The Nude Life

Be careful of what you let your women see.  I discovered a website by a talented artist,  Jennie Rosenbaum, who also has much to say about women’s issues and our lifestyle, and asked Angie to check it out and see if we should include a mention of it on our site.

Next thing you know, she’s fallen in love with a painting and KAZZAMM! we’re 90 frozen pizzas poorer.  Plus, it’s going to need just the right framing.  More pizzas.

But you know, it’s beautiful.  It means different things to each of us, guess that’s what art is.

Besides, in a couple of years those pizzas would be eaten and forgotten, this painting will still be with us, then our children.  Not such a bad deal.

Oh, and guys, watch out for yourselves too.  You might just spend a lot of frozen pizzas yourself.  Art can be very seductive.  But, ahh, so rewarding!

- Steve

After being nudists for over a decade, and living the nude life at home and with friends in an active nudist club for all of those years, it seems that one’s perception of what is ‘normal’ takes a dramatic twist.

For example, how many times have you been greeted warmly by a smiling nude woman, with a sincere hug and “air kiss,” the moment after walking into her house? When is the last time you stood inches away from a half-dozen naked folks of all ages, shapes and sizes, yakking away while you yourself and all of them are just as naked as can be, and having a great time with no sense of self-consciousness or discomfort? How much time do you spend sitting among a group of nude folks in a bubbly hot tub, with steam and warm water invigorating a chilly winter night, with no thought at all that anything is the slightest bit out of the ordinary? Have you spent a night playing BINGO at a nudist resort in a room filled with 100 other folks who couldn’t care less what you are or aren’t wearing? Have you stood in front of 1,200 strangers on the stage of a cruise ship, nude, performing in the passenger talent show during a nude cruise — and had a standing ovation?

Each of those situations, and many, many more, are part and parcel of the nude life for us, and have been for a long time. All our best friends are folks we see most often when they have not a stitch on, and we’re just as comfortable and at ease with them and with ourselves when we’re all nude as any other group of good friends would be sitting at a TGI Friday’s fully dressed.

Is this ‘normal?’

Is it sensible / rational / acceptable for adults to accept others as friends / fellow humans in their natural state, without the contrivances and artificiality that textiles confer upon us when we’re dressed?

Those of us who live and love the nude life would argue strongly that it is — if not “normal” in the common sense of the word — that it is something that humans are very adaptable to, and in fact, are more suited toward.

Standing among a group of good friends and discussing matters great and small, nude, is something that is very intoxicating about the nude life. Relaxing in summer’s heat in Nature’s own couture among your fellow skinnydippers, or spending a cool evening in a warm a steamy hot tub with a group of other carefree nudist friends — all of these are experiences that have become second-nature to us after all these years and which we would not like to live without in the future.

The actor, that is. Not the doctor that screwed up an entire generation.

Specifically, Leonard Nimoy, the guy with the ears.

Our son (not a nudist but maybe coming closer) turned us on to this website. It seems that Mr. Nimoy is a photographer (did you know that?) and this site highlights some of his work.

This man is either a closet nudist or has an extraordinarily open mind towards concepts of beauty. The link that follows leads to a gallery of photos which have, ah, large ladies as the subject. Other galleries of his work are more conventional but what we found interesting is that he has a sense of beauty usually associated with those of us who like to run around naked in public. And a sense of humor. Rare for a Textile.

He deserves a pat on the back and a hearty “Thank you!” for his efforts. Here’s the link: Leonard Nimoy Photography

- Steve

I saw one of those tawdry tabloids at the supermarket yesterday. You know the kind. The cover was plastered with photos of, well, people that didn’t exactly look like models in their swimsuits, with captions that absolutely delighted in how ‘bad’ they looked.

How sad that anyone could find pleasure in mocking someone’s physical appearance. And they think we’re the sick ones.

These poor creatures live in a world of sexual hype based on beauty, makeup, clothing and body ‘quality’. They see everything as sexual and miss the most beautiful part of anyone’s body; the part between the ears. The mind, the personality are hidden from them because of their obsession with ‘beauty’.

Of course they see social nudity as some sort of sexual obsession. They see nudity only as something sexual.

And they savage us because we do not suffer from their affliction. Sure, we recognize physical beauty, but don’t see it as the be-all and end-all. We enjoy the pleasures of nudity and are more than willing to allow the the same of others, regardless of ‘appearance’.

We don’t ask that textiles join us (though that would be nice!), just that they allow us that freedom as we allow them the freedom to wear uncomfortable clothing.

Is that so much to ask?

- Steve

“A child who has never been allowed to see his parents and brothers and sisters naked sees nudity as something shocking.”

- Dr. Helga Fleischhauer-Hardt,

Quoted in Show Me (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975)

And expressing the same sentiment from the other point of view: “I didn’t grow up with a mother telling me what was under my clothes was bad or evil.”

Academy Award-winning actress Charlize Theron, quoted at imdb.com