I don't get it. What is this nudist "lifestyle" the media and people talk about? To me, being nude alone and with others is like riding a motorcycle. You can try it, it's nice, but maybe it's not your thing. For others, it's liberating and sensual to ride without all that glass and metal around you. Perhaps you ride simply because it's practical. You go to work, you come home. When it's rainy or cold out, you drive your car. Other than that, it's just an option.
But maybe you find it a wonderful option when it's available to you. You ride with friends at times, enjoying nice winding roads to a nice destinations together. But you don't forsake other things you like doing, to do that. You might live where everyone rides and that's the norm, but it's still OK if other's don't ride.
For other's it's a theme. You have to have the right bike, the right paint job, the right clothes, the right tattoos, the right friends, the right bar, the right bling, and the right home. You, sir or ma'am are a biker and you're expected to look and act like one. Never mind the fact that it all started with you just enjoying riding a motorcycle sometimes instead of a car. You're living the biker lifestyle and you have responsibilities to maintain and develop that lifestyle.
That's what some people think nudists do. That we are "that way", and "that way" permeates, defines, and rules our lives. I don't know about you, but preferring to be nude whenever I can be doesn't describe or define me. It just simply IS me.
A few years ago when my wife and I were driving across the northwest US and we spent spent a couple of days at a small nudist club along the way. A young couple was there with their large family and a beat up bus they were travelling and living in. The father had been working on the bus and he was head to toes a greasy, oily, mess. My wife thought it weird the he worked nude that way. But as anyone who has worked under cars on a messy job knows, the oil and grease are going to soak through your clothes anyway, and at least nude you might have some opportunities to wipe some of it off, instead of living in soaked clothes that way the whole day.
My point is, was he living the nudist "lifestyle" or simply living his life nude when he could, just doing what he would otherwise normally do?
The counterpoint is, was he, and do I, believe in a naturist philosophy where being nude is not only a more practical way to be when you can get away with it, but a better choice for oneself and others when it makes sense? Even if it most of the time it does make sense, but you can't accommodate it?
For me, it does make sense. It's the right thing to do and the right thing to welcome others to do. Be yourself. Look like yourself. Enjoy being what you are. Accept and welcome others simply as they are. Be glad you're human. Enjoy being part of nature and this world. Take care of yourself, help others, and be responsible to the world you've been privileged to live in.
That's not a lifestyle. It's a philosophy of life that in many ways is no different than for others who for some strange reason, keep their clothes on. Except that keeping your clothes on is stupid.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
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!
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!
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Body Modification
I'm a live and let live kind of guy and if other people want to mark their bodies up with tattoos, insert foreign objects into themselves for decoration or sexual reasons, or have their bodies modified surgically to change how they look, I'm fine with that. It's a more personal and permanent way of expressing yourself than just by what you wear.
It's just not my thing. I have no tattoos, no piercings, and the only marks on my body are a few scars from injuries and surgeries that I needed for medical reasons. And I was circumscribed as an infant because my parents chose that for me. My body's unique in many more ways than that. Its size, color, shape, body and head hair patterns. A few freckles and moles here and there, but nothing that stands out. Short hair, closely trimmed beard. medium even allover tan.
I look like me and have no desire to look any other way. Your tattoos, piercings, boob jobs, liposuction, and other modifications don't impress me. You look like you want to be, not as you simply were. I would have been fine with you being just being as you were. But OK, I'll accept you as you are now.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
The Unkindest Cut
I had a very close relationship with my mother. She had a way of spontaneously starting and causally handling what would have been awkward conversations, making them easy. I don't remember how it happened, but I was pretty young when somehow the subject of circumcision came up. Likely, she out of the blue just brought it up so she could get it off her chest and explain why they did that to me. The reason, and only reason, they did it was so that I'd look like the other boys.
OK, warm up the time machine and let's go back to the 60's and let's see how that worked. At face value, she was right. Back then, boys grew up seeing each other naked almost every day using open locker rooms and showers associated with PE. We didn't give it much thought and my friends and I easily changed in front of each other and we even skinny-dipped together a few times without it being a big deal. We did that even as we developed while playing high school sports and as young adults at gyms.
Until high school, the schools I went to were mostly white. But there was a wide ethnic variety which only expanded when the schools were integrated and our high school became almost 50/50 white to black overnight. Even so, most boys were circumcised for the same reason I was. I only knew a couple of Jewish boys and I never put two plus two together there.
I never gave any thought to it until I met my best friend at the time who had just immigrated from Australia. Until then, I must have assumed it was a natural variation what went with other kids being different because they were of a different race. My friend and I were around 7 or 8, and other than that one thing, he looked just like me. It wasn't until my mother had that talk with me that I realized that, what the hell, I had been surgically altered just so I could look like the majority of other boys who had been surgically altered for no other reason than that.
That was entirely unnecessary. We were different enough from each other anyway, that it didn't make any difference to us that we were altered in the same way so the one part of us would look more alike. Even though today's youth hardly ever see each other naked, let's stop doing that to our kids.
OK, warm up the time machine and let's go back to the 60's and let's see how that worked. At face value, she was right. Back then, boys grew up seeing each other naked almost every day using open locker rooms and showers associated with PE. We didn't give it much thought and my friends and I easily changed in front of each other and we even skinny-dipped together a few times without it being a big deal. We did that even as we developed while playing high school sports and as young adults at gyms.
