Nudity and Self Acceptance

[eyesup]

I was just reading an article from a couple years ago by an Australian reporter.
Nudity is the ultimate test of self-acceptance. Why are we so afraid of it?

It is a story about the author’s reactions to her naked visit to an art exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. She is commenting on the reaction of most people to being naked in public. In the 3rd paragraph there is a link to her personal reactions titled, “Skinny dipping in the void”. It was interesting to read her changing attitudes about a topless visit to a beach and the visit to the art show. I think the art visit was her 1st totally naked event.

It’s not naturism, but it is normal activities done by naked people in a public place. I think that it would have been an interesting experience.

Duane

[Greenbare Woods]

As for those afraid of criticism – who is in any place to judge? Nudity enlightens us to the fact that human beings, truly, come in all shapes and sizes, and bodies

I'm not afraid of being criticized for my body.  I am still cautious about being accosted and criticized by people an/or police. 

[nuduke]

Two interesting points from the article
1) Nudity illegal in Australia - surprising, with all their sun and coast, I would have thought they would be more emancipated.
2) Use of the word skyclad.  Always liked that expression.  Must remember to use it more in future!


John

[JOhnGw]

I think the term "skyclad" originated in Wikka.
I'll try to look up the references later unless somebody beats me to it.

[jbeegoode]

Going anyplace nude is a treat, particularly where you usually are not supposed to. It can be very tingly and liberating. I've traveled 120 miles to Phoenix to art shows. I'd do that for a good show nude, too. Anybody that sets that up, just let me know.
In fact, that would be a good project to pursue, if I get some time.

A club in LA set up one of these. When I showed the article to DF, her ears were all perked up.
Jbee

[jbeegoode]

I think the term "skyclad" originated in Wikka.
I'll try to look up the references later unless somebody beats me to it.

"A Witches Bible Complete" by Janet and Stewart Farrar was published in 1981, way before the internet. The term "skyclad" in that book, at that time, was referring to a practice and term that had been around way before. These two witches were stemming off from Gerald Gardner who started his path in 1939.

Perhaps wiki took the term from these roots and made them more mainstream, but I have been using the term, particularly in naturist skyclad worship, for decades. It has a certain flair and points to a concept of a more infinite direction, big sky, and oneness of the body in its nature.
Jbee

[JOhnGw]

I think the term "skyclad" originated in Wikka.
I'll try to look up the references later unless somebody beats me to it.

"A Witches Bible Complete" by Janet and Stewart Farrar was published in 1981, way before the internet. The term "skyclad" in that book, at that time, was referring to a practice and term that had been around way before. These two witches were stemming off from Gerald Gardner who started his path in 1939.

Perhaps wiki took the term from these roots and made them more mainstream, but I have been using the term, particularly in naturist skyclad worship, for decades. It has a certain flair and points to a concept of a more infinite direction, big sky, and oneness of the body in its nature.
Jbee

Silly typo by me - I meant Wicca, whe modern practice of pagan worship, probably founded sometime in the 1920'2.

[jbeegoode]

Ha! I am now apparently geared to the internet in my associations. Before Wiki I would have just read wicca with K's. Oh well, we made our point about the term skyclad.
Jbee

[Patrick1951]

Body acceptance was once an issue for me, only once! As funny as it maybe (considering my entire life as a naturist) when I joined a local club I saw all the posers and the very 'athletic types' that stole the attention, soon made me pause and ponder my own body. After about 24 hours including a sleepless night, I reverted to my 'Yorkshire' roots and took the attitude of "What You See Is What You Get" , the time wasted over my own 'body confidence' is consigned to history.
Just be happy, be as healthy as you can, just relax & be naturally naked.

[Greenbare Woods]

"A Witches Bible Complete" by Janet and Stewart Farrar was published in 1981, way before the internet. The term "skyclad" in that book, at that time, was referring to a practice and term that had been around way before. These two witches were stemming off from Gerald Gardner who started his path in 1939.

It is said that Gerald Gardner was a nudist before he started writing about Witchcraft (later called Wicca) in the 1940s.  It is sometimes argued that Wicca promotes skyclad because Gardner was a nudist.

