Richard Foley (richinud)

There are a great many people who have considered being naked in a public context, but shy away from the idea. Much as there another number who have never even tried being naked in a private context either. This challenge can be seen as a personal development strategy.

Having the courage to get naked may not change your life overnight, but it can offer a way to tap into unrecognised reserves of personal energy; overcoming shame perhaps; meeting people in a naked and fully exposed context, dealing
with changing temperatures, accepting ones own natural form. All these thing can help to provide a source for personal power and growth, an anchor for strength you never thought you had.

Try it, the positive effects of being physically naked, whether in private or in the great outdoors, might surprise you.

You’d think that people with a common interest, such as naturism, naked cycle rides, naked hiking, naked protests, and the like, would be able to support one another’s endeavours and projects. Instead, there seems to be a petty mindset reminiscent of town council meetings full of jobsworths. The prevailing attitude appears to be that if you see someone taking positive action, then the most appropriate response is to seek to undermine their credibility in some way. Spreading FUD, (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), is of course the favourite. Ask a “loaded” question, (use your imagination), to spread a little dissention. There are many other ways, I won’t list them here, as getting into details will just detract from the point.

The gay community has come on leaps and bounds since “coming out”. Not only is the gay community a force to be reckoned with, it is now positively illegal to discriminate against them in any way, shape or form. Not so nudists. Nudists go round with their hands over their faces, pretending they are not nudists at all, never letting anyone “outside the secret circle” know what they do during their “private” time, for “fear of exposure”. Just imagine for one moment how it might be if the naturist community all “came out naked” at once!

There would be hysteria of course at first, and then laws would be put into place to protect naturist rights.

This won’t happen because so many jobsworths are out their sniping at each other, and the rest of us, to try to keep all of our heads below the parapets. Remember this is so-called “friendly fire”, from people with a common interest. The puritans don’t need to bother getting out the big guns, the nudists will destroy their own hopes all on their own. How can this be? Petty jealousies abound. If someone starts an interesting project, people seem to automatically creep out from the corners to try to pull it down, instead of actively working at building an exciting new resource. What is wrong with the naturist community, that it is seemingly incapable of working WITH one another, instead of against each other all the time?

I’ll say it again. We, as people who have an interest in promoting a naked lifestyle, whether in private or in public, need to work together to achieve our aims. We need to be inclusive, not exclusive, we need to see our similarities instead of our differences. We need to grow up and put away the FUD. We need to share our information with one another, we need to support one another. Working together, and more openly with non-naked sectors, is the only way forward to a better, more naked-friendly, world. How are we going to do that unless we work WITH one another?

Comments welcome.

Why, oh why, are there so few women on naturist websites? Is it because there are so many men on naturist websites, that the women all run away? Might it be that there are too many men, or because there are too few women, in the field? What about a website that is not a naturist website, but offers a naked place, what then?

Oh, why are there so few women programmers? Is it because there are so many male programmers, and the women all run away? Oh, why are there so few women bus drivers? Can women not drive? Oh, why are there so few women brick-layers? Maybe they're not strong enough, or maybe they're not interested! Oh, why are there so few women naked hikers, is it because they are concerned about what all those evil men will do to them, on the wild mountains so far from the police? Oh, why are there so few women on my favourite website, is it because…? Oh, why are there so few women…?

Why are there so many women on porn sites? Is it the money? Surely not! Do we need to make special "women's only naked websites" on Tuesdays? Would making a "no single males permitted" rule help? Is this something which should be fixed, and if so, WHO's going to fix it?

Is this a naked website thing? Is this a "rights" issue? Is this a gender thing? Is this irrelevant?

Comments welcome – what is your opinion?

According to BN magazine, a new naked hiking trail has been officially opened in Switzerland. In the very same country where a specific county banned naked hiking several years ago. Wonders will never cease 😀

Fake profiles are the bane of any decent website, forum or social media network. There are various tools which can be used to help identify likely fakes. Chief amongst these is the well known TinEye photo research tool, (there are of course many others). Throw a suspect photo into TinEye and if it comes back with a bunch of identical images found on several porn sites, well, the chances are that you might have a fake profile on your hands. Note the careful use of the word might !

If someone is posting somebody else's photos as their own, (pretending to be someone they are not), this counts as a fake profile and they will be banned from the site. This is fairly clear. However, many nudists (typically) will go one step further than this and insist that if pornographic images are discovered amongst a collection which has been pointed to by Tineye, then the assumption is that this is also a reason to ban the user. The two cases are quite different. This is quite simple, but many people have problems with it, so I'll try to spell this out simply.

