Thanks for this. Thoughts like this run through my mind regularly and they are crazy making when I feel alone with them. Hearing another voice simple sane reasoning to counter the insane cultural norms and corporate cruelties is helpful and calming to my system, as I imagine it is for others.
You eloquently described the problem, and summed it up correctly saying:
“Perhaps you didn’t agree, but you did nothing.”
So, what about the solution to this situation?
Naturist resorts are disappearing across the US and around the world. Naturists must take action now, or all might be lost! That’s why I proposed the “RSG” approach. What’s the “RSG” approach to expanding naturism? RSG stands for Ready, Set, Go.
How is the “Ready, Set, Go” (RSG) approach a different way to expand naturism? First, it is headed by a “Core Group” of those who have normalized nakedness in their own lives. They are not confined to a place like a resort. Rather they are unafraid of getting away and being seen by others, even in photos. Their approach is focused on normalizing naturism and “building a community” rather than just finding a safe landed place to be naked with others, which often becomes a drinking club.
Second, the RSG approach identifies activities that might specifically interest younger people and newbies.
Finally, RSG encourages members to invite others to attend activities.
So, here’s a real-life example: Before Thanksgiving 2024, five “Ready” naturists in our US county “Yavapai” in Arizona met as a “Core Group” to plan for 2025. How do I know they were Ready? One was raised a naturist at resorts and loved freehiking. One had visited 38 resorts (lived at three) and visited many beaches, hot springs, and freehiking areas. One grew up surfing naked and wasn’t ever worried about running across textiles while freethinking. One had visited several resorts, taken group freehikes, and was comfortable naked around the house and with her sister. One had freehiked often, visited several resorts, and arranged with the owner to hold a naked bowling session. All had invited people to naturist activities in the past.
The first order of business was naming the group after the nearby county – “Yavapai Naturists”.
Then many “Set” ideas were discussed, emphasizing activities that might attract newbies, especially younger people. Examples included a polar plunge and hot tub activity, naked bowling, eating at a restaurant meeting room, Olympic games competition, naked gardening and salad potluck, camping and freehiking, attending a resort festival, celebrating holidays like Halloween, having a cooking night, renting a houseboat on Lake Powell, and holding an art modeling session. Notice how few of these activities required a resort setting.
One of our core group members volunteered to create a website and calendar these suggestions for the group to approve. This is still in process but should be done before 2025 arrives.
With this done, all agreed to invite newbies to attend.
There is less than a month left in 2024 to get the RSG process started. Do it now! Don’t let inertia stop your progress. Don't lose heart. Do something positive to help naturism grow one small steps at a time.
I agree, in large part with Rokker, but here in the US, there's another layer, especially when it comes to nudity: the church. The US is, without a doubt, the most religious country in the world outside of The Vatican. And the Catholic church and every major Christian protestant sect is vehemently anti-nudity. And they are very vocal about it and political about it. They explicitly call nudism immoral and very few people whose livelihoods depend on the good will of the public are willing to challenge them. Even many nudists are church members, but they live in fear of it becoming known and being ridiculed or even asked to leave their church communities. When it came to skinny-dipping and single-sex social nudity, particularly among men, the US used to be a very different place. But this all changed with the advent of religious activist individuals like Anita Bryant and organizations like the Moral Majority in the 1970's and 80's. They made Christian conservatives a political force for politicians to fear and the rest of us, who don't share their view of an ideal society, have lived in their shadow ever since. Even though, I believe, they are a minority, albeit a substantial one, they go unchallenged because they have appropriated the cloak of "morality," making anyone who defies them, by definition, "immoral" and, again, for anyone in public office, that is a career-ender. We, in the US, have been living in a theocracy for a long time. The criminalization of simple nudity went unnoticed because it affected so few people. But the overturning of Roe v Wade, which affects more than half the population (women), and which was almost entirely a crusade of Christian conservatives, has shined a bright light on who's been actually running this country behind the scenes and, now, out in front.
Thanks for that - I often wondered how the U.S.A., which once saw school students having swimming lessons naked, become so apparently prudish in such a short period of time. And yet there remains the enigma of a country that seems to be over-the-top in it's stance on morality, yet is the world's most prolific producer of pornographic material!
Much of the issue (as has been noted many times) is that American mindset sees nudity and sexual activity as inextricably linked. Nudity means sex - and nothing will change their minds. The "community standards" of American social media channels lump nudity and sexual content together under one set of rules. I dared to post a link on Facebook to a documentary about the Ethiopian Surma and Mursi Tribes who live without clothes most of the time. It showed a group of boys dealing with some cattle. The post was removed on the grounds that it "may contain adult nudity and sexual content". The platform demonstrated blatant racism and ignorance of other cultures outside the U.S.
