This was one very hot Christmas

Here in Central Florida, there's usually only a dozen or so days a year one wouldn't be perfectly comfortable being outside nude in the middle of the day.  And maybe there's a couple of dozen nights a year when one dare not dash out to get the paper in the morning wearing less than long pants and a jacket.  But no.  Not this year.  We've had a few cool days last month when wearing long pants was more comfortable than wearing shorts in the evening.  But this year.  This... is something else.

It's been muggy and in the mid 80's during the day and mid 70's and humid at night for weeks now.  Day or night, being nude outside has been more comfortable than even wearing the traditional shorts and tee shirts we spend most of our winters here wearing in public.  Will it cool off by New Years Day?  Maybe into the low 80's, we're told.

Contrast that with a few Christmases of my youth (elsewhere in Florida at the same latitude) where it at least sometimes got below freezing for a few hours in the morning on or around Christmas Day.  Heck, once, we got up early in the morning not to see what Santa brought us, but because they said we might see a light flurry.  No such luck.

On another post, I mentioned a time when I was dating a member of Paradise Lakes near Tampa and she invited me to an outdoor New Years Eve party there.  Darned if that wasn't one of the freaky cold nights.  They had outdoor heaters set up and one could spend the hours huddled in one of their many heated pools and tubs.  But wow, it was cold that night (low 40's).  The club was clothing optional (I prefer nude only) and the party certainly was CO, so I grudgingly went wearing jeans, a sweat shirt and a jacket.

My date was more daring and was committed to going and staying nude.  It didn't stay that way and within an hour or so, she was wearing my clothes, and I was trying to make the best of it, buck naked.  It turns out that my clothes fit her perfectly.  We didn't stay long and well before the bell dropped, we were huddled in our room, warming each other up.

So here we are.  I'm off until after New Years and my wife, always thinking ahead, had the fence torn down Christmas Eve day to be replaced next week with a new (and much better) one.  The pool's now in the 80's (solar heated) and it would really be nice to be able to spend some time out in the sun back there.  But no...  We're exposed to the neighbors and they've suddenly found themselves without warning  being exposed to us for a good part of a week.  :(  At least my neighbors will soon be enjoying the improved privacy my new fence gives them.  And it fills in some gaps that made our privacy a little less than I liked.

Warm or cold.  Merry Christmas.  Whether you're celebrating the birth of Christ, or not.

More Working Naked

Another nasty weekend job with my wife away for the weekend.  Power-washing the patio and bleaching it afterwards.  Yeah, I know, it's getting chilly in most of the country, but here in Florida, it was sunny and 80 today.  That's actually a break from 87 degrees and humid as it's been most of the week.

Since I have good privacy in the back yard, it's yet another job that's easily done naked.  I was alternately wet and dry all day, and blasting the deck throws back a lot of dirt.  Working all day in wet shorts or a swim suit wasn't a desirable option, especially with all the grit that accumulates as I'm blasting away.  I took quick dips in the pool to clean up and air dry while I continued to work whenever I wanted to.  It's nice that the water's still a warm 85 degrees :)

Splash-back from spreading chlorine on the deck afterwards is a sure way to destroy anything you're wearing and contrary to what you might think, you feel and can quickly rinse off any chlorine that splashes back, verses having it get soaked into your clothes and rubbing against you for a while before you notice.  Then what?  Into the pool to wash it off your clothes and be miserably soaking wet afterwards while probably still retaining some chlorine?  Yuck!

I took a break mid day and got dressed to run some errands.  Just as I was heading out, my sister-in-law knocked on the door to drop some stuff off.  If she was earlier or later, she probably would have hear me blasting away in the back yard and would have come back and seen me working that way.  I probably wouldn't have heard her.  It's not that she doesn't know that I enjoy spending time free from my clothes.  Oh well.  Awkward for her maybe, but it wouldn't have phased me a bit.

I'll rinse the patio off tomorrow and put all the furniture back in order.  Not as messy, but there's no reason to get dressed to do it.  Plenty of other chores, tomorrow.  Half inside, half in the front yard.  Half done comfortably.  Half done dressed to keep the neighbors happy.  Oh well, half a day is better than having to stay clothed all day.