Given the premise that the image is initially acceptable here then, (based on what you discover elsewhere), there is no place on the Naktiv site for (to be read/spoken with a suitably haughty sneer) "we don't want that sort of person here !". Wrong! the Naktiv site is NOT concerned with what the FBI can find out about you. Certainly we will use any tools at our disposal to reasonably reassure ourselves that we are dealing with a real individual, represented by their profile on the Naktiv site, but we do not wire-tap you, we do not snoop on other web sites for spurious activities, we do not encourage blackmailers. It might be very tempting to set ourselves up as the judge and jury for everyone else's private activities, but this is a very slippery slope, and I for one am far too busy having fun here to be bothered with it.

Let's make this interesting by giving a couple of examples: gay stiffies have been posted on the Naktiv site, and this was unnacceptable and they were removed. Gay stiffies have been posted by members (and moderators) of the Naktiv site, on other web sites and this is not our concern. Pornographic material has been posted on the Naktiv site and been removed immediately with frequent offenders being banned. Pornographic material has been posted by members of the Naktiv site on other web sites and this is also not our concern. We are NOT the moral guardians of a family-friendly nudist club, the Naktiv site encourages and promotes healthy naked activities and has a much wider remit. I know this is difficult for many people to grasp, but this simply means that when you see someone post a photo on the Naktiv site which you can find on another site using (eg.) Tineye, the main question we have to ask, (given that the image is acceptable in the first place), is whether "this is the person represented by the profile"? Not whether they are engaged in family approved activities on the remote website in question.

I'll say it again: the Naktiv site is only concerned with what is posted on the Naktiv site, and whether or not it is acceptable HERE, and NOT with the moral judgement of the membership elsewhere.

I expect discussions 🙂

What people often mean by "compromise", is that the offended party requires whoever they find offensive to conform to the expectations of the offended party. There is no expectation that the offended party should alter their behaviour, or expectations, at all. This is what we see in public all the time. Naked people are continually told they must compromise for the sake of the minority puritans who impose their offended behaviour on the rest of us.

It is a simple matter to say that "because I wish to be naked, everyone must be naked". This would clearly be simple but wrong, but then I'm not a fascist, and I think we should all be able to make up our own minds how we dress. This is actually precisely what the textile community says: "because I wish to be clothed, everyone must be clothed". I have no wish to impose my dress code on anyone else, and equally I have no wish to have anyone else's dress code imposed upon me. The idea that everyone must be dressed, or everyone must be naked, are both equally tyrannical declarations. Where people have a difference of opinion on this state (of dress), a compromise may be reached with ease by merely stating that everyone can dress how they choose.

This is why I extend respect to anyone who's wife, (it's usually the woman who is less enthusiastic), who is clearly not 100% comfortable with his nudity, but is still prepared to accept it all the same. Saying something to the effect of: "I don't especially like the nudity, I don't understand why you have to be naked, and it's not for me either. However, I do respect and love YOU, and understand it is something important for you, and therefore I will tolerate your nakedness in our home (or wherever)."

This is the true meaning of "tolerance", (please DO look up the meaning of the word in the dictionary), and of "compromise". Because NOT coming down on my side and NOT coming down on your side either, but putting up with something not to your taste, is true tolerance.

Respect is a two-way process. The mistake many people make is of trying to make "respect" mean "do what I say". There is a difference.

Nudists will always be a scorned minority because they/we are simply incapable of working together towards a common goal: mainstream and social acceptance of the naked human body.

Whenever any half-decent catalyst comes together, like SkinBook as was (and demolished by insider-backbiting and sniping), or a slick modern social media network like the Naktiv site, people run along excitedly saying how marvelous it is to finally have a "place to call home". After a while though, people begin to jostle for influence, minor issues become personalized, and people fall out with one another, then they go off in a huff and refuse to say a nice word about the site again. More than that, a whispering campaign of mud-slinging is begun.

All this serves is to splinter the already factioned groups even further. Take a recent example. Some idiot posted a verbatim article from another website on the Naktiv site. The author of the original article was understandably upset, but rather than contact the Naktiv site admins and lodge a complaint, so that something could be done about it, the response was instead to post a blog denouncing the ENTIRE Naktiv siteas plagiarist. Note that this was one user, from over 1600 users, who had plagiarized a post, and now the entire site is black-balled. This doesn't happen on Facebook.

What's the difference? The difference is that Facebook is an entity, and the Naktiv site is still small enough to be regarded as a personal place. This makes the Naktiv site an easy target for an unanswerable smear campaign. As the saying goes: "throw enough mud and it will stick", and stick it does, regardless of the true nature of the situation. And the more mud, the better, the more scandal, the better, the more you can get people to become embroiled in sniping at one another, the less notice is taken of the main issue. It's no wonder Skinbook folded with an embittered founder. This so sad, so futile, such a waste of resources, and so unnecessary.

