The Nude Life

Hello!

Whether you’re just curious as to what this nude stuff is all about, or maybe you’ve tried it and have some questions, we hope we can help. If you’re like most of us your introduction to this strange idea of ‘nudism’ came from grainy black and white photos of bare people playing volleyball. Or perhaps from the internet with pics of beautiful models basking ‘naturally’ on a page full of ads for porno sites. Let’s explore a bit and see what we find.

The first thing to keep in mind is that, other than being naked, nudists are people just like everyone else with the same feelings and interests, differences and personalities. We do tend to be a bit more open minded, probably because we know what it’s like to be judged unfairly based on stereotypes. That said, we also tend to be rather prudish in some ways. You will find little ‘improper’ behaviour in a socially nude situation. As they say; Be nude, not rude.

Enough of all that, time to move on. Shall we do this in a Q&A format? Ok, lets.

Q: What’s the difference between a nudist and a naturist?

A: Not much, though some would argue. A naturist is generally more into nudity in an outdoorsy setting while a nudist is happy to be nude just about anywhere. That’s simplified but good enough for now. The term ‘clothes free’ is gaining in popularity recently since some people don’t care to be labled ‘nudist’, along with the percieved negative ideas related to the word.

Q: What does ‘Textile” mean?

A: ‘Textile’ is a term referring to the community of those who cover their bodies with clothing most of the time, as opposed to ‘nudists/naturists’ who prefer not to. It is convenient, descriptive, and non-derogatory.

Q: What’s the difference between ‘nudist’ and ‘clothing optional’?

A: Used in descriptions of campgrounds or resorts, ‘nudist’ usually means that full nudity is expected most of the time. ‘Clothing optional’ indicates that nudity is allowed but not required, and may be restricted as to times and places. When booking into a resort be very sure about what you’re getting. It would be a shame to travel a great distance only to find out that you can be nude only at the pool, after 11:00 pm.

Q: Why do people want to be naked?

A: Why not? It’s fun! The breeze, the water, the sand. Grass under your feet (or whatever), it simply feels good! Our skin is a sensory organ, capable of discerning subtle nuances of feeling ranging from temperature to texture. We cover ourselves with clothing and smother most of this ability to percieve and enjoy that which Nature offers for our pleasure. Everything is different nude. Our bodies move and wiggle and bounce differently, our whole world feels brand new. It has to be experienced to be understood.

Q: I was raised to keep my ‘privates’ covered, how could I possibly let someone see me?

A: Nudists don’t view the body as a thing of shame. We all learned body shame from somewhere, you know where you learned yours. Nudists are simply folks that have realized that we learned wrong. Our society equates skin with sex, sex with sin, and sin with evil. Nudists are better able to separate skin from sex. Isn’t it ironic that by covering only ‘private’ parts that those parts become the focus of attention, creating sexual (evil) thoughts. Even more ironic is that by uncovering those parts they lose their mystery and become just another part of a body.

Q: I’m easily aroused, what if I have a ‘physical’ reaction to all those naked bodies?

A: Don’t worry, you probably won’t. It’s an extremely rare sight but if it happens, just wrap in a towel or something. As long as you don’t deliberately create the situation or run around waving it in peoples faces (so to speak) it’s no big thing. Ah, bad choice of words; change that to ‘it just isn’t important’…

Q: It’s beginning to sound like naturists are a bunch of sexless zombies, it that true?

A: Hardly. It’s just that there is a time and a place for everything and a social gathering of nudists is not bar time at a meet-market. Picture it more like a community picnic and behave accordingly.

Q: My body is less than perfect, will I be embarassed to be seen?

A: Maybe, for a few minutes. You may be concious of every wiggle, jiggle, wart and wrinkle. Until you are comfortable enough to look around a bit and realize that (1) no one is paying any attention to you and (2) most of them are nothing special to look at either (from a Textile point of view) and (3) nobody cares. They’re just folks, out for some sun and a nice day. After a little while you may feel at ease enough to move around a bit, maybe even talk to people (Hmm, what do I do with my eyes? What do I look at while talking to them?) and have some perceptions shattered. Why, these are just people like you, who enjoy being naked and nobody cares a lick about appearances! This will cause serious damage to your Textile view of the world. Imagine that: basing your opinion of someone on who they are, not how they look…

Q: I am young and buff, will I feel out place?

A: Nah. All sorts of people are attracted to the nude lifestyle. Some groups or locations may cater more to a particular clientele, but generally speaking we’re a pretty mixed lot. Fat, skinny, old, young, kids, and, yes, Beautiful People. It’s fair to say that nudists pay less attention to bodies than to the person inside them, but that’s not to say that we’re totally unaware of the standard forms of beauty when we see them. So yeah, pretty’s still pretty, but it’s just not particularly important. If part of your nudist experience is the feeling of being admired, go for it. Just understand that you’re the frosting on the brownie, and most of us are here because we love the brownie. But yeah, frosting’s nice too. You are welcome.

Q: Speaking of kids, how do they fit in?