Naked in the Attic

I just got back from crawling through the attic checking on a long wire antenna that I have strung up there years ago.  Yeah, I'm also one of THOSE people (a ham radio operator).  We've had a lot of roofing, air conditioning, and remodeling work done in the last few years and I was curious to see if the antenna was still intact.  After a lot of crawling around to get from one end to the other, I found the antenna to be in good condition.

Even in the early morning, it's still hot up there from all the heat trapped from the day before.  Plus the attic is now even more crowded than before with ducts, cables, wires, nails, and staples that like to catch and rip into clothing, and into me.  Thinking that clothing was more of a liability than an asset, I decided to do without it this time.  OK, I wore shoes.  It seemed that every time I got snagged, poked, scratched, or badly cut going up there, my clothes provided me no protection and instead they just got ruined in the process.  Plus, I sweat buckets up there and my clothes would usually get so soaked, unwearable, and smelly that they just got thrown in the laundry room right away afterwards, anyway.

I'm happy to report that crawling around up there nude was the way to go.  Without clothing to snag, I was able slither through the tangle of ducts, rafters, and wires is if I was almost not there.  I also seemed to be more careful about keeping myself further away from where nails or staples might be lurking out to get me and I managed to come out scratch free.  I was a lot cooler and more comfortable with the sweat just sheet flowing off me and not accumulating and chafing in my clothes, like would happen otherwise.

As noted in my Practically Naked posts, wearing clothes is often a lot more of a liability than an asset when one is doing physical work.

Naked At Lunch

I few months ago, I ran into a couple of short interviews with an author, Mark Haskell Smith, about his latest book "Naked at Lunch, A Reluctant Nudist's Adventures in the Clothing-Optional World".  After reading the reviews, it didn't seem like it was a stupid fluff piece, so I bought the electronic version and made my way through it.  The premise of the book is that he wanted to investigate what all this nudist/clothing-optional stuff was about, and with the air of detachment of a pseudo-journalist or armchair sociologist, he went about having a wide range of nudist experiences to find out what he could about "those" people.

It was a good read and he certainly had a lot of high end experiences that most of us will never be able to have or afford.  I've had some of his basic experiences and found his reporting of them to be insightful and genuine.  Black's Beach (near San Diego) was my first experience with social nudity and a clothing optional beach.  His description of the place, the people, and hiking down there and back was spot on.  And I like his description of Haulover Beach near Miami, Florida as being a drop dead gorgeous beach right off the main highway, right in the middle of everything.  It is a shining example of what a modern urban beach should be.

He likewise found it odd, as I did, that the staff of Desert Sun Resort in Palm Springs were all dressed up appropriate to their jobs, while everyone else went naked.  Stephane Deschenens, owner of Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park, has a wonderful podcast called the Naturist living Show.  His latest talk was on the subject of working in a nudist club and why, in his resort, the staff is nude.  I have to agree with him.

Mark did a nude cruise, which I've never done.  But then, I don't like themed cruises.  They're expensive and I like the diversity of everyone not trying fit the same mold.  Likewise, I enjoyed his description of Vera Playa in Spain and of course Cap d'Agde in France.  Two places I'll probably never get to.  He highlighted people dressing up erotically at night and some of the swinging at those places.  Sorry, but that stuff turns me off.  Which is why I'll probably never go either place.

The one experience he had that I would have really loved was "The Naked European Walking Tour".  A group that gets together annually and day hikes in the Alps, base camping for a week together.  Being a long time back-country hiker and lover of mountains, I would LOVE that!

He interviewed some interesting people, including Scott Wiener, the city supervisor in San Francisco who put into place the nudity ban there, nudist historian and academic Mark Storey, Felicity Jones (co-founder of Young Naturists America and my favorite young nudist blogger), and many others.  And he covered a lot of history about nudism that I didn't know.  And yes, not all of it was pretty.