Thank you for your comments. I hadn't realised just how much influence religion has in the US. What I don't understand is that if the moral majority has so much power, why is there so much immoral and unchristian behaviour? If this is career ending for those in public office, how do you explain the recent election of your next President?
Believe it or not, one of the least moral individuals to ever hold the office of POTUS, had the solid backing of evangelical Christians because he hinted that he would back a nationwide ban on abortion, appoint judges who would overturn gay marriage, break down the barrier separating church and state and, basically, give them more of what they want. They don't care how immoral he is as a person, if he helps them bring about their vision of a Christian America.
Much of the immoral and un-Christian behavior to which you refer comes from those who profess to be Christians and there's so much of it because of blatant hypocrisy.
There's an old saying: "It's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil."
We live in an age when some minority groups who feel badly done by have discovered that militant activism is the way to get what they want - constantly getting in the faces of the majority, including the top echelons of society, government departments and reputable authorities - even to the point that these very institutions that we are meant to be able to trust are buying into the narrative of the minority even if their demands are based on falsehoods.
Here in New Zealand two of these minority groups seem to be taking center stage at present - Māori activists and Trans activists. What happens is that once these groups and others like them get the authorities on their side, modifying their own stance on the particular issue, the groups then have this additional backing to "prove" to society that they were right all along! This then leads to other people, who previously might have opposed the minority groups' demands, to jump on their bandwagon in a virtue-signaling attempt to appease their own perceived guilt for the "injustice" they think they caused. And the majority of society who see through the sham suddenly discover it's a major battle - if not impossible - to bring a modicum of sense back into society.
The method of militant activism, then, is obviously a very effective tactic to employ, given that even unproven ideologies can sway a gullible public! How much more so would it work for a cause such as clothes-free living that already has scientifically proven benefits and no detriments?
But naturism or any other form of clothes-optional living has a problem. The wheel doesn't squeak enough. The majority of naturists, particularly those who are members of landed clubs or who have easy access to naturist resorts or recognised clothing optional beaches, seem to be happy with the status quo. They have no need to get involved with any activism and pour time and energy into changing society's attitude. And in countries such as here in New Zealand, where there are no laws forbidding public nudity per se, and where the vast majority of people have no issue with nudity in appropriate public outdoor spaces, there is even less reason to be militant.
In order to solve a problem, that problem has to actually exist!
NZ has recently become Nudist Friendly thanks to court decisions; Statute Law and the pioneering spirit many of us have demonstrated in our public activities [ nude bike ride meetups. etc ] in order to build up public awareness and give a sense of normality to the naked body in public activities.
So far so good. However NZs small population and open spaces have helped. Once there is a significant population increase and a change in demographics which tend also to affect the values of a community ..... public opinion can change.
With NZs legal foundation [ Bill of Rights and recent legal precedent ] it appears the years of adversity are over for decent public nudity with exceptions..
However the problem has not gone away and will need to be addressed with constant vigilance by using it and promoting it as another normal, widely acceptable form of recreation along with its therapeutic [ separation of nudity from sex ] and relaxation
It's complicated. Half the world's population is below median intelligence. It's natural and not unreasonable that people are mostly concerned about issues that affect them personally, so they seldom consider the big picture. Propaganda is rife and so is proselytizing. Billionaire oligarchs run the show now, just as the landed aristocracy of centuries past. So there's only table scraps left for everyone else.
One of the best arguments of naturism, yet my grandchildren believed that something bad will happen if some one was to see there genitals. Even brothers will not dress in the same room, even when sharing a room at my place. They take turns changing in the bathroom.
Even smart people can be lazy when something doesn't seem important. People will use their smarts to go the easy way, not the virtuous way. People vote to conform. People vote their emotions and not their heads.
The truth is that even most smart people will believe an obvious falsehood if it agrees with what they want to believe rather than a disagreeable truth. Welcome to the wonderful world of confirmation bias.
And remember that over 90 million eligible voters couldn't be bothered to vote.
"The truth is that even most smart people will believe an obvious falsehood if it agrees with what they want to believe rather than a disagreeable truth."
Indeed! Trans activism and gender ideology is a classic example of that - a belief that flies in the face of established biological fact, yet is now promoted in some reputable medical and governmental circles worldwide. Money talks when it's convenient!
The voice of on is small.
The voice of many ones can be amplified together.
My voice of one is stated at each instace it is needed to correct a wrong, corporate computer ignorance answering machines, or veiwpoints on nudity.
Speak up at each instance. Silence will not change ideas.
Thanks for this. Thoughts like this run through my mind regularly and they are crazy making when I feel alone with them. Hearing another voice simple sane reasoning to counter the insane cultural norms and corporate cruelties is helpful and calming to my system, as I imagine it is for others.
Thank you for your comments.
