What's the difference?

[eyesup]

So here we are decamped from SNS to Free Range Naturism. I am with Jbee in hoping that SNS isn't "done for". It has many members that were long time contributors and "virtual friends", one of which became a "brick & mortar?" friend. So I hope that Lookee and others can fix whatever happened and we can regain that site, but I have now begun to look at Free Range as a new and welcome stop to visit.

I guess I started this post with an eye to what the inherent difference is between "Secret Naturism" and "Free Range Naturism". I guess that in the secret camp, there is a caution in site selection to ensure a more protected zone for engaging in the naked activities, while in the free range camp, there is a more open and/or gregarious outlook to the activities. The upside to free range is there would be more hikes/sites open for me to visit.

Those of us that were long time contributors at SNS frequented that site for it's stated purpose, to further the abilities of those engaging in "Secret Naturism". By discussing our outings we swapped tips, tricks and advice on remaining "hidden" or "secret" while out in public.

For some, me in particular, public does not mean being in a community square or neighborhood. Some SNS members would engage in naked activities within the community they lived. I am not so bold. I prefer a place away from the "average citizen" as I have not yet chosen to endure that level of attention.

At times I have been a little uneasy with the term "Secret". It sounds, well, secretive. Like we are skulking about with strange agendas. I prefer solitary as opposed to secret. The implication in the name Free Range is that there is nothing binding or restraining in the actions. I like that.

I am drawn, though, to what "Free Range" hikers do and the attitude that is required. I take that term to be, hiking where there is a higher, though slight, probability of bumping into someone. They are accepting the risk of an adverse reaction from a meeting but expecting that most will simply shrug off the encounter. I see that as a type of  confidence that is appealing and admire it. There are a couple of members on SNS that exhibited that attitude. Bob and Jbee, now posting here, and a couple others all seem to have achieved that level of confidence.

It's not that I would prefer to "not care" if I encounter someone, it's more like I would prefer "to not have to worry" about it. Caution, that comes from dealing with cultural mores, taboos and John Law is likely at the root my hesitation at being that casual.

I find that outlook attractive and would do so if I could find a way to reconcile my worry of it's affect on my relations in my church and among friends. As far as I know, my wife is the only one that knows about my naked hiking. My family, I am confident, would find a way to deal with it. My friends most likely would also. It's the faith community I am hesitant about. I value that and will not blithely cast it aside.

I am hoping that the attitudes of Stuart, Karla, and other "free rangers" on this site will start to influence me in the same way I found visiting the SNS site helped me when I began to discover how naked activities are amazingly beneficial to me.

Duane

[nudewalker]

Duane, you may be over thinking the whole thing. I know "secret" sounds sinister in a way and I lean more toward "stealth" as a way to describe things. As for free range to me it means outside the confines of a resort or a known or approved area where nudity is common.

I like your "not care" and "not have to worry" comments. As much as I like to take the "not care" approach there is this nightmare or daymare that haunts me from time to time. As many of my hikes are well planned to avoid as many people as possible; and most are done with the knowledge that school is in session. Due to the harsh winters we have been experiencing the school year has been starting before Labor Day (1st Monday in September) and lasting well into June. My fear is to encounter a family of religious home schooled textiles who show no mercy and drag the whole thing into not only the legal system but the court of public opinion. As for family, friends and my faith community I have no idea where that would go but the sex offender label would be a hard one to deal with for what well could be the rest of my life. Then I wake up to realize that children do make noise while out and families usually don't hike the same trails that I do.

It seems that areas open up as you develop a comfort zone. Much as I have found that most people stay in the air conditioning on hot summer days which leaves much territory open for "free range" excursions or closer to home some "secret" naturism.

[jbeegoode]

If you think free-range chickens, there is a sense of freerange naturism. We are cooped up in clothing (clipped beaks and feathers). Some of us are liberated at home (cages), some to resorts, or designated nude use areas (barnyards). These would be a part of freerange, but “freerange” means more. Freerange can bring us out of the barnyard, more like a natural animal. It is true naturism and truly natural. A chicken is much more than a domestic food source to be trapped in a small box, with appendages removed. A human is being denied much more of the potential, or humanity, as well.