It wasn't a light fun read (and free Kindle book) like "Going Bare" by John Harding, a brit who needled his wife into going to a nice low key French resort (La Jenny) with the family, and loved it.   La Jenny sounds a lot more appealing to me than the fancy resorts do.  Nor was it a throughout sociological study, like the book "Nudist Society", which I enjoyed and if Mark Smith had looked for it when he visited the "American Nudist Research Library" on the grounds of Cypress Cove Nudist Resort, he would have seen the copy of "Nudist Society" I donated there several years ago.

Either way, buy Mark's book.  Maybe you'll learn something.  He claims that he was simply acting as a "reluctant nudist" and that he still isn't one, even though he thinks society misunderstands it and that simple nudity shouldn't be criminalized the way it is.  Maybe he still doesn't get it.  All a nudist or naturist is, is someone who actually likes being human and doesn't mind actually looking like one.  Perhaps, he fits that description and still doesn't know that, in fact, he is one (simply human = natural nudist).

Naked on the Net

In an earlier post, I discussed an article about how common it is now to see photos of nude people on the Internet to the point that it isn't, and shouldn't be, a big deal if someone sees your nude photos there. Be that as it may, most people still feel vulnerable when they're naked, even though that feeling quickly goes away when people get used to being seen that way.

I've often felt that singers and actors reveal more about themselves through their emotions and actions and are thus more naked (as in exposed and thus more vulnerable) than I can possibly be just being seen as me.

What's strange is how exposed and vulnerable people let themselves be on the Internet to the point that being seen naked should be the least of their worries.  I know a lot of people who expose their opinions, their religion, their politics, their preferences, their bad habits, their whatever freely on Facebook.  These same people would never allow themselves to be seen as their body simply is.  I guess I don't get it.

Seeing me naked doesn't make it easier for you to steal my identity.  You can't use it to get money from me.  Trying to blackmail me by threatening to reveal what I look like to my friends and family will only be doing me a favor by then having an excuse not to have to hide my preference to be nude from them any more.  Seeing me nude doesn't reveal my politics or my opinions (though reading those posts will).  You won't get my social security number, the dirty little secrets I told the government to get my clearance, usernames or passwords, my account numbers, my net worth, what I do for a living, my sexual preferences, or anything else naughty or nice about me.  Instead, all you'll see is skin and the shape and form of my body.

People leave themselves vulnerable on the Internet in so many more ways.  Ashley Madison cheaters and cheater wanna bees are learning that lesson the hard way now.  It used to be if you didn't just leave your information out in the open, you were OK.  Or rather, you thought you were.  You trusted your bank, your broker, your Email provider, your cloud backup server, your dating website, and your favorite forums, blogs, or other chat space with your real identity and your innermost secrets.

Between the NSA playing peeping Tom (because who knows what you're into), the Chinese and other foreign agencies looking for what secrets you might have that they can use to get you to do things for them, to hackers breaking in to your services to get your stuff, to just malcontents who want to embarrass the owners of the services that you use.   Look who's naked now, chump!

What people should have learned is NOT to trust important sensitive information to plaintext communications and storage.   Your service providers promises of privacy and security mean nothing when THEY get hacked and they've left your information lying around unencrypted on their server.

Listen up peeps.  If you say something to someone on the Net that you don't want anyone and everyone to hear, use end-to-end encryption.  Learn to use Textsecure, Redphone, TOR, PGP and other tools and force those who you communicate with to use them.  In many cases, using those tools is transparent, or nearly so.

Before you give your personal information, opinions, or other sensitive information to others, ask yourself how do they store it, how do they use it, and how they are going to protect it.  The answers often are, sloppily, too widely, and not hardly, if at all.

Does that mean you shouldn't do banking over the Internet?  Banks and brokerages are rich targets for hackers.  But they know that and they know they have a lot to lose themselves if they're too sloppy, so they often limit what they store and use.   Even so, balance how paranoid you are (or should be) against the convenience.

Do you let others store your backup files and passwords on-line?  If so, is that information encrypted before they get it and do they have any keys to decrypt it?   If so, think long and hard before you do it.  Remember that even if others have the key, if you don't give them physical access to the information, they can't get at it unless they break into your house.  And if someone breaks into your house and steals your laptop or PC, you did encrypt it.  Right?