A: Good question. Kids are natural nudists, it’s we parents who put clothes on them. That said, how a particular kid reacts to social nudity depends on their background, age and personality. Generally speaking, the younger they are the easier it is for them. Elementary school age through high school is tougher if they’ve not been raised with nudity. Ideas and attitudes become fixed, insecurities, hormones and sexuality, what a mess. Personal experience with our kids and friends’ kids, ages 12 through 18 at first exposure was just fine. A little bit of oh-my-god-everybody’s-naked at first, quickly becoming just fine to them. A lot of kids don’t mind being around nudity but prefer to remain clothed. No problem. Don’t push it.

Q: What about women and nudity, the body thing?

A: That’s a whole separate issue. Women have been taught that their physical image is a huge part of who they are. Generally speaking, it seems that most women, once having experienced the nudist lifestyle, find a sense of freedom and comfort they couldn’t have imagined. I’ll leave that to my wife, Angie, to go into more detail later. She’s been there, done it.

Q: What about legality? Can I be accused of being a sex offender or something?

A: You can look up local statutes and ask questions wherever you may be going, but you’ll have a hard time getting a solid answer. And you sure aren’t going to get one here! Different localities interept and enforce laws in a lot of different ways. For the most part you shoudn’t have a problem in public places where nudity is traditional, but no promises. A lot of laws tie nudity to specific body parts or behaviour. One state law I know of prohibits exposure of the female breast below the nipple! Go figure. Private establishments have these things covered, and you pay for it. Fair enough. So, be careful, ask ahead, and mostly try not to offend those poor souls who just don’t get it! Internet around and you’ll find all sorts of sites giving this kind of advice. Explore and adventure, you’ll never regret it!

- Steve

Thank you for the warm welcome. We hope we can contribute something to all those great nekked folks out there!

Angie’s first time, Steve’s view…

When I first met my wife, while getting to know each other, I mentioned that I was a naturist. Just thought she should know in case things got serious.

Well, things got serious and I discovered that she thought that it was nice that I like trees and such. Hmm. Guess it’s time to explain the difference between naturist and naturalist.

She says she had to do some serious thinking about who I was and what she might be getting into. Can’t blame her. I mean, to most people (sadly) that’s kind of like saying “By the way, I’m a cannibal Nazi and sacrifice children every other Saturday”. Know what I mean?

She decided I was worth a try anyway. A few weeks into our relationship I took her to Mazo Beach, mid-winter, a sunny 45 degree day. Plenty of oil. Off go the clothes (sand was warm) and we took a hike along the beach. She loved it! Along the way we ran into a young couple, dressed properly for winter, engrossed in their laptops. They seemed a bit surprised to see us. Didn’t occur to us until later that they might not have realized they were at one of North America’s most famous nude beaches. After all, it was February and no one was there and there aren’t signs saying “Run away, run away! Naked people ahead!” But WE were. Woo woo. He wouldn’t look and she acted, well, about how you would expect someone to react to running into naked people at the mall. Lotsa self-conscious giggles. Trying to act normal when a really weird thing is happening. We said howdy and kept walking. Got a chuckle out of that one. Angie handled it like a trooper. Do you remember how strange it was being nude in public the first time? Very scary and strange but, good!

Rest of the day was eventless but terrific, and Angie was hooked! Yay!

-Steve

Angie’s first time, Angie’s view

I met this man (Steve), got to know him, and really thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I thought I finally found the man for me. Then he dropped the ‘bomb’. He wasn’t a tree hugger; he was a nudist. Oh my! He told me because this is such an important part of his life he didn’t think he could be with someone who had a problem with it. I told him I needed time to process this and spent a couple of days trying to imagine the naturist life.

I was a repressed professional who had never done anything against the grain, so-to-speak. Steve spent time explaining the whole experience and I decided to take him up on the idea of going to the beach in mid-winter. It was so beautiful and no one was there so I thought “why not?” Once the clothes were off and the oil on I absolutely basked in the sun and beauty of the riverfront. I was sold. Once you take your clothes off you do feel more free than you have ever felt in your life.

From that first trip, to my 2 years worth of trips to the beach and our camp, I have always been in awe of the wonder of this fabulous way to experience life. I will never go back to textile. Unfortunately, it makes it very difficult to have to live in a textile world the rest of the time!

I ‘came out’ to my adult kids and sisters and because they know what a conservative person I was, they are actually asking questions about it and are showing some interest. Who knows, maybe they will take the plunge.

It’s still way too cold here (-20 degrees wind chill) but we are cozy and naked. That’s what heaters are for, right?

As you all know, it is a wonderful experience and I am soooo glad that I made that first trip to the beach. It is even more wonderful to speak to people who also know. Take it from us, it doesn’t matter where you live, you can be naked! (But Florida is looking really good right now!)

-Angie

Nudists new to the pursuit are often struck, at least for a period of time, at how complete and deep the suntans of many nudists are, especially in the middle of summer. With no unsightly tan lines, and plenty of hours out in the glorious warm sun in which to acquire a nice, deep, healthy suntan, the quintessential “all-over tan” of a regularly-practicing nudist is a distinctive visual attribute quite unusual to those not accustomed to seeing so much human flesh exposed so completely.