[BlueTrain]

Sometimes, in the context of these and other discussions, it seems almost like a handicap not to arrive at nudism's door without body issues. I was skinny as a teenager but I never felt like that was a body issue is the sense that it's used here. I have never tanned at all, which I was also aware of, painfully so at time (redheads have that problem, you know), but I still didn't see that as a particular issue. Perhaps part of the reason that none of that or anything else was an issue was because I was going through school, in junior high and high school, when showers after gym were the rule, or at least the custom. I even swam nude in a college pool, although I wasn't a student there.

I wonder sometimes when I first became aware of nudism as a concept, as distinct from actually being outside somewhere nude, which I started doing early on. It may have been in college because that's when I first read nudist magazines. There was an explosion of nudist magazines around 1970, you know, and nothing was off limits then. Incredibly, it was my wife who introduced me to the early "Clothed with the sun" magazines. Now and then I still buy "N", as it is now but that's just about the only one I see at the one and only newsstand I visit. The only other one is Canadian and is half in French, so I don't buy that one.

[eyesup]

. . . it seems almost like a handicap not to arrive at nudism's door without body issues.

There's body issues and then there's naked body issues. Our culture is too closely linked to social status that too frequently relies on appearance for identification. So body issues related to appearance for social reasons might be different than naked body issues that are rooted in self esteem.

If you are 'arriving' then nudity, nudism, naturism etc., are not the norm. So it would be expected that there be some issues. I would be relaxed in a culture that didn't bat an eye at anyone's nudity anywhere anytime.

So many hobbles tied to us from birth. Everytime we cut one loose the load is a little lighter.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

I wonder sometimes when I first became aware of nudism as a concept, as distinct from actually being outside somewhere nude, which I started doing early on. It may have been in college because that's when I first read nudist magazines. There was an explosion of nudist magazines around 1970, you know, and nothing was off limits then. Incredibly, it was my wife who introduced me to the early "Clothed with the sun" magazines. Now and then I still buy "N", as it is now but that's just about the only one I see at the one and only newsstand I visit. The only other one is Canadian and is half in French, so I don't buy that one.

I became a member in 1985 for discounts and access to "Clothed in the Sun" mag. The information showed me where I could go. The articles snuck in and began to educate me and created a sense that it was another freedom movement.

I still have an old collection of the mag under Lee Baxandall's watch. It was a totally different magazine. Much more intellectualizing of the issues and less to be something for entertainment. More in-depth.
Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

I wonder sometimes when I first became aware of nudism as a concept, as distinct from actually being outside somewhere nude, which I started doing early on. It may have been in college because that's when I first read nudist magazines. There was an explosion of nudist magazines around 1970,

I first became aware of nudism as a concept at age 18 when staying in a resort cabin for a summer job.   The owner had a stack of 1950s nudist magazines.   It was also my first experience with pictures of naked women.  Nudist magazines in those years featured many more naked women than naked men.  Some of the photos showed men and women playing sports together.  In the small town where I grew up I just hadn't encountered the concept.  By end of summer I had done some skinny dipping in the lake with a local girl my age.

It was more than 20 year later before I found out how to contact any nudist group.   

Bob

[jbeegoode]

Those old nudist magazines were perceived by my young mind to just be poor excuses for Playboy. I never really saw them anywhere. I suppose because they came out of a time when they were used and even some created for such purposes.

I knew that they were talking about people being together naked in a camp, usually with a swimming pool. It was a nasty, intriguing and somehow exciting thought. That's what I knew, that's how my peers and myself saw the whole of this nudist business. Any nudity was sexy voyeurism.

About 15 or 16, some parents were away on a hot day and my girlfriend invited me upstairs to take a shower. Oh Boy! I was going to see it and touch it, and I had waited sooo long for this opportunity. She was already in, the curtains drawn, when I came in and began disrobing. All the while I was looking at her bikini sitting on the chair. "Oh Boy! She is really naked in there!"

It was disconcerting. It wasn't my fantasy. My turn-on, my ideas of what was going on were shattered. The nasty wasn't there. It was instead just a body, a lovely body, a natural body, a nice person was smiling at me, not a sex object a friend. There was some washing in places of interest, but generally it felt so surprisingly wholesome.

Naked would never be the same nasty thing again. A couple of years later, Woodstock's skinnydipping made sense to me, it was another right to be changed from a wrong that I saw in my rebellious 1960's.
Jbee