Legalize Public Nudity --- Free our bodies and our minds!

[jbeegoode]

“None of those things are games. Making a living is serious. "Correct clothing?" What's that? You're the one sounding :"textile obsessed." Or it may be obsession with nudity. Either way, it sounds like an obsession.”

Bluetrain, you obviously are defining “games” as exclusively something done for fun. Games are very serious social and cultural contexts. I’m working with the common definition.

“Feeling” elements is naturism. Seeing wildlife is something not requiring nudity. I think that you are just messing with me, or playing here. I think that is rude and worthless.

“Maybe I am messing with you all a little. You need to be shaken up now and then. Go back and read over some of the posts. If you want to encourage more people to be nude for some reason, saying things like "clothing kills" is going to get some funny looks. Suggesting that clothing is the source of the world's problems is not going to get you anywhere. Something wrong with a nuclear family? Or the old version, the atomic family. Not many of us really live in such a situation. Usually there are relatives. I keep seeing words like pressure, obsession, bizarre, conformity, locked into, control and so on. Make your argument without using any of those words, if possible.”

The tenor of this thread was introduced in the first entry. It is meant to be more confrontational. It was presented that clothing obsession and clothing culture does “in fact” sometimes cause death, unhappiness, despair, suicide. We all need to be aware of this. The idea is not just to encourage people to get the kit off, but more to be aware of the obsession and unhealthy crap that it “in fact” causes. Nobody suggested “that clothing is the source of the world's problems.” Nobody stated a problem with the nuclear family.

The very arguments are wrapped around words/concepts like pressure, obsession, bizarre, conformity, locked into, control and outrageousness. They are aptly descriptive. They are strong as the tenor of this thread, but they are truth. They are in the realm of the thinking of both Bob and myself.  The tenor is aggressive, rally crying, and no nonsense. I don’t like your nonsensical response, as it insults and distracts from the issues presented.

In a world where we now have full gay rights as accepted, and coming out of my teen years when “ rolling queers” on a Friday night was acceptable behavior condoned by law enforcement, it is now seen as possible that body rights and freedoms can also be liberated. We are not just shooting off our mouths here, if norms are to be changed. You seem very attached to antiquated, or immobile norms in your perspectives.

Nope, everybody is not going to get on the same page of thought tomorrow. Popular opinion will not change law tomorrow, and if it actually did, probably few would feel free enough to interact in public nude ( just look at New York Topfree laws and the social climate and actual usage). That doesn’t mean that discussion, activism and many different kinds of each will not eventually solve these social ills wrapped around clothing and consumerism. Awareness is the key. I dislike you attempting to trivialize the discussion. I dislike your demonstration of disrespect.

Maybe I didn’t set my point across well enough, but the period of the late 50’s and early sixties, I think is a good example to show what is going on today. Back then, a woman stayed home, prepared to merely support her husband’s career, wasn’t entitled to enjoy sex, a was dressed in appropriate clothing, but we are no longer constrained to that BS anymore. Things have changed. One thing that surely oppresses female rights is clothing and the sexuality around it. Women are moving forward, gays are moving forward, body freedom issues can move forward, too. All it takes is another generation like mine to latch on to a new wave of thinking and see enormous social change. In the late sixties, simply seeing people skinnydipping with casual social nudity in a movie about a rock festival made life long change in the majority of a generation.

Trading barbs is one thing, but you fail to notice that there has been no trade here. Although the tenor is more extreme, and maybe just a more extreme tenor for fun at times, the discussion is serious. Please, stop attempting to diminish what is going on, particularly like that is your entire intention for being here.

Correct clothing, obsession, try this a stab at humor making fun of it: https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2016/08/19/clothing-obsession-a-stab-at-humor/

[BlueTrain]

I do understand that "game" can be used in a way that doesn't imply fun. One can "game" the system, for example, which is taking advantage of how a system works for one's personal benefit. Perhaps that's what you meant.