We were talking about gaining mainstream public acceptance of nudity. Not the plagiaristic antics of a single user on a multi-user site. This isn't a parish council meeting, where people are trying to upmanship one another for use of a particular chair. This isn't a private nudist club with parish council note-taking and representatives with special case voting rights for the correct queue position at the barbeque. We are talking about a social media network which can help to promote our common goal: mainstream public acceptance of human nudity. Remember?

United we stand, divided we fall. Where do you want to go with this, what do you want to do?

No freedom has ever been freely given, freedoms have always been taken.

The people who pioneer the new, (because not "normal"), views are inevitably regarded as extremists. Today, we bow to lesbian/gay rights, women voters, etc. Only because some people made a hard stand during difficult times. When those people were fighting for OUR rights, most people called them extremists and nutcases. If Emily Parkhurst had been "sensitive to the appropriateness of the situation", I'm sure she would not have thrown herself under the King's horse and women would probably still not have the vote.

Nelson Mandela is another example of precisely the same case where one man suffers for years under the barbaric of the current regime, while today he is hailed as a hero. He was fortunate, he was able to enjoy his last years of life in freedom. Alan Turing is another who was shamed, and forcefully chemically "treated", by the government of his time, for the crime of following his own harmless activities. Turing was so persecuted that he committed suicide rather than face the rest of his life as a chemically castrated individual.

What fate awaits Stephen Gough?

Nudists and naturists often complain that they are misunderstood by the world at large, by mainstream society. On many mainstream social networking sites, such as Facebook, nudity is banned unless associated with sex and violence. One would think nudists would welcome the opportunity to share their lifestyle with the mainstream.

Often, though, it seems that the very people who, at first ken, are most vocal about promoting their naturism, when given the opportunity, simply use their platform to pull down other people's efforts to promote the lifestyle. This has happened to Skinbook, possibly the most successful social networking platform of the early part of the new millenia. And this happens again and again, on Faceache too, where people constantly personalize their activities, instead of focusing on the issues at hand. Permitting personalities, and personal issues, to get in the way of progress. The gay community found strength and focus in "coming out", together, and the naked lifestyle community needs to do the same.

It is way past time for the naked community to stand fast, to support one another instead of promulgating division. Naked people need to be inclusive, not exclusive. It is time to grow up.

Open letter to Yvonne in reply to her blog,

http://www.freedomfieldsnaturistranch.com/feedom_fields_naturist_ranch_blog_page.html

I will reply just the once. That your photo was attached to my shared blog post on to FB. was definitely a SOFTWARE ISSUE which has been fixed. No amount of saying it was not so, changes the very real life fact that it was the direct result of the FB implementation of the OG protocol which caused a random image to be selected from the linked page, based on the OG information provided in the shared link combined with the size of the available images. This is where your image came from. This is reality talking. To demonstrate I attach a link to someone else having the same issue with FB blog/link/image shares (remember this is only one of many similar posts), which describes the technical issue in question.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wrong-thumbnail-when-sharing-post-on-facebook

The related issue of privacy is one which is simply misinformed, and no amount of "spin" will change the facts. There is no arse-wiping on the Naktiv site, privacy is something which each individual is responsible to set for themselves, as described extensively in the onsite documentation. To pretend this is an issue for the site is to purposefully misrepresent the situation, and you know that too. There is no such thing as "members are expected to honour…permissions". This is the internet, (reality again), and even if you wish to request permission from someone (very laudable I'm sure), somebody else will almost certainly not. When you go onto FB. (for example) your material is sharable UNLESS you secure it. Precisely the same situation is in place on the Naktiv site – this is not rocket science. For your continued reference, the privacy documentation on the Naktiv site is available here:

http://www.naktiv.net/permissions/

Your extreme anger and out-of-control rage, which was directed towards me personally and to the Naktiv site generally, over an entirely made-up story, was completely uncalled for and ensured the end of an otherwise productive relationship. While I was not surprised to find your friend Laurie joining forces with you against the authority figure, I do admit to being quite surprised that the therapist Robert stepped in (again) to manipulate you and your emotions during this debacle. Most unprofessional, cynical and unfriendly too.

In an effort to pour oil on a churning sea, I declared on several occasions that this issue was fanned by several people, for their own personal agenda, and that no single individual was responsible for the morass which was being unreasonably generated. That you and your friends persist in "pointing the finger", and attempting to undermine the the Naktiv site is wrong, and you know that too. We all had our part to play in this unfortunate affair when it escalated beyond calm discussion. The only censorship which occurred during the storm was in a perhaps misguided effort to stop the spread of inflammatory and hysterical misinformation. Furthermore, persistently trying to damage the reputation of the Naktiv site which, as you know, is firmly against the idea of censorship in principle, just because someone has said "no" to you, and called a halt to the misplaced tantrum, is quite simply unnecessary.

