Sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Navigating connections online.

Naturism can be a solitary thing. For many naturists, their nudity is confined to inside their home, or in extreme cases, their own room. If you share the house with other naturists or people who accept your nudity, your world can be a little larger and less isolating. If, like me, your property is private enough to enjoy outdoor nudity, then your world expands a little. If the country you live in has more relaxed laws around public nudity, then the boundaries to living naked are pushed out even further.

Either by luck or by design, our situation can greatly influence how much time we get to spend naked.

I have the space sorted, I have a partner who has no issue with my nudity in the home, and on occasion will join me clothes free, and I have the opportunity to get naked at parks and beaches, so long as my behaviour is not offensive or lewd.

Many readers whose situation may not be so conducive to living naturally might think that I am lucky and that I have it all, and don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for the freedoms I enjoy.

For many, having an environment convenient for living naked is only part of the equation. Plenty of naturists crave connections with other naturists, connections which for many can be difficult and for some, completely missing.

Not necessarily close, intimate connections, but rather connections of familiarity. The ability to chat and interact with others who get it. Those who share, or at least understand the naturist philosophy and our clothing-optional propensity.

To create these connections, I turned, like many do, to social media.

There were false starts. Some people were looking for a physical encounter and had assumed my reaching out to other nudists would mean that I was an easy target for them to engage in online sexual liaisons. People who were looking to get together naked socially as a precursor to sexual activity seemed to outnumber those looking to connect on a more holistic and philosophical level, and I needed a way to manage the expectations of others and set clear boundaries. I began filtering out the posts and users displaying a more sexualised version of nudism. That is not to deny that we are all sexual beings, but rather to separate sexuality from simply being naked. I started to develop and refine my definition of “my naturism" and draw a greater distinction between a naturist philosophy and naked sexual freedom.

It seems that there is money to be made in selling sexualised content, and this produces a situation where content creators sift through thousands of profiles, reaching out to people they think will buy their product.

For some people today, if you are blessed with good looks or are willing to expose your intimate self to the world, grifting online seems to be more lucrative than a 9-5 day job.

I imagine that an online income is more work than it appears to be, but that doesn’t stop thousands of young people (mostly women) from bombarding social media sites with invitations for paying customers (mostly men) to connect via their pay-per-view platform.

I wonder how successful these people are at paying their bills and if it is any easier than a 9-5 job. I am sure that a small group make enough money to be worthwhile, but imagine that the old 80/20 rule applies and that most struggle to make ends meet and give up. The proliferation of bots and scam artists in this area must dilute their income opportunities somewhat, however, there must be money in it, or there wouldn’t be so many of them.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff on open social media sites is an ongoing issue, and finding those few genuine naturist connections can be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

With perseverance, I began connecting with other like-minded naturists via chat rooms, message boards and naturist sites. Twitter (I still won't call it anything else) and Bluesky have probably been the most effective sites for seeking out and connecting with naturists from all over the world. However, these are not the only social sites where naturists have found their tribes.

Making those first connections can be difficult, with anxiety around exposing our vulnerability, but the more connections we make, the easier the process seems to be.

While I am no longer on Twitter, it was a useful platform to connect with naturists and to meet up with a few during our trip to the UK a few years ago.

Bluesky seems unable to accurately separate simple nudity from adult sexual content, a frustration that puts many off the platform, but if you know and understand its limitations, it can still be a “town square” for naturists to congregate without any financial cost of membership.

There are many other online places for naturists, some free, some behind a paywall, and all have merits and limitations. Some may argue that Twitter and Bluesky are losing their effectiveness as naturist hangouts, and they may be right.

Social media is a changing landscape; platforms start as one thing and often morph into something else over time. It can be prudent to join more than one site and review those that no longer work for you.

Once you find those genuine connections, you start to feel more a part of a community and less isolated. You may not be physically closer to other naturists, but that sense of belonging is a powerful thing that can traverse distances and time zones.

Finding your tribe can help you cope in this increasingly fragmented and hostile world.

“The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.” - Dr Dean Ornish

Thank you for reading. Have a comfortable day.

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I am interested to hear what naturist sites people use and how you rate them. Please let me know in the comments.