I still think you're overemphasizing obsessions. Merely because a person likes to wear nice clothes in the latest fashion, doesn't necessarily mean they're obsessed with clothes, though I suppose some are. But if they aren't obsessed, they don't help your argument. I'm not trying to be rude but sometimes people think that when someone else has a different opinion and point of view. Expect to be disagreed with now and then. Maybe we just live in different worlds. I'm sorry you don't care for my opinions.

We definitely lived in different worlds in the 1950s. The women in my neighborhood worked. The men didn't have careers; they had jobs. They mostly belonged to unions. Nothing changed in the 1960s or 1970s. Not there. I lived elsewhere after that.

Maybe it's because I've lived a sheltered life or something. Never went to a rock festival. Never saw anyone skinny-dipping anywhere. I do know the years around 1970 were supposed to be quite liberating and men could grow long sideburns. But it's been downhill since. Some people thought there would be lots of nude beaches by now and that public nudity would be totally accepted. But what happened was, the Young Republicans that were in school when we were are the ones running things now. Such nudity and other socially progressive movements were not accepted then or now. They were merely tolerated. Big difference and that is the problem with viewing the past from this distance of 40 years.

Maybe you folks need a dose of reality. Trump is trying to be lord and master. Freedom and liberation now exist in word form only. Zero tolerance is the new buzzword. What are the chances that public nudity will be accepted now?

[jbeegoode]

No liberation today and not tomorrow. In the 60's there was backlash to political/governmental constraints. Perhaps there will be questioning, and sense of being oppressed, too much breeds contempt. This building steam often vents with social change, something that government hasn't the time for, nor much hope of doing or controlling. Further oppression tends to create backlash and polarization. The polarization increases in a reciprocal fashion. Utter NAzi Germany style control won't cut it. When I visited East Berlin in the height of the Berlin Wall problem, everyone was at work during the day. The streets were bizarrely empty. It was such an extreme contrast. Then, walking down the street, I saw a lone hipster/rocker, dressed in jeans and Elvis hair, dark sunglasses. CAn't stop it.

If I got it correct, you are saying in your own way that since we have the reincarnation of Benito Mussolini in the Whitehouse, that the like minded rest will ride the coattails. Depends. Some regions like that stuff. Some don't. We saw what happened to Mussolini and his wife.

I think that only mass media with experimentation and peer group thinking will affect mass social changes and that it depends on the issue. But more and more, it is driven by a buck as is the political system.

We have seen how social media is being manipulated by government. Perhaps that will change, but for now, what people like us put on the net will affect change, attitude, thought and possibilities. Who'd thought that marijuana legalization would become so popular? On the other hand, we have a political zero tolerant bureaucratic Nazi tactics war on drugs, when there is a more workable practical system in place in reasonable old England for heroin, while the American politicians double down. There is social change, political change evolving in Europe in concern of nudity. Maybe for once, these American conservative influences will get off their ethnocentric holier than thou crap and take note. Nudity is harmless, good business, and keeps people happier and more tolerant. Government and those that run it, are often more tolerant, as long as people work, stay in debt, and want more.

We can't know. I'm watching for my opening and ready to punch. My defense is up until then. I'm staying in shape. The textile world is way out of hand. Not everyone would agree, but to me, this country has lost its compass and there is not much that I can affect. Body freedom and the associated social change is one place where there is possibility.

Dancing around politics here, but as long as it is squarely about naturism being practiced everywhere, it is pertinent to what we need to accomplish.

Bob and I are occasionally trolling the net, correcting ignorance of nudity issues as it expresses itself. You'll see mainstream controlling their place's narrative, with their louder voices. You'll see the sexualization of bodies. You'll see clothing promotions. But where people go to ask and to think, there is a clear alternative message and it is not so harsh or direct much like the tenor of this thread. We'll see. Things tend to just take off sometimes. Not everybody would like the changes, but they are a minority. Perhaps some pivitol incident will happen. Perhaps it will be incremental until critical mass surprises us all, like these more recent marijuana polls. Where did those opinions come from?

