentioned the Ukranian group FEMEN as an example of this kind of protest. I had not met them before and looked them up. The best analysis I found was one from the British current affairs magazine the 'New Statesman.' The author Agata Pyzik wrote:
…..(That's)… an important context to remember when considering the Ukrainian feminist collective Femen. They come from a country with an extreme and enormous sex industry, widespread abuse of women, and also "third world" levels of poverty. Femen's performances often take place in eastern European countries known for their lack of respect for human rights, like Belarus, where they were beaten and abducted. But they are also increasingly demonstrating in the west, stopping various international summits and ceremonial affairs.
Recently,they started to "recruit" young Muslim women in France, criticising them for wearing headscarves, saying it limited their freedom as women, and conflating, stereotypically, Islam and misogyny. In doing so, Femen were neglecting the years of struggle that are behind defending the rights of women from non-European/white backgrounds.
Not unexpectedly, they were dismissed by western feminists for crypto- or even open racism and an obsession with nudity, regardless of the context. In this case, both sides misunderstood the delicate circumstances of Femen's protests. Intersectional, progressive western feminists, concerned with the risks of racism and (post) colonialism, speak of Femen’s unhealthy obsession with nudity with suspicious disdain, not seeing that behind the admittedly “primitive” methods and controversial approach there’s a very specific reality that Femen are fighting.
Femen’s message and actions are not universal, and it would be good if the activists were aware of that. In aGuardianpiece responding to critics, Femen organiser Inna Shevchenkogives a clear message of her obsession with Putin, his regime and Ukrainian situation. This is Femen’s context: the post-communist desert of sex industry, sex clubs, girls at your wish every minute of the night and day.When you check into a hotel in Eastern Europe – and the more to the east, the more likely it is – you’re expected to be interested in the wide offer of sex infrastructure: you’ll be showered with dozens of leaflets with “gentlemen’s clubs” and other adult entertainment.

The whole article can be found here: http://www.newstatesman.com/voices/2013/04/white-doesnt-always-mean-privilege-femens-ukrainian-context .

This leads me to think that we need to remember that the majority of protest displays of nudity, in FEMEN's case almost entirely limited to topless women, does nothing to promote social nudism and isn't intended to do so by those involved. I suspect FEMEN would look at our social nudity as, at best, an irrelevance, in their much harder and more serious world.