Mucha gente ve como negocio al nudismo/naturismo y por eso se han desvirtuados los eventos, lo mejor es organizarse entre amigos y todos contentos.
100 percent Steve.
💯 I like this quote from Steven Keen.
“We are the opposite of ants. Individually intelligent, collectively stupid.”
You eloquently described the problem, and summed it up correctly saying:
“Perhaps you didn’t agree, but you did nothing.”
So, what about the solution to this situation?
Naturist resorts are disappearing across the US and around the world. Naturists must take action now, or all might be lost! That’s why I proposed the “RSG” approach. What’s the “RSG” approach to expanding naturism? RSG stands for Ready, Set, Go.
How is the “Ready, Set, Go” (RSG) approach a different way to expand naturism? First, it is headed by a “Core Group” of those who have normalized nakedness in their own lives. They are not confined to a place like a resort. Rather they are unafraid of getting away and being seen by others, even in photos. Their approach is focused on normalizing naturism and “building a community” rather than just finding a safe landed place to be naked with others, which often becomes a drinking club.
Second, the RSG approach identifies activities that might specifically interest younger people and newbies.
Finally, RSG encourages members to invite others to attend activities.
So, here’s a real-life example: Before Thanksgiving 2024, five “Ready” naturists in our US county “Yavapai” in Arizona met as a “Core Group” to plan for 2025. How do I know they were Ready? One was raised a naturist at resorts and loved freehiking. One had visited 38 resorts (lived at three) and visited many beaches, hot springs, and freehiking areas. One grew up surfing naked and wasn’t ever worried about running across textiles while freethinking. One had visited several resorts, taken group freehikes, and was comfortable naked around the house and with her sister. One had freehiked often, visited several resorts, and arranged with the owner to hold a naked bowling session. All had invited people to naturist activities in the past.
The first order of business was naming the group after the nearby county – “Yavapai Naturists”.
Then many “Set” ideas were discussed, emphasizing activities that might attract newbies, especially younger people. Examples included a polar plunge and hot tub activity, naked bowling, eating at a restaurant meeting room, Olympic games competition, naked gardening and salad potluck, camping and freehiking, attending a resort festival, celebrating holidays like Halloween, having a cooking night, renting a houseboat on Lake Powell, and holding an art modeling session. Notice how few of these activities required a resort setting.
One of our core group members volunteered to create a website and calendar these suggestions for the group to approve. This is still in process but should be done before 2025 arrives.
With this done, all agreed to invite newbies to attend.
There is less than a month left in 2024 to get the RSG process started. Do it now! Don’t let inertia stop your progress. Don't lose heart. Do something positive to help naturism grow one small steps at a time.
Wonderful and inspirational. Dont stop.
I agree, in large part with Rokker, but here in the US, there's another layer, especially when it comes to nudity: the church. The US is, without a doubt, the most religious country in the world outside of The Vatican. And the Catholic church and every major Christian protestant sect is vehemently anti-nudity. And they are very vocal about it and political about it. They explicitly call nudism immoral and very few people whose livelihoods depend on the good will of the public are willing to challenge them. Even many nudists are church members, but they live in fear of it becoming known and being ridiculed or even asked to leave their church communities. When it came to skinny-dipping and single-sex social nudity, particularly among men, the US used to be a very different place. But this all changed with the advent of religious activist individuals like Anita Bryant and organizations like the Moral Majority in the 1970's and 80's. They made Christian conservatives a political force for politicians to fear and the rest of us, who don't share their view of an ideal society, have lived in their shadow ever since. Even though, I believe, they are a minority, albeit a substantial one, they go unchallenged because they have appropriated the cloak of "morality," making anyone who defies them, by definition, "immoral" and, again, for anyone in public office, that is a career-ender. We, in the US, have been living in a theocracy for a long time. The criminalization of simple nudity went unnoticed because it affected so few people. But the overturning of Roe v Wade, which affects more than half the population (women), and which was almost entirely a crusade of Christian conservatives, has shined a bright light on who's been actually running this country behind the scenes and, now, out in front.
Thanks for that - I often wondered how the U.S.A., which once saw school students having swimming lessons naked, become so apparently prudish in such a short period of time. And yet there remains the enigma of a country that seems to be over-the-top in it's stance on morality, yet is the world's most prolific producer of pornographic material!
Much of the issue (as has been noted many times) is that American mindset sees nudity and sexual activity as inextricably linked. Nudity means sex - and nothing will change their minds. The "community standards" of American social media channels lump nudity and sexual content together under one set of rules. I dared to post a link on Facebook to a documentary about the Ethiopian Surma and Mursi Tribes who live without clothes most of the time. It showed a group of boys dealing with some cattle. The post was removed on the grounds that it "may contain adult nudity and sexual content". The platform demonstrated blatant racism and ignorance of other cultures outside the U.S.