That you appear incapable of modifying your opinion in the face of the truth, and persist in spreading what you know to be erroneous FUD, is very sad. Deciding how we present ourselves to the world, and the stories we tell, is of course a personal choice for us all and it's not possible for me to ensure that you tell the truth. Nevertheless, despite your current level of venom, and on the basis of the effort you did undoubtedly put into the Naktiv site, Yvonne, I do wish you and your friends well for the future.

ps. people are welcome to return to the Naktiv site once the fever has subsided.

We hear a lot about sexual harassment of women. There is also sexual harassment going on towards men, believe it or not.

I've been at the sharp end of homosexual advances when I was a child, as a teenager, now that I'm an adult, at work, at the beach, online, etc. etc. It's not just women who have to put up with this kind of predatory behaviour. Naked activities might not seem to everybody to be immediately related to this topic, however I believe they are. The obsession with many puritanical groups with sex and nudity is one of the mainstays behind the idea that people may be sexually harassed if the harassor is attracted in some way to the harassee.

Along the lines of "if you dress like that, what do you expect", and "if you look like that, what do you expect", and so forth. This is why when a woman tars all men with the same sexual predator brush, it's just as offensive as when gays tar all straight men with the same homophobic brush, and so forth. There is no excuse for predatory behaviour, outside of being a predator. Period.

Promoting a more normal view of human nudity, and human interaction, is what the Naktiv site social network is all about, and we'd welcome your input: http://www.naktiv.net/Naktiv site

This is all about respect, and the respect cuts both ways.

Thank you for writing. I agree that fanning the fire serves no purpose. What happened recently was, I feel, avoidable and has several sources, and those of us who are involved must all share the blame. When the blame is laid firmly at my door, and with hysterics to boot, I will defend myself and my site. Perhaps we all did that too enthusiastically.

One of the posts which led to this debacle, was the posting by me, of a link to a comment of mine, about my dog. When this was posted on FB. as a public share, the profile of Thurston was somehow attached as the link, and I have no idea how that happened. It is possible it was a software bug/error, or it is possible I clicked the wrong link, or perhaps I made a different mistake and did not notice it. When I was notified of the link, I removed it from FB immediately.

Shortly afterwards something similar happened with Yvonne's profile photo, and the reason for that is that hers was the first image on the web page to which a link was attached, and the parser is not intelligent and picked her photo, and I did not notice that. Both Yvonne and I had posted many links from the Naktiv site over time, and there was never an issue previously, however on this occasion we were already highly strung, and even though I removed the link swiftly, it was not swift enough, and the shit hit the fan.

At this point, damage limitation was the order of the day, and the postings on the site needed to be controlled. This also became a source of still more hysteria, and Robert began to urge people to band together and create a kind of mini-revolt, and trying to single-handedly dictate his own site policy. I temporarily blocked his account, until it became clear that all 3 main protaganists were engaged in a vicious campaign of misinformation. That's when their accounts were blocked.

Your main points:

1. The default privacy settings allow for people to post their material, and be seen outside of the Naktiv site. The permissions settings are described further on the permissions page: http://www.naktiv.net/permissions

2. There is no such thing as "members are expected to honour…permissions". This is the internet, and even if you wish to request permission from someone (very laudable), somebody else, at some time, almost certainly will not. It does not matter who that is. When you go onto FB. your material is sharable UNLESS you secure it.

Precisely the same situation is in place on the Naktiv site. The default privacy setting is sharable and you can make that as private as you wish, with no complaints. There is one exception, and that is the sharing of photos is restricted to Naktiv sitemembers, and nobody should see them unless they are a member. However, this is the internet, people will always log on, become a member, download a photo, and share it themselves elsewhere. If you want to stop that kind of behaviour, there is only one way: don't upload anything, it's very simple.

I was accused recently of being an anti-gay dictator, on the Naktiv site, and I’m very tired of this inane charge so perhaps I need to explain this in short words that even the straight-haters can understand. I was molested by several gay men when I was a child and this has almost certainly coloured my opinion of the subject. This is probably the main reason I might feel as though I have to defend my “straightness”. I am NOT anti-gay and I am NOT pro-gay either.

Anyone can be gay, I simply don’t need gayness to be a close part of my life, thank you. Please do not insist that I must be a gay-lover. I am not, and I never will be. This type of accusation is a very easy charge to make, and why certain people continue to suggest to others that someone might be anti-gay, because it swiftly pulls people behind their real purpose. However, this is simply an untruth and an erroneous manipulation of your emotions. I have straight friends and I have gay friends, and their rights, just as MY rights, should be defended by all of us. Remember that last sentence because *I* have rights TOO, even though I am not gay!

Having been molested as a child does not make me hate gays per se, it makes me hate people who force themselves, and their political correctedness, on to others. Just because you are gay does not mean I must be gay. Just because you know someone who is gay, does not mean I must be gay. Just because you are afraid to upset the gay lobby, does not mean I must be gay. Just because there are gay people in the world, does not mean I must be gay. There often seems to be an anti-straight lobby, which plays into the hands of those who would manipulate you for their own agenda.

