Are Nudists Born or Made?

I enjoy reading questions and answers on Quora.  I learn about a lot of subjects and I like putting in my two cents on topics that I have some knowledge of.  I do so under the name Rick Orlando, which is, of course, the name I use here.

Yesterday a question came up there that got me thinking:  Are Nudists Born or Made?  If you follow the link, you can read my response.  Meanwhile at about the same time, Nick Alimonos of The Writer's Disease wrote a very interesting article Sex Nudity and Science which I think is a "must read".  His article least likely to become a nudist has a lot of parallels with my own life.  Including my growing up not very far from (actually, scary close to) where he grew up.  Maybe it was something in the water...

Nick brings up the point that when he had a pituitary problem and his testosterone level sank, he lost interest in being naked.  From my understanding, having low testosterone causes men to lose interest in just about everything.  Plus, why do so many women love being nudists?  Or for that matter, why do so many of us of "advanced age" with lower testosterone levels still love being naked?

Beyond that, in the "Sex and Science" article he ponders the "nature vs. nurture" question.  In other posts I've talked about my background of being likewise painfully shy well into my 20's, yet raised in a family that was apparently more casual about nudity than most other families around me were.  Humm...  So did I come to identify myself as a nudist because it developed naturally from my upbringing?  Or was I genetically predisposed to become a nudist because I inherited it from my mother, who was the most casual one in the family about nudity?

I thought back to when I was dating my then future wife and she told her mother that I liked being naked (she has a weird habit of outing me, which I've learned to appreciate).  She said that her mother's response was a nonchalant "maybe he's a nudist".  What the heck was she thinking when she said that?  That men have their unique kinks, but at least that one's a rather harmless one?  As in, sorry dear, he was born that way and that's the way he is.  Or that he's been conditioned or influenced to be that way and maybe he'll grow out of it.  What's the truth?

So yeah, why do I like being naked?  The more I think about it, the more I think why the heck shouldn't I like being naked?  It's more comfortable, it's often more practical, I feel better about myself when I'm naked, and I feel happy for others when they're naked and feel accepted by me simply as they are.

Thinking further about it, I'm just resentful that my culture doesn't accept everyone just as they are.  And that for a long time, I didn't accept myself, simply as I was.  It's not that clothing is a perversion, but that the need to hide oneself in it so quickly becomes one.

So am I different?  No.  I'm sorry to say that other people have just simply made themselves different from me.  After a couple of bad decades of not being happy being what I was, I became happy to be as God made me and I've been happy to be that way ever since.

Trans Bathroom Debate - Gender Identity

How much is gender identity instinctive and how much is conditioned?  And to what extent is the gender one identifies with, tied with to one's sexuality and one's sexual preferences?   I find it easier to accept differences in sexual preferences than I do people who feel that they're of the wrong gender to the point that they insist on trying to act and look like what the culture defines the other gender is supposed to look like and act like.  Worse yet, to the point of using hormones and having gender reassignment surgery. 

As social nudists, we have a different perspective on this issue. But it's not that different.  As anyone who wasn't deliberately conditioned otherwise, we don't see the difference in the anatomies of the different genders as being that big a deal.  We'd accept either, both, or neither as being people who should be accepted simply as they are.  But that doesn't change the fact that we realize that culturally, and yes, physically, there are reasons why women want to be with their own kind when they're using the toilet facilities (excuse me if I don't use our idiotic American term, "rest room").

Let's face it, biologically assigned women are on average smaller, weaker, less aggressive, and have more to lose if a man assaults them, then the other way around.  While using the facilities they're a lot more vulnerable and isolated than they would be in public.  So why not give them their own space where they're more likely to be left alone?   If a guy is so far enough along to pass himself off as a woman that no one would notice what their biological gender is, have at it.  But if there's a unisex or family facility available, for the comfort of others who might suspect otherwise, please use those facilities instead.  We don't need rigid laws.  Our culture can take care of itself, thank you.

