Through a Naturist Lens

It has been quite quiet for me the past few days. I have to admit that it had nothing to do with Easter weekend gatherings or celebrations. Like last Easter, we were home alone. Traditionally, my second child brings her family to our home for Easter or we travel to her place in the USA. Borders are still closed and we haven’t been face-to-face with them since 2019.

It has been a long time and it is responsible for some of my depression. I have been quiet because of the depression. What I have noticed that in response to my quietness, those whom I could call my social media friends have also been silent. Is one responsible for the other? I will never know unless I ask, and even then, it would be unlikely that even that more than one or two would answer the question.

Along the way, I wondered about my presence on social media. Am I really seen? I can say without any doubt that a very small number that could be counted on one hand, are real friends. The rest? Most would likely be categorised as positive-minded acquaintances. It is no different in my face-to-face world.

Aside from family, how many of us have more than one handful of real friends? How do we know that they are friends? For me, it is has to do with a thought. If a person is on my mind, a pleasant thought, without being present in f2f interaction or social-media interaction, then I consider that friendship is real.

Yes, I do think of some of you who are likely reading this post are real. Because of past interactions and the passage of time seeing the interactions and dialogue continue, friendship begins to grow. With those interactions, a level of trust begins to emerge. Small tests, conscious or unconscious, of friendship either weakens friendship or strengthens friendship. The more the dialogue continues, the more friendship is tested.

It’s like f2f life. Some people are good friends in small doses, and others are more than welcome to fill in a larger part of one’s life. Friendship, for me becomes stronger when I can note the differences and yet feel the strength of shared values tilting friendship into a more vibrant level.

And then, silence descends, be it because of life’s circumstances or depression or … . A friendship doesn’t begin to slip away in the silence. And strangely, as I continue to learn, a few voices pierce the silence, unexpected voices. These unexpected voices shift my reality. I can hear/sense that I have become visible in a positive manner. It doesn’t mean friendship, but it does contain the seeds for a possible friendship should life on both sides of that nucleus provide for nurturing that possibility. One just never knows.

Just a final note. I wonder how many of you would see me as a real friend, or somewhere along the continuum of a positive acquaintance to friendship?

There is no question that naturists become vulnerable when they shed their clothing. There is a world which surrounds a naked person which more often than not, will judge and attempt social, economic, psychological, and sometimes physical harm. Knowing this, most naturists [or whatever you want to call people who feel more at home with themselves while nude] create safe spaces within which they can be themselves, be authentic. Within their homes with draperies closed, in private garden spaces where such exist, in gated communities, in abandoned bits of nature – there we believe we are safe.

We find others with whom we share the same value for authenticity and nudity. After all, they have dared to be as vulnerable as us. Because of the shared value of nudity, a level of trust was given. With a community, the sense of being alone and isolated because of our nudity was lessened. Naturists share easily with each other based on the trust of a shared philosophy. With real-life experiences expanding our sense of community, moments with others shared at beaches or events at naturist venues, our personal well-being blossoms. We begin to like ourselves better, our bodies and our psyche. We accept others more easily without judging them based on appearances.

For some, that community is extremely limited, if it exists at all, in the face-to-face world. Social media sites, like Twitter, Facebook, MeWe, and cyber-gated communities such as Naturist Community and Naktiv [Nook] provide the needed sense of community and belonging. Because they are social media sites, there isn’t the same level of trust. Though there are images that proclaim the named as being naturist or nudist, the only certainty is that not everyone is whom they tell us they are.

It takes time to give trust. That trust only comes through dialogue. Needless to say, computer-mediated dialogue is less trustworthy than face-to-face dialogue. Missing are all the non-verbal cues we rely on to decode the real messages behind the words that appear on the screen. Yet, over time as we got to build trust, and we risk posting photos. And as expected, sometimes that trust backfires.

Somewhere along the way, we build attachments with these strangers turned into friends. Whether we do so in the face-to-face world or in the world of social media, these attachments bring the unspoken, sometimes unknown baggage of complex and complexed humans. Entering into relationship is always a risky venture. Though we know someone for years, there are somethings that don’t appear until one enters into a significant relationship. We all have complexes and triggers that set off those complexes.

Very few among us are aware of our own complexes. We only become aware that we aren’t okay when someone triggers one or more of our complexes. The storm that arises catches both parties in a relationship by surprise. Typically both parties blame the other for the storm. This is the same situation that exists for naturists or those that almost never expose themselves fully, even to their significant other, except in the heat of sexual passion.