 It is also, by necessity an exercise in stealth to accommodate as you say, "cultural mores, taboos and Johnny Law" (curiously the opposite of Johnny B. Good). After all does a deer not dodge hunters, cars, voyeurs, and other inconveniences? This would be Secret Naturism, inclusive in Free Range Naturism.

The motives are vast, but generally they are liberation, stealth games, rebellion, personal exploration, health, pure enjoyment, the spiritual, fun and even social connection. A naturist will encounter conflicts and must adjust, which is Secret, or stealth Naturism. This could be covered by a fence in conversation unbeknownst to another, hiding ones naturist activities from family, or frequenting public places and taking precautions to not be arrested for being nude, as examples.

For me, freerange naturism is a bolder and broader approach than conventional nudism, which encompasses secret naturist tactics by necessity.

Our forays in the desert southwest are freerange naturist activities. Not being seen and protected by discrete secretive social tactics, for some it is privacy, these are secret naturist aspects.

As for this “free range” website, I see it as inclusive of us of TSNS.

P.S. "Brick and mortar!" I think that defining TSNS to that might be too extreme. A TSNS in such an extreme organizational context, might be like what comes out of the chicken's butt, although both do share a similar fraternity... It is a Secret Naturist Society, not secret society for naturists. The membership and anonymity parameters are very different.
Jbee

[eyesup]

. . you may be over thinking the whole thing . . .

Could be. Sometimes I do that, maybe it's a subconscious method of me getting ME off TDC.

My fear is to encounter a family of religious home schooled textiles who show no mercy and drag the whole thing into not only the legal system but the court of public opinion.

That is where I wish that the need to worry about that sort of thing didn't exist. If I were to go hiking wearing a tux, I would get odd looks, but no legal action. Remove the tux and the rules are suddenly different. Same guy, same hike, same personality but all of a sudden I'm perceived as a threat. That's what I wish didn't exist.

I am hoping that in frequenting this site I will begin to move toward what I see as Free Range hiking. Something imbued a loosening of the inhibitors of my current state, which is the secret (solitary) naturist hiker. I like when I do a secret hike for it's solitary and quiet nature, but I am leaning toward a more egalitarian practice of this style of hike on occasion.

P.S. "Brick and mortar!" I think that defining TSNS to that might be too extreme.

I was speaking of the difference between a "virtual" friend or a "brick and mortar" one (a friend you know face to face), not the activity of secret naturism. I guess my analogy sorta fell flat.

For me, freerange naturism is a bolder and broader approach than conventional nudism, which encompasses secret naturist tactics by necessity.

That is my observation as well and I am thinking I shall have to use Larry's incrementalism to make a transition to that bolder action.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

My fear is to encounter a family of religious home schooled textiles who show no mercy and drag the whole thing into not only the legal system but the court of public opinion.

That is where I wish that the need to worry about that sort of thing didn't exist. If I were to go hiking wearing a tux, I would get odd looks, but no legal action. Remove the tux and the rules are suddenly different. Same guy, same hike, same personality but all of a sudden I'm perceived as a threat. That's what I wish didn't exist.

I am hoping that in frequenting this site I will begin to move toward what I see as Free Range hiking. Something imbued a loosening of the inhibitors of my current state, which is the secret (solitary) naturist hiker. I like when I do a secret hike for it's solitary and quiet nature, but I am leaning toward a more egalitarian practice of this style of hike on occasion.

For me, freerange naturism is a bolder and broader approach than conventional nudism, which encompasses secret naturist tactics by necessity.

That is my observation as well and I am thinking I shall have to use Larry's incrementalism to make a transition to that bolder action.

Duane

There are short cuts to incrementalism. It is after all just and attitude adjustment. I find spending a few days at a supportive naturist resort with full acceptance from others and comfort in my nude being, not only makes clothing feel ridiculous and uncomfortable, but resentment builds. This resentment is motivation for revolutionary behavior and attitude…well, anyway, like this… I don’t want to get dressed and I am more apt to drive home nude. My next hike will feel confined. I better realize just how ridiculous AND repressive the textile rule is and I get crafty to grasp justice. Hence, bolder actions.

