People who've given up washing

[JOhnGw]

naturist , naturalist or nudist.... everyone can have their own take on it.

for me ill use my orchard ,   the grass under the trees is getting long , the naturalist would leave the mower in the shed and spend a few hours watching  the insects on the flowers and rotten fruit, the nudist would get out the petrol powered ride on mower , shed their clothes and mow the lot so it looks nice and tidy.  the naturist would get out the battery electric mower , charged up from solar, mow a few paths for easy access but leave the patches of flowers for the insects and butterflies, then wonder where hed left his shorts.
 

Got it in one - may I have permission to use this elsewhere.

[BlueTrain]

How many people here have an orchard, farm, or ranch?

[ric]

naturist , naturalist or nudist.... everyone can have their own take on it.

for me ill use my orchard ,   the grass under the trees is getting long , the naturalist would leave the mower in the shed and spend a few hours watching  the insects on the flowers and rotten fruit, the nudist would get out the petrol powered ride on mower , shed their clothes and mow the lot so it looks nice and tidy.  the naturist would get out the battery electric mower , charged up from solar, mow a few paths for easy access but leave the patches of flowers for the insects and butterflies, then wonder where hed left his shorts.
 

Got it in one - may I have permission to use this elsewhere.

feel free .

weve got a couple of mobile homes in the orchard , our bedroom is in what was the end lounge area of one , lying in bed with a cup of tea weve a 12 foot wide window onto the orchard , spent an hour or so early this morning watching 3 squirrels gamboling around, upsetting the wood pigeons. probably got another 6 weeks or so till we move into a flat in the village for the winter.

[jbeegoode]

Wearing clothes is the ‘norm’, even for naturists in winter, even though it is not as natural. Our clothes become less and less natural, from ones that could have been woven from locally available natural fibres for thousands of years to modern synthetic ones made from petrochemicals, incorporating anti-bacterial coatings and possibly now even smart technology. Less and less natural, but may become the new normal. ‘Normal’ just describes what is usual.

Labels are equally normal, and entirely natural, for a species that has developed language. Labels are useful, essential even, until they are over-interpreted and too many assumptions made, or prejudices attached to them. ‘Textile’ is not a particularly nice term but can be useful short - hand for non-naturist, or just someone wearing clothes who may or may not be naturist.

The nudist vs naturist debate is often raised, and why we use labels. Nudist is the most straight-forward term saying very little about the person other than they like to do ordinary things without clothes. ‘Naturist’ has become the more popular term because it suggests a less ‘one dimensional’ interest or simple hobby, but more a philosophy. To many people there is at least an element of connecting to nature, and that is certainly seems true for most on this site. It originated in France in reference to living a more natural, healthy life and so nudity naturally became part of the ethos but nudity was not the main or only focus which it often now seems. So ideas of not washing with artificial soaps and detergents fit in with the naturist ethos. Several of us walk barefoot, even when there is no opportunity to be naked because it is natural, healthy and we can better connect with the earth.

A naturalist is distinctly different, although there may well be overlap. A naturalist is someone who observes and studies nature in an objective way. A naturist’s experience is much more subjective, seeking not so much scientific knowledge, but spiritual, bodily, sensory connection at some level. At it’s most basic level, it is just because the feel good when they take their clothes off to feel the sun, breeze or water on naked skin. But that, for many of us, is just the entree.

Thank-you for saying that all so well. I was going for something like that and tried to find a language double checking in Merriam-Webster's. I tried naturalism, naturism, natural, nudism, normal and usual and none of them gave a solid use in this discussion. Webster has some homework to do to catch up with the use of these terms and referee this game of semantics. It leaves me without language if I go with their garbage.

I have often defined people wearing clothing on a hot, or perfect day as insanity. We have called it unnatural. Perhaps it is being so unaware as to be stupidity. According to Webster, it is normal to wear clothing and the APA wouldn't call it insanity, of course. Stupid is defined: "given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless manner
c : lacking intelligence or reason : brutish
2 : dulled in feeling or sensation : torpid still stupid from the sedative
3 : marked by or resulting from unreasoned thinking or acting : senseless a stupid decision
4a : lacking interest or point a stupid event
b : vexatious, exasperating the stupid car won't start"
 By golly, I believe that I have found the dictionary definition that smacks the nail on the head. Stupid is a highly offense thing to call others world wide. People equate being stupid, that is slow of mind generally with "an act" of being stupid. They over simplify that people who are not generally stupid will do stupid stuff, as if a mass psychosis, believing an illusion. They just don't think something through, or jump to a conclusion without a sound intellectual effort. They do stupid sometimes.

Believing that one should better define oneself, do ya like to be called textile or stupid?