What is still remarkable and distinctive even to longtime nudists is the nudist friend who works at maintaining their mid-summer tan through the winter months. At our winter-season nudist parties, the few in our club who do so can’t help but stand out from the rest of us pale-skinned shut-ins. Of course, nearly all of them keep their summer tans year-round thanks to the “fake bake” or “plastic tan” of regular visits to a tanning salon. In fact, it’s a good idea for nudists who are planning a nude vacation in the winter months to start a tanning salon regimen a month or two before their trip in order to pre-tan their skin, reducing the chance of a damaging sunburn during the trip.

Still, it is a wonderful, beautiful, elegant sight when one sees it: a completely natural human being standing before you, nude from head to toe, with a deep, even, luscious tan — in the middle of winter. Such was the case at several recent parties we attended, where some of our nudist friends were able to show off their beautiful,  deeply-tanned nude skin in the most unencumbered way possible, with a tan that most of us won’t have ourselves until mid-summer at best.

These are the most dedicated nudists, to be sure. They love being nude, and want to enjoy the nude experience year-round in the way most of us are only able to in the warmest and sunniest months. I certainly work hard on my all-over tan from March through October, but it doesn’t reach its full measure until early June in most years. Folks who spend their winters visiting tanning salons to keep their summer tans in shape are among the luckiest and most rare of all us nudists.

The thought struck me at the New Year’s Eve party a few weeks back when we met some new nudist friends, a lovely couple who were very glad to have just become new members of our club. Both the gentleman and the lady glowed with deep, even, well-developed tans, which made them look even more beautiful than usual when compared to the rest of us pasty-colored mid-winter no-tan-having shut-ins.

Everyone complimented them on their beautiful head-to-toe tans, and we all wished for the summer days that would soon bring that luxurious glow to all of us. And of course, the possession of a deep, all-over tan in the midst of winter certainly helps confirm one’s “nudist credentials” in the absence of other data — if any is needed — and is always a conversation-starter as well! There’s nothing quite like starting up a conversation with a smiling, beautiful nude woman by saying, “Say, I can’t help but admire your beautiful tan!”

In a few hours, it will be 2008!

Thousands of nudists all across the USA will be celebrating the coming of the new year nude, as we will be doing with 50 or so of our closest nudist friends at our club’s annual New Year’s Eve Party.  I can assure you there is no more pleasant and more fun way to spend the New Year’s Eve night that hanging out and partying with people who never forgot how to relax and have fun, which is what nudists have found.

It’s hard to remember what we ever did on NYE night before we became nudists. Dull evenings with a small group of (clothed) friends, semi-forced together for the night so as not to have to spend it alone at home. Or, worse yet, crammed into a dim hotel ballroom with hundreds of stuffy strangers, listening to a terrible band and jostling elbow-to-elbow on an overcrowded dance floor — and trying not to notice all the sad looks on the faces of the hotel staff who are required to work on a night they’d much rather be home with their families.

Partying nude with fun-loving, friendly, unpretentious folks certainly beats all of that by a wide margin. Best of all, there’s no need to try to shoehorn yourself into a suit or dress for the night!

Whatever you’re doing for NYE tonight, we hope it is a good one, and we wish all the readers of The Nude Life Blog a healthy, happy and nude 2008!

And be sure to check out The Nude Life Forum, where other nudists from around the world are checking in with their New Year’s Eve plans, and share some of your own!

Tell anyone else that you plan to move to a nudist resort to live clothesfree full-time, and they’d most likely react with disbelief and shock, and you’d have a lot more explaining to do before you’d be able to continue to count them among your friends. Tell the same thing to one of your nudist friends, and they not only understand, they respond with good-natured envy at the wonderful days awaiting you.

Nudists understand, on a very comfortable and familiar level, what’s important and valuable to other nudists, and so sharing dreams, plans and experiences of the nude life with our nudist friends is very easy to do. The same things that they have found wonderful and life-changing about nudism are the things that we all discuss whenever we’re together. Last night’s gathering of many of our nudist friends at a small party hosted by one couple was a perfect example. Someone inquired about the progress we’re making on our retirement plans, which include moving to Florida and living at least the better part of the year at Cypress Cove. Sharing details like that with any non-nudist friends or co-workers is out of the question, of course, so we have to keep things vague when asked the same things by others. But we can speak freely with our nudist friends, since they share a common love for the freedom and friendships that nudism has brought to our lives.

This is probably the same kind of “kindred spirit” camaraderie that all sorts of other self-similar groups offer to their members, whether it’s Alcoholics Anonymous, scrapbookers or model railroad enthusiasts. It is very reassuring to know that we are not “alone,” and that many, many other nice, sensible, friendly, level-headed people share our love of this simple way of life.

Have you had similar conversations about nudism that you can’t discuss with non-nudists? Share your experiences and learn from other nudists from all over the world in The Nude Life Forum!