Morals [ nudity ] have become politized in the USA. Also religion [ recent electon ].
Once the electorate uses the above to seek votes [ become righteous ] it can be a downhill spiral.
Thank you for your comments. I hadn't realised just how much influence religion has in the US. What I don't understand is that if the moral majority has so much power, why is there so much immoral and unchristian behaviour? If this is career ending for those in public office, how do you explain the recent election of your next President?
Believe it or not, one of the least moral individuals to ever hold the office of POTUS, had the solid backing of evangelical Christians because he hinted that he would back a nationwide ban on abortion, appoint judges who would overturn gay marriage, break down the barrier separating church and state and, basically, give them more of what they want. They don't care how immoral he is as a person, if he helps them bring about their vision of a Christian America.
Much of the immoral and un-Christian behavior to which you refer comes from those who profess to be Christians and there's so much of it because of blatant hypocrisy.
Exactly right!
There's an old saying: "It's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil."
We live in an age when some minority groups who feel badly done by have discovered that militant activism is the way to get what they want - constantly getting in the faces of the majority, including the top echelons of society, government departments and reputable authorities - even to the point that these very institutions that we are meant to be able to trust are buying into the narrative of the minority even if their demands are based on falsehoods.
Here in New Zealand two of these minority groups seem to be taking center stage at present - Māori activists and Trans activists. What happens is that once these groups and others like them get the authorities on their side, modifying their own stance on the particular issue, the groups then have this additional backing to "prove" to society that they were right all along! This then leads to other people, who previously might have opposed the minority groups' demands, to jump on their bandwagon in a virtue-signaling attempt to appease their own perceived guilt for the "injustice" they think they caused. And the majority of society who see through the sham suddenly discover it's a major battle - if not impossible - to bring a modicum of sense back into society.
The method of militant activism, then, is obviously a very effective tactic to employ, given that even unproven ideologies can sway a gullible public! How much more so would it work for a cause such as clothes-free living that already has scientifically proven benefits and no detriments?
But naturism or any other form of clothes-optional living has a problem. The wheel doesn't squeak enough. The majority of naturists, particularly those who are members of landed clubs or who have easy access to naturist resorts or recognised clothing optional beaches, seem to be happy with the status quo. They have no need to get involved with any activism and pour time and energy into changing society's attitude. And in countries such as here in New Zealand, where there are no laws forbidding public nudity per se, and where the vast majority of people have no issue with nudity in appropriate public outdoor spaces, there is even less reason to be militant.
In order to solve a problem, that problem has to actually exist!
Well said and written. Does the problem exist.
Use it or Lose it.
NZ has recently become Nudist Friendly thanks to court decisions; Statute Law and the pioneering spirit many of us have demonstrated in our public activities [ nude bike ride meetups. etc ] in order to build up public awareness and give a sense of normality to the naked body in public activities.
So far so good. However NZs small population and open spaces have helped. Once there is a significant population increase and a change in demographics which tend also to affect the values of a community ..... public opinion can change.
With NZs legal foundation [ Bill of Rights and recent legal precedent ] it appears the years of adversity are over for decent public nudity with exceptions..
However the problem has not gone away and will need to be addressed with constant vigilance by using it and promoting it as another normal, widely acceptable form of recreation along with its therapeutic [ separation of nudity from sex ] and relaxation
qualities . Use it or Lose it.
It's complicated. Half the world's population is below median intelligence. It's natural and not unreasonable that people are mostly concerned about issues that affect them personally, so they seldom consider the big picture. Propaganda is rife and so is proselytizing. Billionaire oligarchs run the show now, just as the landed aristocracy of centuries past. So there's only table scraps left for everyone else.
Have a nice day!
Sadly, ‘‘twas ever thus. The story of the emperor’s new clothes wasn’t new even when Hans Christian Anderson wrote it down.
One of the best arguments of naturism, yet my grandchildren believed that something bad will happen if some one was to see there genitals. Even brothers will not dress in the same room, even when sharing a room at my place. They take turns changing in the bathroom.
That is a very sad situation. It can't be healthy.
Even smart people can be lazy when something doesn't seem important. People will use their smarts to go the easy way, not the virtuous way. People vote to conform. People vote their emotions and not their heads.
The truth is that even most smart people will believe an obvious falsehood if it agrees with what they want to believe rather than a disagreeable truth. Welcome to the wonderful world of confirmation bias.
And remember that over 90 million eligible voters couldn't be bothered to vote.
"The truth is that even most smart people will believe an obvious falsehood if it agrees with what they want to believe rather than a disagreeable truth."
Indeed! Trans activism and gender ideology is a classic example of that - a belief that flies in the face of established biological fact, yet is now promoted in some reputable medical and governmental circles worldwide. Money talks when it's convenient!