So, is it stupid to seek shelter in a structure, or something more portable when it is cold? No, of course not. But to be so obsessed with clothing as to need it otherwise is being stupid. Is it stupid to not recognize that there can be repercussions for not conforming to being stupid in a society filled with people being stupid in mass? No. Do I have a vocabulary to explain this nicely?

As is part of the definition of naturist and nudist Webster's, AANR, and online excetera, it keeps coming up that both are only practiced in designated areas. The "movement" is cooped up according to them. I am a free range naturist, free range nudist, but I should not have to have a caged definition placed on me by the few, or the ignorant, and especially by the stupid. I may have to write to Webster's etc. because they are getting it wrong, the the work is sloppy, and it is damaging to us by framing us in and pigeonholing us.

I'm not at home today, but I'll have to get my 1948 Webster's out and check all of this out.
Jbee

[jbeegoode]

Our natural state is nude, we evolved from nude. We evolved from conformity to tribal ways. We evolved from nude tribes. Our body's adaptations prove that nude is our natural baseline.

A majority used to figure slavery was natural, that certain races were inferior, that certain religions should control, that royalty came from divine order, that majority will make better decisions, that thyroids were useless, that virus comes from devils in the trees and all of this was normal.

Our behavior has been manipulated into a clothing obsession using our tribal instincts against us and usurping our individuality and natural state for profit and control. The idea that we necessitate clothing at all times and that viewing another member of the species without clothing is dangerous, harmful, or weird is utterly stupid. If one calls that normal, one can, but it is still stupid. Not the insult stupid, but the definition above by Webster's. The semantic game goes on.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

We evolved from being very hairy and strictly speaking, not exactly nude, which is neither here nor there. And today, there are those who shave everything because, well, just because.

Now that you mention it, I do feel incredibly enslaved when I wear a t-shirt, even one without a graven (printed, actually) image on the front or back. I often hear arguments about slavery (an institution based on kidnapping) that are clear, logical and wrong. If slavery is not to be objectionable, then anyone can be a slave. That's the way it has been in some places. Most of your other comments are really only true sometimes. Even kings were elected in some places. And clearly some individuals are inferior, while others are superior. The real issue is not even who are inferior and who are superior but rather, who gets to decide?

Just remember that deep inside every reformer beats the heart of a dictator.

[jbeegoode]

We evolved from being very hairy and strictly speaking, not exactly nude, which is neither here nor there. And today, there are those who shave everything because, well, just because.

Now that you mention it, I do feel incredibly enslaved when I wear a t-shirt, even one without a graven (printed, actually) image on the front or back. I often hear arguments about slavery (an institution based on kidnapping) that are clear, logical and wrong. If slavery is not to be objectionable, then anyone can be a slave. That's the way it has been in some places. Most of your other comments are really only true sometimes. Even kings were elected in some places. And clearly some individuals are inferior, while others are superior. The real issue is not even who are inferior and who are superior but rather, who gets to decide?

Just remember that deep inside every reformer beats the heart of a dictator.

Please, don't be contrary just to be contrary.

I don't know where that quote comes from about reformers being latent dictators, but is sure isn't true. I know that it came from an age when reformers were going every which way and what they were talking about were reformers and their movements about 100 years ago.

I could be called a reformer, that is I want some reasonable change. I'm not a dictator, or an authoritarian. I know others like myself. It just ain't worth the screen that it is printed on.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

You want me to stop posting? It's the only solution I can think of, aside from you not reading.

[jbeegoode]

No comment.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

I second that comment.

[nuduke]

Now, now, gentlemen, moderation in all things including language and mutual regard.  Personally I value all points of view, dismiss none (at least without offering rational justification and sound reasoning!) and would be most upset if anyone stopped posting because they were not happy with a bit of academic debate and others' views here.

I've been reading this voluminous intellectual interchange and airy persiflage and it's got a bit too pedantic even for me (and that's saying something!).  The discussion (amongst many, many) about the terms nudist and naturist has really made me think and take a step back.

I use the terms nudist and naturist interchangeably and what I have been given by my contact with naturist discussion and literature over some years is a complete unthinking regard for the 2 words as being effectively the same meaning.  But I have been pulled up short by this interchange and reminded of the bible 1 Corinthians Ch 13 v12 "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully".  I have been guilty of unthinking acceptance - a matter which I have railed against many times in these pages and annals!  Unwitting hypocrisy thy name is Nuduke!  I need to stop blindly accepting and do the research (which turns out to be fairly simple provided you have a propensity to accept the word of learned authority - which I know we don't all have! )
Anyway, the point is the word naturist.  I suddenly realise from Blue Train's point of view on the use of this word to describe when he is in nature, a usage unconnected with state of dress, that I have never questioned the that usage of the word 'naturist' could be anything other than a direct synonym for nudist, or that perhaps it does have alternative connotations for some people i.e. being a student of nature (synonym naturalist) or someone who seeks participation/existence in natural surroundings.  I looked up the Online Etymological Dictionary that gives

naturist (n.)
participant in the movement for communal nudity," 1929,

So yes, that looks like the definition I have come to accept and

nudism (n.)
"The cult and practice of going unclothed" [OED], 1929, from French nudisme (see nude + -ism). Nudist "one who practices nudism" appeared at the same time.