There are many gay people on the naktiv site, and there are ALSO many straight people on here. Personally I have no interest in whether you are gay or straight, so please desist with obsessing about this and trying to make up a fabricated story based on untruths. The fact is that you and I BOTH have equal rights. I earnestly wish that people would desist from being so divisive on this topic, both here and elsewhere.

People often arrive at a nudist-friendly website, such as Naktiv, skim read and agree with the mission-statement, want to share their own content, and then get upset that other people can see it. At a very basic level, this is crazy. The Naktiv site is here, by definition to promote the idea that nudity is ok and to resist the popular Faceache perception that nudity equals sex. That people are concerned about their privacy is fine, that people try to generate fear amongst the user base by posting official sounding notices semi-threatening legal action, is NOT fine. People will always share private information if you make it public. The point is to not make it public in the first place, and you can do this with the extensive privacy settings on the site. Making important sounding announcements do nothing to stop nefarious people from doing what nefarious people do. The answers to this seeming dilemma are very simple, and come in several forms:

1. If you are truly terrified of anyone seeing your content, do not post it.

2. If you really do want to share your content with others, and only want some people to see it, then you should use the site privacy settings to restrict access to Friends Only, or Friends of Friends, or Community Only (which is what most people usually want), or similar.

3. If you actually want to post your content publicly on the internet but you don’t want anyone to ever see it, then you live in cloud cuckoo land.

Naturally, as a corollary to the above, site moderators will always have the right to be able to view all content, to ensure the content is appropriate for the user base, and inline with our minimal set of rules.

Having said all of this, it would be surprising if nobody ever had doubts about sharing their information, and/or images, or was new to the idea of promoting a cause by posting interesting and varied images to encourage others to join the activity. It’s quite natural for people who are new to the idea, to be a little concerned about who might see their content, and what other people might think. This is one of the things the Naktiv site is here to do, to promote the very idea that the naked human body is fully acceptable in all context , and to educate people that nudity is nothing to be ashamed of. Hiding your images (for instance) in a secret place is a shameful thing to do, by definition. If someone needs time to come round to the idea of sharing good things with other people to encourage them to join, all well and good. If someone never comes round to that idea, that’s fine too, actually, and the latter is catered for by the existing and extensive privacy settings which are provided around the site. These facilities are here so that you can set your privacy settings to a level which is appropriate for YOU.

The Naktiv site is here to PROMOTE naked activities and to do this we need to show that we are not ashamed of our bodies. We need to demonstrate that there is nothing shameful about the naked human body. We need to NOT HIDE in secret and in terror of anyone seeing images of our naked bodies. This is the core message behind the mission-statement which EVERYONE read, and agreed to, before joining the site. Whining about “respect in the community” is firstly to miss the point, and secondly to stick your head in a dark hole. The ONLY way to secure your uploaded content is to use the available facilliities which are provided for you for expressly that purpose.

The mission statement is an interesting document and is a MUST-READ for everyone, every now and then 🙂

Melvin's photo and comment thread inspired me to recall this story of our own

http://www.naktiv.net/photo/7975/013-mel-440-500_510-a/albumid_976/

We lived in a very out of the way farmhouse, with no mains facilities at all, we used to run chickens, and my wife worked a productive vegetable garden. One afternoon, some friends arrived with a few others in tow and proposed staying for dinner as a kind of impromptu party. We said, "sure, sounds like fun", and as they set about opening the wine they had brought, we set about preparing dinner.

My wife dug up some spuds and carrots and onions, and I headed for the chicken shed with an axe in hand.

A little while later, as everyone was happily munching and quaffing, someone asked, "you don't have a freezer here, I don't understand where all this great food came from!" I replied, "well, the vegetables came out of the garden, and the chicken is VERY fresh."

The man looked horrified and stopped eating. "You mean, this chicken, was running around when we, when we arrived…?"

When I nodded, he and several others politely pushed their plates to the side. That was an eye-opener. And ever since, we've wondered where people think their frozen chickens come from. And also what relation the "frozen chicken" lump has to the entire process of feeding, killing, de-feathering, chopping up and cooking.

Those of us who enjoy the benefits of modern civilization and technology, often seem to live in a world so remote from the real world. This is where getting back to nature, being naked, feeling more a part of our environment can, in some ways, bring us back to the real world.

One thing I do know for certain, is that our chickens led carefree and contented lives until the very moment when they died.

The Naktiv site has a gender imbalance, (approx. 85% male, 10% female, 5% other), which might reflect all sorts of societal issues to do with nudity, but also online interaction too. The questions are: is this actually a problem? and if so, what are we going to do about it?

