Stereotypes

Please teach me about naturist stereotypes. These are the ones I have heard so far:
1) a female naturist will be seen as a nymphomaniac
2) a beautiful female person on the beach will rather keep her textile on
3) an ugly (?) female person is more likely to be(come) a naturist (because she will feel safe, because no man will "hunt" for her?)
4) old male naturists are exhibitionists
5) there are way more gay/bi male naturists than there are lesbian/bi female naturists

I would like to be informed about stereotypes, because I am curious to know
– if you have heard the same ones
– if so, how do you respond when someone confronts you with one of them?
– and which one(s) is/are most likely to be true?
– and are there other ones I don't know of yet?

Especially when I heard the first one, I really did not feel at ease anymore and it might have explained uninvited conversations of male strangers (why male? why not female strangers?)

Because if many people believe in the same stereotypes.. it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, which may lead to less surprises among the same community, but to enormous surprises for newbies who have no idea of the expectations of the community.

20 thoughts on “Stereotypes”

  1. I lately heard this one, and it appealed to me: A naturist is looking for value outside of social or economic status. But maybe you'll think that is reasoning in the other direction. I think i know 3). My oldest daughter told me more than once she felt safe on the site of a naturist association. And don't we all want to feel safe?

    • That is a positive stereotype. Thanks for sharing. Indeed, naturism looks beyond fashion (unless you count hair styles) and expensive/cheap clothing.
      "looking for value outside of social and economic status" I love that sentence, although I am reading Language & Symbolic power of Pierre Bourdieu (1991) right now and I think that you miss one point: economic status might become "visible" as soon as verbal interaction starts… Because if you speak the same language (for example English) you still have language features that are used in a particular socio-economic community. I would love to hear your opinion about the value beyond social or economic status during social interactions. …If there are any, according to the stereotype.

      • Hmmm, social status (or state) also begins to show after the conversation starts. Nevertheless i often feel happy being nbaked and being among naked people, and that helps me to 'taste' the things that pass by, in experience of conversation, the surroundings, my body, food etc. It's that in naturism, the walls of status are less high. I'd like to be practial, Eveliina. 🙂

    • Nice one to remember: stereotypes tell more about the person who holds them, just like insults. "Wat je zegt ben je zelf" 😛 Never thought about it that way, yet. I thought stereotypes came from dominant cultures who find it too much effort to distinguish individual treats. Stereotypes as a form of cognitive laziness, I thought, but I never directly brought this idea back to "wat je zegt ben je ze zelf" haha 😛 Or rather: "wat je denkt, zie je zelf"?

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