The gay thing has come about and I think that there are lessons of strengths for our concerns inherent in that. Why? Because so many of us have a relative, someone that they care for that is some kind of gay. It seems harmless, the narrative was challenged and changed, fears were nullified. There are gays with wealth. Secret gays in power. People with gay kids. It isn't our business. Things have changed dramatically. In kind, we all have bodies, we have people that we care about, we all have a natural tendency toward naturism, the narrative is being challenged, secret nudes are in places of power and we're actually innocuous, even healthy.
Jbee   

[BlueTrain]

Gee, I never once thought of Mussolini and Trump at the same time. Some called Lincoln a tyrant. They aren't all the same. They have different goals, even though the means might be pretty much the same. The only thing they have in common, I think, is that they all want to stay in power. Elections become a farce, if there are any, although one hates to admit that most of the people actually like their leader, though it only may be 51%.

A basic problem here is the failure to realize that a lot of people have an intense dislike of certain things. Gays, nudity (public or otherwise), same sex marriage, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, (American) Indians, Hispanics, immigrants (apparently only the illegal ones), you name it. They may or may not tolerate it but they'll never approve of it. I don't know why divorce and Hindus didn't make the list but they have apparently given up on alcohol. Nobody seems to be preaching against drugs like they used to, except for opioids, which, ironically, are prescription drugs. Anyway, those are the problems that Trump's base rally around, while their attention is diverted from more serious issues. School shootings are apparently not a problem worth doing anything serious about. The national debt will sooner or later bankrupt the country. Maybe Trump thinks that's a workable solution. It worked for him.

But public nudity? Not in any so-called conservative state, although it's hard to tell which one is conservative sometimes. There is, of course, some public nudity. Some legal and the rest merely tolerated. Even private nudity in clubs is illegal in some places. There are a few public beaches where nudity is legal and a few other places here and there. The Bay to the breakers in San Francisco tolerated a few nude joggers as do some parades in the Northwest. Supposedly there have been body painting events in Central Park in Manhattan and I don't mean Manhattan, Kansas. Trump is from Manhattan, you know.

Mostly, though, it is a moral problem. I don't mean that public nudity is immoral, though it is nearly always illegal (but not fattening--not sure about that, though). It's just that we always underestimate the capacity of upstanding people to be hypocrites. I'm from West Virginia, which used to be a nice, conservative state, although it was full of hillbillies, at least up to somewhere beyond Charleston but not as far as Elkins. True, they had issues with illegal liquor (moonshine) but that was exaggerated as far as I could tell. Oh, but now! The state is full of tattoo parlors, liquor stores (formerly state-controlled), "gentlemen's clubs" (strip joints) and gambling, euphemistically called "gaming." And people in that state dare to moralize anyone's behavior without ever mentioning any of those things.

Government cannot be better than the citizens.   And yet...

And yet, hardly everyone is like that. It might be than only 55% of the population (a landslide majority) is like that but they get their way. But there are those who say it's an act of God when the creek floods, all because we have turned away from God. They never explain exactly what they themselves did to deserve it but I'm sure they regretted it.

[jbeegoode]

There seems to be some rambling going on here that has nothing to do with the thread, or the forum, or the website. It kind of washes out the conversation and topic. I think that the topic of the thread is important. I think that strategy, the bigger picture and attitude is important. Too bad it is being censored. Makes it not worth coming here to join in, to weigh in, or make effort. Now, is this calculated, or did one of us slip out of gear?
Jbee

[eyesup]

You're starting to sound like an anarchist that believes we don't have enough lawbreaking and rebellion in society . . .

Yeah, raise cain, then go for a swim to cool off! 

Every day you get up, and you don't have to worry about what to wear. You don't have to shop (or at least you know what to buy) . . .

Wasn’t it a character, a mathematician I think, the actor Jeff Goldblum played that always wore black so he didn’t have to make decisions about what clothes to buy and to wear? If you are going to wear clothes, keep it simple.

From what I’ve read on anarchists and their agendas, manifestos and protest events, it sounds exhausting. I guess that’s why most of ’em are young. Too tiresome for me.

Duane

[eyesup]

Real uniforms make deciding what to wear unnecessary. They also give you a strong sense of pride and belonging to an organization and something big.