However, for naturists, the issue of vulnerability increases the sense of unease and fear when confronted by these “storms.” Face-to-face storms rock the foundations of one’s psyche more intensely. Moving past these storms requires communication, a willingness to expose the hidden psychological inner warts and scars. That dialogue can rebuild trust. A lack of communication eats away at trust. Without trust, we are left wounded and alone.

There is a shadow side to being nude, wanting to be nude, even needing to be nude. Nudity isn’t a simple thing for most of us. There are a few who have found themselves private, gated communities where it is possible to live nude indoors and outdoors without having the eyes of of a disapproving community ready to pass judgment and likely call the authorities.

Yet for most of us, this is not a scenario that is possible, and it is very difficult to change where we live because of a host of real-life situations. By necessity, being nude is carefully timed and placed. And, when we dare to be seen, we often are conscious about what is seen and what is left to the imagination of those viewing our nudity.

One of the realities that most of us live with is that neighbours, work places, social-outing venues [when the world reopens after Covid19] such as pubs, restaurants, theatres, shopping centres, campgrounds, lakes and beaches, even walks through parks is the real world prohibitions about doing any of these things while nude. Nudity is not a natural or accepted state of dress. And in most places on the planet, it is illegal.

Life in our own homes is navigated with care, especially if nudity makes a partner or housemate uneasy. Going out into one’s own yard is fraught with tension that is partially relieved only if a high privacy fence is put in place. A privacy fence is only useful if the neighbouring houses can’t see into the yard. With taller homes, windows on upper floors make the privacy fences useless. For those living in apartments or condos or other variations of lodgings, there is almost no opportunity to be outside, even on balconies, while nude.

The best that can happen is to be able to look through the window, longingly, without being spotted by a person on the outside. No one said that this was ever going to be easy, yet still we persist.

We often hear about normalising nudity and how natural nudity is for naturists and nudists and other folk who plain enjoy being clothing free. Yet, the question remains, just how natural is nudity in our modern world? We hear responses such as “we are all born naked” and “we are all naked beneath our clothes.” However, that still begs the question. More responses come about bathing and showering while nude. There, we can safely assume that this is a truth, at least for most of the developed world. In the shower or in the tub, it is normal to be clothed in our bare skin.

There are no sexual connotations about taking a shower when solo or without an audience. Yet, should one post an image such as this one, the radars of the nude police are activated and knee-jerk reactions kick in. Regardless of the naturalness of the scene, it is too much for many people to cope with.

That unconscious response is nothing new. I remember an image from the late sixties of Frank Zappa sitting on a toilet. Though we all sit on toilets, the image wasn’t taken to portray a natural life scene, it was taken to promote Zappa’s first concert in 1967. If anything, the poster was a protest of disdain.

It definitely had nothing to do with sexual titillation. The poster was in my home along with a number of his albums with the Mothers of Invention. I did get to see him in Edmonton in the winter of 1970-71. At the concert, Zappa pulled down his pants and urinated on the front row of the audience, much to their joy. I think everyone attending was stoned.

Another album in my collection was the Two Virgins album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Like Zappa’s image, the album cover had no sexual intent. It was a daring to be vulnerable. The two risked almost everything in their lives by daring to do the unthinkable.

The record sold well, but it had a brown paper bag hiding the album cover on the record racks. People didn’t take well to the image. It may portray a moment of naked trust, but that wasn’t and still isn’t, something that is acceptable.

Nudity is not normal in our world. For too many, even the thought of sleeping while nude with blankets hiding one’s nakedness, is too much to cope with. In our world, paradoxically, it is more acceptable to be nude in a porn flick [soft or hard porn] than it is to be nude during one’s normal day. Is the scene getting better as the years go by? Yes and No. The use of social media to attempt to normalise nudity has met with limited, but promising success.

Yet, more and more social media platforms are banning images that depict nudity even with all of the “sexual” bits unseen. For FB and its ilk, just the hint of nudity is enough to be banished from the platforms. Yet, in what can best be described as the “Internet Underground” there is a growing trend featuring images that are deliberately showing just how “natural” nudity can be.

For the foreseeable future, natural nudity will remain in the realm of deviant behaviour, with deviancy being defined as outside of normal societal behaviour.

What is it about a “selfie” that has so many people taking them? I turned to Psychology Today to see what they had to say about the selfie phenomenon. Here is what the author, Mark Griffiths, had to say, “the selfie is much more than a way to show your friends and family what you’ve been up to, or your new haircut or a celebrity that you’ve met, and it’s also the most efficient form of self-expression.” Also found in another article written by Griffiths was the reference to selfitis, which was also referred to as me, myself-itis:

“… the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had classed “selfitis” as a new mental disorder. According to the author, the organization had defined selfitis as “the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy”.