Again, pretty comfortable with that.  But look at what dictionary.com has to say about the definitions of the words (and note dictionary.com works by integrating the main established dictionaries such as Merriam Webster and Oxford and simply coughing out the scholarly and widely accepted definitions)

nudist
[ˈnjuːdɪst]
NOUN
a person who engages in the practice of going naked wherever possible.
"a nudist beach"

Again, no problem.  But here:

naturist
[ˈneɪtʃ(ə)rɪst]
NOUN BRITISH
1. a person who goes naked in designated areas; a nudist.
"he is a dedicated naturist"
synonyms:  nudist · sun worshipper · nudie
2. a person who worships nature or natural objects.
"naturist cults"

So we have it!  There are the two usages that you have been discussing.  Fortunately or otherwise, 'naturist' possesses both connotations that are being debated here.  So it's not either/or.  Blue Train can use it his way and Jbee can use it his.  Both are correct.
The origin of the word naturist is very recent (1929) and seems to me (and this is just a personal opinion) to be one of those typically British coinages that are cringing euphemisms.  Stuck for a term for naked people and instead of just saying it, in typically post-Victorian British prudery, an embarrassed someone invented this term 'naturist' to avoid confronting the reality that they were afraid of - that is: someone who likes to be naked and having to say the word naked.  'Nature' being the root of the word, and in my view again, describing the human body unclothed as the state of 'nature', gets -ist and -ism suffixes added to make a euphemism for 'unclothed and enjoying it'!  I wonder therefore if 'naturist' is in fact a bit of a denigrating term because it draws a bit of a veil over the reality of recreational nakedness. I certainly won't look at the word 'naturist' with quite the unthinking acceptance that I have hitherto treated it with.
Is nudist a more robust and rugged coinage?  Or is it equally a prurient euphemism?  My own feeling is that it is a rather better term as its root is 'nude' which isn't a cringing euphemism, merely a straightforward synonym for naked.

Do we have any further thoughts or have I academicked you all into a state of torpor?
 
John

[BlueTrain]

Yes, about people who've given up washing, not to change the subject or anything.

I think that when a person has a bad odor, his breath not included, it may be his clothes that smell bad. Our clothing absorbs the secretions of our skin, both perspiration and oil and holds it, more or less. It will dry out, to be sure, but it won't have a nice smell at the end of the day. However, not all fabrics are alike in that respect. Wool does not hold odors like cotton will, which is good, although few wear wool in the summer except for dress clothing. I'm not certain about synthetics and blends. Sometimes nylon when stored will have a bad smell, although I'm thinking of tents and ponchos. It mostly clears up after being aired out.

I am assuming that those who do not wash, with all the exceptions they make, do laundry now and then.

[MartinM]

From Wikipedia:
“It is difficult to nominate exactly when naturism started as a movement. The word 'naturism' was used for the first time in 1778 by a French-speaking Belgian, Jean Baptiste Luc Planchon (1734–1781), and was advocated as a means of improving the hygiène de vie or healthy living.”

Although this concept does not seem to have been picked up again until the 19thC, it was again about living a more natural, healthy life, as an antidote to urban industrial life although beginning in Germany under the term Nacktkultur.  The use of the word hygiene above is interesting, in the context of a thread of going without washing, but seems intended in the stricter sense of (natural and) healthy living. Not washing with artificial soaps, detergents makes sense in this context, as do more natural diet and an active outdoor lifestyle ‘in nature’ - without clothing, of course, when not strictly required for protection.

[ric]

i dont think quoting 1929 definitions is particularly helpful,  usage of words can change rather quickly.   prime example is the word gay,   i can remember when a gay person was just a happy chappy, as kids we could have a gay old time . the meaning changed almost overnight

[nuduke]

The 1929 date was etymology.  (That is the first time the word was spotted in print or manuscript in English by those who study the origin and derivation of words).  And yes, Ric, word meanings change and yes, I agree, naturist is a synonym for nudist, but it also has those other overtones that I mentioned if you accept the validity of dictionaries.  We all use naturist in its original form and original meaning so I can't see how that word has changed much or why it's 1929 origin and or its two slightly different meanings should dismiss it.  Countless words are that old or older.  You might as well say that the words man, hand and fire that have descended to us virtually unchanged for '000s of years are not good words because they are old!
John