Some people have to wear uniforms on the job, it’s how people know who they are. Outside of job requirements, I don’t see the need for a uniform and who would want a job where it was required? But, it’s a crowded world and it’s full of all types. We can wear what we want and if you want to wear that, more power to ya!

If you don’t need it on the job, why do you need it? It’s a prop, a stage device. Life is too complicated as it is to clutter our free time with constricting uniforms.

As to the Aussie newscaster, one man, one trial behavior does not an experiment make. Of course by Occam’s Razor, it could be that no one particularly likes him.

Duane

[eyesup]

People commit suicide for all sorts of reasons, from real to imagined influences. How someone can reach a point where they imagine that choice is the only one that makes sense, is beyond my understanding. I am blessed.

I think you are right, Peter, that the causes are not known for certain. My father-in-law used to say that suicide was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. He wasn’t trying to be funny, and he was right. The regular person that comes to that place need only ask for help.

Those that are incapable of seeing a way out are in a terrible spot. They make that decision alone. I’ve known two who’ve done that. One older in their 60’s, the other was only 16 yrs. old. From what I know of what happened, the thing in common was despair.

Duane

[eyesup]

I try to not hang around people that play games. I prefer honesty. Occasionally it can be ruthless but in the long run there is no deceit.

Duane

[BlueTrain]

Some discretion goes a long ways. So does a little civility.

That is a built-in problem with forums like this, mostly. Some seem to be worse than others but probably because of those who post. The problem is that the communication is limited. You aren't speaking face to face with someone and all the non-verbal communication is absent. Moreover, your knowledge of the other person is also limited (presumably), so that you can't tailor your comments for the other person. Besides, you aren't speaking to just one person but rather to anyone who happens along. But it's better than nothing. Before the internet, the closest thing might have been letters to the editor.

I might hang around some people in spite of themselves for one reason or another. There are several reasons that I'm here.

One is, I have time now, although since retiring, the time is still not unlimited. Another, perhaps more important, is the disappearance of certain other forums that I used to visit and to which I frequently contributed. The others, however, were more specific in subject matter, which was nude hiking. I only visit one other forum for which nudity is a topic.

I would also add that the mechanics of the forum makes a difference. Because different forums use different software (I guess you would say), different ones can vary in how easy the forum is to use and follow.

[Bob Knows]

But there are those who say it's an act of God when the creek floods, all because we have turned away from God. They never explain exactly what they themselves did to deserve it but I'm sure they regretted it.

Some would say the creek floods because all the wolves and beaver were exterminated by humans. 

Others would say only the stupid build their home by the creek instead of on higher ground, and the "flood" is a normal high water line.   

Still others would say that Zeus, God of the sky, was playing with his lighting and storms again. 

Everyone has an opinion.  Most of them are right. 

[BlueTrain]

If people don't live there, flooding is unimportant, no matter why it happens. But if it flooded once, it will surely flood again. One place where I worked in Alexandria, Virginia, flooded three times, the last time in 1975, not long after I started work there. You could see how high the water got by marks on the wooden doors.

[jbeegoode]

When a flood of rambling off topic comments washes over a forum conversation, it washes out the content of the discussion, much like what the flood that you came out of the blue to describe has done to that town. This thread reads completely different when I eliminate the Bluetrain comments, but leaving the response to them. It is like listening to someone with Adult ADD. Perhaps you are having trouble adjusting to retirement. It is how governments flush down descent by dominating the airwaves with distractions, etc.
Jbee

[eyesup]

Yes, I’ve mentioned before how the inability to see facial expression, body language and tone of voice makes the discussion a little more challenging. The up side is I am in the habit of proofing what I type.

Good practice here but not on a streaming consciousness forum!

Duane

[BlueTrain]

I'm afraid to make a post now, lest it be off-topic or contrary to anyone's sensitivities. Perhaps for the sake of clarity, the fewer posts there are, the better.

I do not work for the government and I am having no trouble adjusting to retirement. I'm having some difficulty being around my wife all the time but the house has three floors. I am easily distracted sometimes, though. Too much freedom, probably.