Is gender imbalance on a social network even a problem?

I do see gender imbalance as an issue, because when I see all single-sex groups in society, I don’t see especially (socially) healthy environments. Think of single-sex schools, convents, church choirs and monasteries, groups of football hooligans, the army, closed university professorship promotion systems, the upper echelons of the police force, ballet schools, modeling agencies and porn movies, etc, and so forth.

There are exceptions, of course, and some countries/organizations are better/worse than others, etc. and we all know women are making giant strides in all sections of society, but not everywhere, yet. Furthermore, most of us would probably agree that where there is a healthy male/female ratio, these environments tend to be better balanced, with more varied opinions being heard and less misogonistic attitudes. Last but not least, people learn how to get on with the opposite sex without treating them as a only a sexual object.

Online, the issues are the same, and predictably, the results are the same. And, yes, it IS a bit of a problem that online forums and groups, as open social networks like the Naktiv site, are manifestly over-populated by visually excited males, who vastly outnumber their female counterparts. This perpetuates the urge to see pretty young female nudity at the expense of BALANCED and more representative postings of both male and female postings, of all body types, inclinations, and of (nearly) all ages.

I would expect any social network to attempt to represent the society from which it is comes, representing the basic gender (m/f) spread, varied sexual inclination groupings (hetero/homo/bi/etc.), and to be neither spiritually nor politically aligned, and to not pander to any personal agendas. If we want to educate people about how nudity is healthy, normal and fun, then we need to encourage both male and female, and to foster an interest in largely equal numbers, to actively participate in this naked revolution. So, YES, gender imbalance is a very real problem, and we do need to address it.

So what is going to be done about gender imbalance, and who will do it?

First of all it is critical that we ALL realize that to address this issue, WE need to address it. There is no point in waiting for them , to do it for us – whomsoever we might like them to be. Firstly, we need to increase the visibility of the network, and secondly we need to actively attract more people from the less represented contingents. Fortunately this is a fairly simple operation consisting of 2 separate components.

1. Use the handy Share facility to expose your blogs, feed items and posts, to other more mainstream networks, like Facebook and Twitter, Google+, etc. etc. This Share facility is available for every new post you make here.

2. Invite your friends and fellow group members from other groups, forums and networks, using the <a href=”/contactimporter”>Contact Importer</a> facility.

It’s not good enough to just sit back and complain that activity on this social network, or gender balance on that social network, or posting frequency or topics, are not precisely as we want it. All of these social networks, including the Naktiv site, are exactly what we make of them.

Ask not: "what can the Naktiv site do for me?". Ask instead: "what can I do for the Naktiv site?"

What is your motivation in coming to the Naktiv site? Is it to contribute to the debate, to provide and to share content, or is it to suck energy like a leech? This is an important question for anyone taking part in any online social network, and something we each have to answer individually for our time online.

It's important that we all make an effort to contribute to our inter-linked networks, to create a safe and interesting online network within which people can persue nudity in a social context. If we don't make that effort, who will? It's precisely the same question which is generated when people moan about a nude beach closing. Well, it's UP TO US to keep it open, to do whatever it takes.

It's exactly the same with online networking. If you want it, you have to use it. Which brings us back to the question: "What can I do…?"

the Naktiv site (Naked Online OK) is the social network for naked people to discuss nude issues, post naked content, and generally annoy all the clothed people with fun posts. Our one thousandth member just registered, which means we have that many more people for you to connect to, casually chat amongst, and to enter into meaningful debate with.

We discuss whether it's acceptable to post naked images online (yes), and if so, how far do you go? 1963's naturist style, where no pubes are permitted to be seen? 2013 public bikini style, where everyone has shaven their pudenda and there ARE no pubes to be seen? Or something else? Are more women posting non-sexual nudity images online these days? Are more men than ever before trying to join less nudist clubs than ever before? Are naked art installations an excuse for public depravity, or does bringing nudity into the public mainstream reduce mindless puritan repression? Do feminists get naked more often than male chauvinists, or not, and why? Are you proud to post a naked image on line, or would you be ashamed to do so? Would you like to read about a well publicized and mixed naked hiking tour in the European Alps? Do you open your door to the postman, naked? What do you think about body piercings in sensitive places?

We're not always serious, we're certainly not always politically correct. However, we do have a whole lot of fun doing what we do, (and whatever it is, we're usually doing it naked). The Naked Online OK <a href="http://www.naktiv.net/mission-statement">Mission Statement</a> sets out what we are about, and our no-no's can be summed up as: <i>no sex, no violence, no abuse and no funny stuff</i>. If these criteria describe you, feel free to take a look at, join and contribute to, the alternative and naked social network which aims to make a difference today!