The other thing is getting out there on the trail more often. I get more comfortable. I get tired of the stealth at times, too. I have good stealth habits that pop up naturally, and better awareness. I also, realize that I can find more optimum situations or secret naturist habitat. I am also see textiles as the weird ones when it is way hot or way wonderfully beautiful.  DF and I occasionally get the “f—k-its.” (a term derived from an old prison slang used by lifers). We just decide to relax and go for it. So far, this has led to no encounters (they are unusual and rarely negative, anyway). During these attitude whacks, a couple of times we covered up anyway when we sensed someone coming, just because we didn’t want any hassles in the first place. When we have been in more nudity accepted areas and let ourselves be seen, it is not a big deal. We may even feel as ambassadors to naturism, or a feel a sense of personal liberation, or even justice, or little or nothing.

I think that bolder attitudes and actions just naturally happen and are influenced by individual personalities as much as a determined incremental plan.

Do it more, get better at it, get more wise and more bold.

Eyesup, I suggest heading down to De Anza for one of their special events for a few days (three minimal). You are an old hand at this stuff.  You’ll be out there more often after that, expanding horizons and telling us more yarns and reports.
Jbee

[nudewalker]

I think Jbeee that in another life we were brothers in arms against an oppressive regime! I wish there were more areas around here where nudity, although not legal, was accepted. Much like the areas that you and DF wander where the occasional nude being is tolerated and almost expected. I have attempted to pick and choose my options for covering or not. As I mentioned before my last encounter was with a kindred soul, a throwback to the hippie movement by his dress and demeanor, and seemed almost uncomfortable using a GPS to geocache. In the future I will weigh my options instead of grabbing that cover up if I can break that habit.

One plus in your favor Jbee is the fact that you are accompanied by a female so your not seen as the threat a single male would be. I reference your answer to a female hiker that wrote a blog on what a naked hiker taught her. There would be more relative safety in numbers of mixed gender and someday maybe there will be enough of us to make a group of hikers.

As for Duane, much of the stealth ability discussed here has been a honed skill from years of getting out there and enjoying it. From a start of security (resort maybe or deserted forests) to parks and beaches where people are near but you manage to stay in the shadows so to speak. Timing is a lot; midweek and having school in session. Avoiding hunting seasons is another. As my old high school coaches used to say "practice, practice, practice!". 

[Karla]

If you think free-range chickens, there is a sense of freerange naturism. We are cooped up in clothing (clipped beaks and feathers). Some of us are liberated at home (cages), some to resorts, or designated nude use areas (barnyards). These would be a part of freerange, but “freerange” means more. Freerange can bring us out of the barnyard, more like a natural animal. It is true naturism and truly natural. A chicken is much more than a domestic food source to be trapped in a small box, with appendages removed. A human is being denied much more of the potential, or humanity, as well.

 It is also, by necessity an exercise in stealth to accommodate as you say, "cultural mores, taboos and Johnny Law" (curiously the opposite of Johnny B. Good). After all does a deer not dodge hunters, cars, voyeurs, and other inconveniences? This would be Secret Naturism, inclusive in Free Range Naturism.

For me, freerange naturism is a bolder and broader approach than conventional nudism, which encompasses secret naturist tactics by necessity.

As for this “free range” website, I see it as inclusive of us of TSNS.

Well put!

I remember during our Naked Munros days when someone I received an email. Someone referred to free range naturism, in contrast to battery farmed naturism which was naturism behind walls, whether your home or a naturist club. That really appealed to me and generally appeals to my outlook on life and society.

As society progresses, it grows more complex and becomes more ordered and our freedoms are removed. We find ourselves further away from our natural environment much like an animal in a zoo there to serve a purpose.