Last year I went to see Jake Owens at the end of his concert tour, back in his home town of Vero Beach at the baseball stadium where the Dodger's spring training team used to play.  Pure magic.  From playing the local bars and restaurants there, to making it big time, Jake is a local boy who we were all happy for.

During the breaks, the facilities were overtaxed and the women's facilities were totally overwhelmed, so the women lined up with the men to use their facilities.

They waited their turn going into the stalls, joking about the guys using the urinals next to them.  The point is, we where their boyfriends, husbands, fathers, and yes, grandfathers of many of those women and anyone who was going to give them a hard time wasn't going to be happy with the result.  I was impressed.  Wow!  Real adults!

Meanwhile, in nudist clubs and resorts, it's a mixed bag.  Many of them are converted "textile" facilities inheriting men and women's facilities.  But many of them have opened them up to "men and couples", or "women and couples".

Huh?  Let's face it.  In closed and often isolated facilities in our culture, women have more of a need to feel "safe" with their own kind, or at least with those that care about them, than being forced to intermix.

While at the same time, nudists easily shower together in the open, where everyone can see us and nobody can get away with being disrespectful of others.

So what should we do?  First, respect the culture, even if you don't agree with it.  Contribute to changing it, but respect it never the less.  Second, don't pass laws that "presume" what the culture will tolerate.  That's none of their damn business.  And please stop creating these distractions when we have so many more important things that the government should be worried about!

Strip Clubs

I haven't been in a strip club in decades, but I doubt they've changed much.  When I was young, that's where a lot of guys went for a night out on the town.  I avoided them like the plague except at bachelor parties, when going was obligatory.  I went to more bachelor parties at such places in my early 20's than I care to remember.  I worked with one guy who was a regular for decades, and one of my other engineer co-workers actually owned and ran a club of his own on the side.  Yeah, welcome to the south.  Except the club owning engineer was when I was working in the Mid West.

At the time, I was already going to nude beaches and resorts on my own without any of my friends knowing and I couldn't help but find strip clubs to be sad, perverted, side effects of how badly we've been conditioned to be averse to our own form, and how badly we treat and feel about our own sexuality.  I don't know if I felt sorrier for the girls or for my stupid friends.  Why on Earth would you go to see such a distorted representation of what half the human race looks like, showing off for you in ways to get you aroused, when you can't (or at least really shouldn't) be doing anything about it?  Especially around other guys?

I'm glad my peers out grew that.  I can't help but think if they were as used to seeing women as I did, as people, clothed or unclothed, that strip clubs wouldn't exist.  Perhaps someday, they won't exist.  I won't miss them.

Nudity and Sexuality

Well, I see that it's been way too long since I've contributed anything.  I finally have some time, so I'll give it a go...

If we're to convince others that being social nudity isn't sexual, we're going to have to face the 800 pound guerrilla that many, if not most, people do assume that it is. Most people seem to be terribly insecure about their own sexuality and they feel too threatened by other people's sexuality to be comfortable with the idea of being naked around others if they can't get their head wrapped around the whole subject of human sexuality itself first.

Our sexuality is something that's not totally within our control. When aroused, our inhibitions are suppressed, our judgment is clouded, and we find ourselves willing to do some pretty strange things to relieve the tension and to provide pleasure to ourselves and our partner. So it shouldn't be a surprise that most people don't want to tempt that reaction when they know it isn't appropriate. And at a nude beach or nudist venue, they quickly learn that it isn't appropriate, even if they aren't told explicitly that it isn't.

People assume that seeing others without clothing will arouse them, or disgust them, because they've been conditioned to have those reactions by our culture. We know those reactions aren't natural and don't occur once one simply gives it a try for more than a few moments. But other people don't know that and they're afraid of it.

The right attitude to project is that we're human and that we have nothing to be ashamed of for being human. Yes, we are male and female, tall and short, young and old, skinny and fat, and we come in many colors and body types. And isn't that wonderful! We're also sexual, but we're only sexual towards each other at certain times and places, and these aren't appropriate venues for that. So instead, we're just social towards each other no differently than we would be otherwise. And there's no reason why we shouldn't be.