I made a comment recently about how “the staid traditional club nudist venue is expiring”. I’d like to clarify that this was not intended to be especially negative towards clubs as a naked venue per se. A nudist club is equivalent to a football club, an activity shared by others, and a place to share that activity with specialist knowledge. But just as playing football is NOT restricted to a football club, so should nudity NOT be restricted to a private nudist club.

The intention behind my remark was to describe the awful attitude, which so very many club-members seem to have, that theirs is the only way to “do” nudism. THAT is why naturism (in those venues) is dying out and member numbers are dropping so consistently in most of these singular locations and across national organizations. Too much exclusivity and not enough open-minded acceptance of how the rest of the world operates. Many club afficcionados seem to be under the illusion that public nudity will undermine the sacrosanct preserve of the private club. To which I can only reply with the observation that football clubs don’t stop people playing football in the streets, in fact they do quite the opposite by encouraging people to play football in open and public spaces. Every sort of other example abounds.

As soon as you engage people in extracuricular activities, get off your deck-chairs, and get out in public or open spaces, you encourage a younger crowd to participate in the lifestyle. This is the ONLY way to promote nudity successfully and THEN more people would use the clubs, and for reasons other than to hide away from the great unwashed. One should be able to be naked anywhere and in any context, and the public doesn’t actually mind at all. The more people who see naked activities the more accepted it becomes. This is shown to be true by naked hiking, nude art installations in city centres, naked boat tours, naked gardening at home, WNBR events, naked sunbathing on any public beach, and so forth.

So get off your butt and get out there 🙂

This is an open letter in reply to Simon Bre concerning a recent thread on whether the Naktiv site is homophobic or NOT. I am unable to properly reply to Simon on Facebook, because they have banned me 🙂 (when I posted a photo of the back of a naked man). Therefore I post the reply here instead, and send the link to you directly, and hope it is useful to all concerned.

Hi Simon, you are certainly NOT kicked from the Naktiv site, and I will naturally respond to you. As you have done, I'm making this an open-note to interested parties, but I really have had enough of these non-constructive accusations and counter-accusations and seriously wish to get back to the more productive work of promoting naked activities and this lifestyle for ALL.

I was very loathe to have given you a temporary ban, but only did so to try to get you to calm down, and so that the Naktiv site is not hijacked by the anti-hetero and gay-card waving sentiment which was the only thing to be seen on the site home page. Making every issue a gay issue is non-constructive and tantamount to bullying in the schoolyard where all your mates join in to give me a good kicking. You, and Robert Longpre (a moderator and blogger who has left the site because of this issue), know full well, that I encourage discussion on the Naktiv site, but the kind of one-sided slandering which has been going on recently was taking over the home page for everyone who visited and this is quite simply unacceptable. I have technical plans to reduce this type of side-effect in future. And you may return when that is in place.

As to my comments alluding to perhaps being homophobic on a personal level. I have no idea if I am clinically homophobic or not, but the term was bandied about sufficiently that it certainly seemed pointless to attempt to deny anything of the sort. This is mud-slinging at it's most effective, where even the victim (me) sticks the mud on himself! To accuse me of homophobia is actually quite laughable if you but take the time to look at this male/male photo which you posted: http://www.naktiv.net/photo/1495/simo-terrycap3/userid_330/ and some of the ensuing, very helpful, discussion which was hosted and encouraged on the Naktiv site: http://www.naktiv.net/blog/63/slightly-sexual-or-sufficiently-borderline/ However, as you raise the issue yet again, I'll take this opportunity to explain a bit of this, once and only this once more, as I've had quite enough of this alleged conversation.

When I was young, I was molested repeatedly by a number of gay men. These experiences left me with a serious, and perfectly valid, aversion to the subject of homosexuality. When I admit to this aversion, I am called homophobic. Cereal packet psychology which states that if you don't like something you must secretly like it, of the form which runs: "if you don't like gays you must be gay yourself", is just another form of schoolyard taunting of the "neena neena" kind, which short-sighted and non-productive. It's certainly an easy way to slander anyone who admits to a gay aversion though, and to which there is really no defense, which is probably why the tactic is uses so often by people with a gay, or politically correct, agenda.

The first remark which kicked this thread off, was where I objected to a self-avowed gay man, who had the words "looking for older gay men" on his profile, who posted 3 photos of himself with an erection on the site, in clear broach of the rules. While commenting on this I made reference to "gay stiffies" which seems to me to be an eminently provable and truthful point, and I have absolutely no need to retract that.

My second remark was made as the hysteria gained momentum, and I said "sticky gay twat" in some context or other, and I would, in hindsight, surely call this statement superfluous and prejudicial and homophobic. For this statement I will readily apologize to all and sundry. I think that the appropriate response to this would be to pull me up on my comment, point out that what I have said is homophobic, and request I not make such volatile statements in future. Or, details notwithstanding, something along those lines. In future I then have the opportunity, using better information, to modify my own behaviour and perhaps to consider my off-hand remarks before I make them. And there it should end.