[stuart]

It occurs to me that the big difference between secret naturism and the free range variety is the culture it takes place in. In Germany for example there's no need for it. People sunbathe naked in the parks, and many lakes have a designated zone for FKK so when we've gone hiking nude in the Alps no one has really bothered.

But in Scotland, where Steve Gough has been jailed for years, we have to be a lot more careful.

[jbeegoode]

There is a new sense given from nudity in approved and structured settings, and there are benefits, but as a free-range “naturist” I have found nudity in nature to be an entirely different experience and it continues to teach a very special and greater sense of existence.
 
The visits to free beaches are as close to this as can be had, such as when being next to and looking out into an ocean, it brings aloneness and oneness. His is enhanced with nudity, to be in physical contact with a natural environment. Some resorts have local or included forest or desert walks on property. Generally these are affected, or groomed, or structured in some way. When free-range, there are gifts to be found out there that are more primal. The naturist is now in a more natural environment, so awareness and consciousness relate to it differently, and in ways that have been lost in modern life.

I found the following set aside, something that I wrote at one time, which expresses what I am given in nudity, but this is also enhanced outside of the barnyard. The more we explore further free-range, the more we can understand our own humanity. 

“For myself, I am closer to the form of the world and universe when nude. I am better in touch. I notice the connection and discover how this body is infinite in ways that I could never conceive otherwise. I find gratitude, pure and also focused on miracles everywhere, when exposed and nude. I am better aware of energies that are hidden to many. My body moves and functions in a more natural spontaneous mode, gathering health and knowing better what blessings are here for me. I hold this all sacred.  There is better sense of the body, the breath, the breath through the skin, movement, change, all awareness needs to be held sacred. Nudity enhances the ability to stay mindfully in the moment, and each moment is a sacred place, as I know it. All of this experience is a path into a consciousness which is closer to “what is”, more God-like, closer to source, there are many different words for it. I have learned this and also discovered that it is an ancient knowledge and practice. There is primal understanding, healing and there is a special being, a form of peace. Being nude is like a key to opening a door to another world, or existence.”
 
I have come to see this activity as a right, something very fundamental. Karla spoke of animals in a zoo with a purpose. I assume she meant the imposed purpose. It would seem that our purpose is to live and discover what we are hardwired to do as any other animal. Modern man could be in a zoo, in so far as his or her life is structured, to serve in its context of social and economic order, the most evident is city life. This is far removed from our more primitive and natural awareness and consciousness. We are in a newly made confinement that requires us to be removed from much of our nature and be in adherence to something that becomes more evident when it is discovered to be gone.

 Like the great working elephant that has been attached to a small rope and post for its life, it has no idea that there is more to its ability and that it could just walk away. It is trapped by its own belief, not the reality. Clothing is such a trap, supporting belief and in most cases it obscures the idea that there is anything else, but what we know. To stand naked on a remote hill, bare feet on the ground and take a deep breath, feel the air, smell raw nature’s aroma, hear the wind or maybe even better, hear nothing, know the release and joy of just being, without imposition, to appreciate, all of this and more at the same time, something innate is reborn. This, something is exposed in much of Stuart and Karla’s photography. Such an experience is also only a beginning, but like the sense that it gives us, there is an infinite potential for more beyond this. We are being robbed. This is not something to be found sitting in a lounger at a resort with a beer in hand. Free-range naturism, for me, is justice being discovered.

The more that I experience free-range nudity and being, the more I have been able to bring this awareness  in the moment back with me to the more mundane world. This consciousness when nude sweetens the world, making each moment richer, although, at times more frustrated, or dissatisfied, especially when in my cage clothed.

Secret naturism is a rebellious and just act.

[jbeegoode]

Oops!

[balead]

I remember when we couldn't agree on an exact definition of "secret naturism". It seems to me that Jbee is right:-

For me, freerange naturism is a bolder and broader approach than conventional nudism, which encompasses secret naturist tactics by necessity.

They both mean naturism that is outside designated areas, so they are basically the same.