To keep yourself covered on the Internet and on computers in general:

1)  Limit physical access to sensitive information as much as possible (don't let it be on other people's computers and servers).
2)  Use trusted strong open source file encryption on your computer.  Better yet, make it easy and use an OS that supports it by default (MS Bitlocker, Linux home folder encryption, and newer Android and iOS operating systems on phones).
3)   Use strong passwords (something only you know) and a trusted password manager.  Consider not using anything that isn't open source and proven, and think twice about leaving passwords, even encrypted ones, on other people's servers.
4)  Consider requiring "something that you have" and can't simply know.  Use second factor authentication or a security dongle (Google Authenticator, a Yubikey, or RSA dongle).

But most of all, stop being naked on the Internet.  Be that way physically and post images of yourself that way if you like.  But stop revealing more about yourself than others have a need to know.

Nudity and Forgiveness

Most people don't like the way they look naked.  They're too tall or too skinny.  Their butt, their boobs, their dick, their nose, their belly, or their whatever is either too big, too small, to light, too dark, too prominent, too distracting, or too whatever.

A lot of nudists talk about the benefits of accepting each other's bodies.  "Acceptance" has a ring of resignation to it.  As if we should just learn to put up with other people's nudity in trade for being able to enjoy being nude ourselves.  The problem is that most people are more willing to put up with other people being nude, than they are being comfortable about being nude themselves.  We are, by far, our own worst critics.

The Christian concept of forgiveness isn't unique, but it's central to how we view our relationship to God and with each other.  Forgiveness is more than acceptance.  It's about putting behind us those things that we'd otherwise only accept, and move on from there.

We need to stop just putting up with being human.  We should forgive ourselves for being human, and move on, enjoying it.

De Blasio's Problem and Our Problem - Nudity in Times Square

It seems to be a pattern.  We make gains trying to get nudity accepted in more places, and other people come in and ruin it.  YNA does some body painting events in Times Square and the world doesn't come to an end.  People seem to be OK with it if it's not all the time, it isn't in their face, and they're not being hustled for money over it.  A World Naked Bike Ride through town, a Bay to Breakers run, or people getting their bodies painted in public once or twice a year, and people begin to accept it.  But do it every day in a high rent district where you're scaring away customers.  That won't last and someone's going get hurt.  Namely us.

But no, there's a buck to be made.  Women can go topless in NY, panhandling is protected, and YNA and others have shown that you can push the boundaries and get away with it.  People don't mind having to walk around street performers with a tip jar, but they don't like topless ladies approaching and offering a photo with people for a tip.  That doesn't make the wife happy and it confuses the kids.  Once again, think of the children!

Giuliani supposedly cleaned up Times Square by being heavy handed and people liked the result.  I suspect that the citizens of Gotham will be happy if de Blasio comes up with some way to put and end to the "naked women" problem, even if he skirts the law to do it.  Enough, I'm afraid, that if YNA or others do in the future what they've done in the past which was tolerated, they'll get hauled away.

Go back a couple of years and nudity was tolerated in the Castro district in San Fransisco.  But no, some guys had to be obnoxious about it to the point that the once tolerant city felt they had to have an ordinance against it.

Go back about 8 years and some teenagers started going naked around town in Brattleboro VT.  A few of them probably got the idea hanging out at The Ledges, finding that being naked is cool and that people can be cool about it.  Then it probably grew as an edgy thing to do until enough kids were hanging around naked that was beginning to freak out too many of the locals.  Wham...  another ordinance.

Nude beaches are often tolerated until they become popular enough that they draw in the crazies, the sexually desperate, and the religious gadflys.   Too many of our beaches have been closed down because of lewd behavior, real or imagined, regardless of how rare or easily discouraged it often is.

So what's the solution?  Don't back down.  Don't let the crazies, the hustlers, and the religious fanatics steal the platform.  Insist that what you're doing isn't wrong, don't tolerate others who are ruining it for us, and stand your ground.  That's easy to say when most of us can't afford to have our pictures in the paper supporting causes our families, coworkers, and bosses don't understand.  But we can at least do a better job of supporting those who do.