I should add that it's entirely possible my comments have been somewhat more slapdash of late, and perhaps my sensitivity is either dulled or enhanced on some topics right now. I would attribute some of that to the recent and fairly acrimonious end to a 25 year marriage. Whether this is politically correct to say so or not, when a marriage of that length goes belly up, it's possible that a certain level of understanding for special case pleading goes out the window with it. What I'm saying, is that if I seem a little edgy, that might explain *some* of it. My earlier point still stands, if someone thinks I have said something untoward, then they are quite free to tell me so, regardless of my personal situation, but there is still no need (imho) to mount a sustained campaign of character assassination and community destruction.

As far as my moderators go and who said what, I've already lost 2 valued people over this issue now, both Robert (left of his own volition and deleting both his blogs and his parting remarks as he went), and Gene (moderating privileges rescinded). Others have threatened to leave if this rant continues and I refuse to maintain this point-scoring exercise by going through every single issue with you, as to who said what to whom, when, and what they really meant to say, or not, whether they are homophobic or not. I welcome discussion, but not flame-wars, and have debated with most of my moderators at some point. This is a healthy exercise to ensure the Naktiv site remains free from the politically correct death knell of card-waving conform and obey tactics. I think I have been extremely lenient with regard to what some people have posted on the Naktiv site, Simon included, and that I have apologized sufficiently for any untoward remarks I may have made regarding this topic. This thread is really quite long enough now and I for one am seriously bored by the topic.

I do think it's remarkable that people who one minute said "the Naktiv site is the best site on the internet for social networking and naked activities", or words to that effect, can turn around and try to bring our site down in this way, with rumour-mongering and schoolyard-bullying tactics of this sort. However, and please be clear on this, people may leave, and people may go, but the Naktiv site will stay and continue to provide a safe place to promote naked activities, and to discuss relevant issues, regardless of, (and not catering especially for), your own particular preferences. the Naktiv site will not be kowtowed by bullying from any special interest group.

Finally: I'm not a retired school-teacher, and I do not have the time to spend on letters of this kind every day, arguing every single small point to every single affronted person, about each of their personal soap-boxes. I have a site to run, and I also have a life to rebuild. If you wish to continue to use our facilities, (and I'll say it yet again, you are welcome to), please re-read the rules and modify your behaviour on the Naktiv site to be more conducive to a community atmosphere with OUR single goal as per the http://www.naktiv.net/mission-statement/

There are different ways to get what you want. One of the most insidious is using emotional blackmail, and it's ilk.

At it's simplest, the tactic consists of saying: "if you don't do what I want, I will leave". This happens in marriages all the time, and it happens in online communities all the time too. Let's say, 2 (valuable) people take a dislike to one another, and they both come to the site administrator/arbitrator and lay their demands on the table: "if he/she/it stays, I go!". The arbitrator can only lose, the community loses. If a wife (traditional values alert here), says: "it's me or the nudism", what does the husband do? He can only sacrifice 1 of the 2 things he holds dear, the question becomes a measure of worth, and in either case, he loses.

The more mature approach would be to try to come to some form of compromise. To explain why you are dissatisfied/discontented and to try to get other people to see your,or another, point of view. Perhaps some options have not been discussed, or even thought of. As a moderator on several sites, and the administrator of others, I see this all the time. People come to a unique community, and then demand it changes to suit their preconceptions. Running off in a temper-tantrum if they see anything they don't like. "I'm not staying here if…" Simply running away, (turning your back on the community), or sticking your head in a hole in the ground, does nothing to change the status quo, in fact it often makes things worse.

Firstly, it plays into the hands of the very people you are disagreeing with, by permitting them to win by running away. Secondly, it provides no opportunity for discussion of the very issues which need discussion. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it deprives you of the very platform which you so eagerly joined in the first place. The question quickly becomes one of: "Do you actually want to change anything, and if so, how are you going to do that by not being 'on the spot'?"

If this platform is, (let's say), an online group you joined one day and left the next, perhaps it's no big deal. Easy come and easy go. If, however, the platform is one in which you feel great personal connectivity, many ideas are expressed there with which you feel close affinity, then the commitment is all the greater. One might liken it to a marriage of a decade or more. Now, are you going to leave because someone said some one thing with which you disagree, or are you going to stay and try to modify the (in your view) errant opinion? Perhaps it could be pointed out that the phraseology was judgemental (for instance), even if the issue was clearly valid. This is not always an easy call, as some issues are clearly deal-breakers, and it's better to find them out early rather than later, (I speak from bitter personal experience). Nevertheless the decision might need to be considered rather more than in huff-mode.

All in all, threatening to walk away is usually a lose-lose, scenario, for everybody.