Until high school, the schools I went to were mostly white. But there was a wide ethnic variety which only expanded when the schools were integrated and our high school became almost 50/50 white to black overnight. Even so, most boys were circumcised for the same reason I was. I only knew a couple of Jewish boys and I never put two plus two together there.
I never gave any thought to it until I met my best friend at the time who had just immigrated from Australia. Until then, I must have assumed it was a natural variation what went with other kids being different because they were of a different race. My friend and I were around 7 or 8, and other than that one thing, he looked just like me. It wasn't until my mother had that talk with me that I realized that, what the hell, I had been surgically altered just so I could look like the majority of other boys who had been surgically altered for no other reason than that.
That was entirely unnecessary. We were different enough from each other anyway, that it didn't make any difference to us that we were altered in the same way so the one part of us would look more alike. Even though today's youth hardly ever see each other naked, let's stop doing that to our kids.
Are we what we wear?
I'm never at ease about my choices about what I wear. I get up in the morning and chose from a fairly narrow selection of "work clothes", pausing a bit to consider if who I might be meeting with that day and what the weather will like. Most of the time I'm only working with co-workers and most of the time it's warm or hot here, so the choice is usually khakis, a short sleeve shirt, and dress shoes. I downgrade to a golf shirt, jeans, and sneakers on "Casual Fridays", though to me wearing anything isn't casual enough.
Only very rarely if I'm meeting with a customer's upper management will I wear a tie and jacket or a full business suit. God I hate that clown outfit! It's literally a middle ages business uniform that looks absolutely ridiculous. Ties? What the heck! They're hideously uncomfortable around one's neck and what's with the vertical stripe of color down a light colored shirt, deep V'ed in by a thin and otherwise useless jacket? How uncool is that? All this so everyone knows what to look like in front of each other, even if everyone looks pretty silly.
The lab I work in makes everyone wear the same blue smocks to protect against electrostatic discharges. Worn over anything, everyone looks just about the same wearing them, creating an inadvertent "work uniform". In a way, it's a relief. Police officers, nurses, and many other professionals and blue collar workers wear uniforms to people identify them with their profession. At least they don't have to think much or care what we're wearing to work, and I don't have to care much if I'm going to be in the lab all day.
Then there's the trap of what to wear when going out with friends or to social events. How dress up is it? What are other people wearing? My wife's fashion sense is even worse then mine. Not that she doesn't dress well herself, but she often underestimates how dressed up I should be.
I shouldn't care, but I'm still very conditioned to care. And maybe that's a big reason I like being naked whenever I can be. It's the uniform God issued us. That's what people look like. That's me. I'm more than happy for other people to look like themselves instead of being weirdly decorated. It's a tremendous relief not to have to care anymore when I and others are nude.
Only very rarely if I'm meeting with a customer's upper management will I wear a tie and jacket or a full business suit. God I hate that clown outfit! It's literally a middle ages business uniform that looks absolutely ridiculous. Ties? What the heck! They're hideously uncomfortable around one's neck and what's with the vertical stripe of color down a light colored shirt, deep V'ed in by a thin and otherwise useless jacket? How uncool is that? All this so everyone knows what to look like in front of each other, even if everyone looks pretty silly.
The lab I work in makes everyone wear the same blue smocks to protect against electrostatic discharges. Worn over anything, everyone looks just about the same wearing them, creating an inadvertent "work uniform". In a way, it's a relief. Police officers, nurses, and many other professionals and blue collar workers wear uniforms to people identify them with their profession. At least they don't have to think much or care what we're wearing to work, and I don't have to care much if I'm going to be in the lab all day.
Then there's the trap of what to wear when going out with friends or to social events. How dress up is it? What are other people wearing? My wife's fashion sense is even worse then mine. Not that she doesn't dress well herself, but she often underestimates how dressed up I should be.
I shouldn't care, but I'm still very conditioned to care. And maybe that's a big reason I like being naked whenever I can be. It's the uniform God issued us. That's what people look like. That's me. I'm more than happy for other people to look like themselves instead of being weirdly decorated. It's a tremendous relief not to have to care anymore when I and others are nude.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
The New Fence and Maintaining a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
We've had our back yard fenced ever since we moved there. More accurately, our land backs up to the deep woods of a sanctuary so we've left that side open so we can enjoy the view of the woods and the critters who come and go from there. Either way, we enjoy complete privacy in our back yard and unless a neighbor was working on their roof, up in a tree, or peeking through the narrow slats, they couldn't see whether we're naked or not in our pool, our hot tub, or just laying out or working in the yard. In legal terms, we had a reasonable expectation of privacy and are perfectly within our rights to be nude there.
But the privacy wasn't perfect. We had back to back hurricanes several years ago and the fence was down for months. We hated it, but out of respect for our neighbors, we didn't go nude back there during the day until the fence was back up. I'd go in or put something on if a neighbor was working on his roof, on a ladder trimming their trees, or their kids were playing along the fence on their side, since it was easy for them to see us through narrow slats accidentally, if they were that close to the fence.
But the fence was beginning to look pretty tired. The slats were shrinking and warping, and it was getting easy for the neighbors to see onto our property from certain angles if we were in certain areas of our back yard, so it was time for it to be replaced.
The new fence is vinyl with continuous panels with no cracks in between. Heaven. Once again we can be anywhere in our yard and they can be anywhere in their yard, including right up against the fence, and they'll never see us. It's not that they don't know we're nude there. We're on good enough terms that we've mentioned it. Even so, good fences make good neighbors. Having enough privacy is well worth the work and expense of maintaining it.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)