[reubenT]

I occupy a similar position on it as Duane.   Mind conditioning from early life combined with a desire to not be perceived as perverted by others makes me afraid to be seen by anyone who is not expecting nakedness.      Although I wouldn't have a problem associating/being seen with/by those who do expect it and won't misjudge me.  Therefore I enjoy freedom from covering in work and pleasure only where other people are not expected to be.  Off trails or on the logging roads that I know aren't used by anyone more than a few times a year,  in isolated work sites.  I'll even walk naked on the ridge road which gets a vehicle maybe once a day or once in several days at times,  but I keep my ears tuned for noise so I can step off the road into the brush if someone comes by,    before they see me.      It's not really a big deal,  since the difference between light breathable shorts which are acceptable and nothing which isn't acceptable to many,  is minimal.    I feel the difference and like the freedom of feeling that wearing nothing brings.   But I can accept the slight difference when it makes others more comfortable around me, since that much doesn't make any real temperature difference.    But I don't believe in wearing more than that when it's hot and humid,  I get too hot real fast when wearing much more in our summer conditions.   And ultimately I want my own private greenhouse that I can work and hang out in naked every day all winter without issue. 

  Off I go;  got a few hours of stump digging to do with the track hoe in the back side of a large clearing back in the woods,   that's one job I can do without clothing except when I have some help. 

[nuduke]

As for this “free range” website, I see it as inclusive of us of TSNS

Yes, Jbee well put indeed.  I agree with you and Karla - Free Range, I think, means simply wandering anywhere one can as opposed to social naturists who are confined within the boundaries of a naturist club.  Possibly 'Confined Naturism' is also what I and Bob do a majority of i.e. naked within the confines of one's own private property.  I would endorse the opinion that all Free Range naturists in the UK and US are also Secret Naturists, because we have to be.  To illustrate this, think of the opposite - Steve Gough.  He tries to be Free Range and not Secret. ... And look what happens!

…one of which became a "brick & mortar?" friend. …
"Brick and mortar!" I think that defining TSNS to that might be too extreme.

I think, and indeed hope, that Duane is referring to me here and our face to face flesh and blood (well, no blood, just BEER) meeting last September.  In this new forum let me say that meeting Duane after years of virtual correspondence and indeed JBee and DF just a few days before, was an utterly brilliant, utterly positive and wonderful opportunity.  Sadly pressure of keeping to the busy tour we were on meant we only had an evening with jbee and DF and just an hour or so with Duane.  But I can sincerely assert that they were precious and golden moments.  Having been corresponding for years the bricks and mortar meetings were not a first introduction - we sort of just carried on the conversation wherever we had left it online! 

I am also attracted by Duane's speculation that being in the bourne of this forum may expand our horizons a bit of we encounter new people with new perspectives.

John

[nuduke]

For myself, I am closer to the form of the world and universe when nude. I am better in touch. I notice the connection and discover how this body is infinite in ways that I could never conceive otherwise. I find gratitude, pure and also focused on miracles everywhere, when exposed and nude. I am better aware of energies that are hidden to many. My body moves and functions in a more natural spontaneous mode, gathering health and knowing better what blessings are here for me. I hold this all sacred.  There is better sense of the body, the breath, the breath through the skin, movement, change, all awareness needs to be held sacred. Nudity enhances the ability to stay mindfully in the moment, and each moment is a sacred place, as I know it. All of this experience is a path into a consciousness which is closer to “what is”,

Gosh I wish I experienced the world as spiritually as you do, jbee.  I think I do touch the surface and see ripples on the deep pools that you swim in but I don't dive and plumb their depths as you seem to do.  Poetic, m'boy.  The quote's on my screensaver!

John

[eyesup]

I am also attracted by Duane's speculation that being in the bourne of this forum may expand our horizons a bit of we encounter new people with new perspectives.

John Dunne wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main."  I read somewhere, years ago, a comment that modified that slightly to, "Every man IS an island but there is no limit to how many bridges he can build."

I tend to be drawn to the latter idea.  Traveling and meeting people from all over is always a treat. You never know who you're gonna meet and what you're gonna discuss. Forums like this are the next best thing to traveling.

Duane