Now, to be fair there are a number of positives posited which Griffiths points out:

• Self-confidence (e.g. taking selfies to feel more positive about oneself)
• Environmental enhancement (e.g. taking selfies in specific locations to feel good and show off to others)
• Social competition (e.g. taking selfies to get more “likes” on social media)
• Attention seeking (e.g. taking selfies to gain attention from others)
• Mood modification (e.g. taking selfies to feel better)
• Subjective conformity (e.g. taking selfies to fit in with one’s social group and peers)

What does that mean for those who take nude self-portraits or selfies, a distinction that I need to clarify before going on? A self-portrait is an image taken by a photographer with the intent to convey a message. Though selfies are usually taken with a smartphone, they can also be taken with a DSLR, so it is not about the camera. The image above was intentional for the purpose of this blog post. There is a message imbedded in the image. Yet, most would call the image a selfie because it was taken using a smartphone and a mirror. The lines between selfie and self-portrait become blurred.

I can see and understand that there is indeed, subjective conformity as suggested by Griffiths. I post images here [rarely anywhere else] knowing that I am in a community comprised of readers who are choosing to come to this site and read my blog posts. I am sharing links to these posts on Twitter as well. There is a naturist community on Twitter that doesn’t focus on the idea of nudity equating with sexual activity.

As for attention seeking and/or mood modification, that may or may not be part of the rationale for taking and posting a selfie. Not all photos taken are posted. Likely for most within this community, my guess would be that only a fraction of the photos taken ever get posted, especially by those who are legitimately called photographers. Social competition? The race to garner more likes? That is another hard question to answer. It all comes down to the intention. Is the intention to grow the community? To inspire others to adopt yoga into their lives in order to have a healthier life? The intention is important. As my readers soon learn, my intention is to go beneath the skin, to look at the human psyche.

And there is another reason that I find that merits consideration. Those taking these nude self-portraits are creating a record over the years. Photos tell a person a lot about themselves. There is an authenticity with the nude photos that can’t be matched when one hides behind clothing, styles, activities, and locations. The journey of self-discovery is not an easy journey.

With all of that said, why do you take and post selfies? Or, equally as important, why don’t you take and post selfies? What are your motivations? What role does fear play in either path taken? Is there an element of defiance or hint of excitement? The questions are many. It’s your turn to talk.

Most people see the world in glorious colours. Some see the world in shades of black, white and greys. It takes a special sort of mind to enter into a zone of altered consciousness that somehow fits between the normal scenes of life. Other times, it takes a quirk in a camera light sensor to find that flimsy veil that separates normal reality from the unusual.

The veil between realities is thin. What is trapped in the collective unconscious has an opportunity to journey into the world of the collective ego at this time. Nice people become less nice. And for the most part, they are unaware of the shades of darkness that have been awakened in them. Jekyll’s become Hydes – “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde“. Well meaning people become bullies. Mob hysteria becomes a common occurrence. Logic is nowhere to be found. Try to match the conundrum of “prolife” with “stand your ground.” It just doesn’t work. The idea of trying to control women’s vaginas while protesting laws that limit personal freedoms don’t fit together, yet they are held as though sacrosanct truths.

And then there is the other side to acknowledge. At the same time as there is darkness seeping into our collective consciousness, there is a increase in light for a growing number of people. Somehow, an awareness of self is allowing more people to discover the authenticity of themselves. That awareness of self serves to have them become immune to the growing darkness and to be beacons of light for others who are caught at the edges.

Naturism is part of the light. I use the word naturism with hesitancy because it has been co-opted by too many for darker purposes. Removing one’s clothing reveals a person who has otherwise been hidden. And not always is that a good thing. Removing clothing is only a beginning, one of many beginnings that feeds a person’s psyche to take yet another step to being authentic and self-aware.

Welcome to an alternate universe .

I am using a photo that was taken a year ago, March 21, 2020. I was in Ecuador which was in lockdown. The prospect of being able to make it home to Canada was bleak as our flights back to Canada had been cancelled by the airlines. No flights into or out of Ecuador were permitted by any airline. Even domestic passenger flights had been cancelled. A week later, the repatriation flights arrived and we were eventually able to return to our home.

I have to admit that the winter we have just spent in our home on the Canadian prairies, the North American version of Siberia, has been much, much better than I would have hoped to have experienced. The one thing I did miss was the ability to be outdoors while nude with temperatures that were all about summer. Yet, I didn’t lack for nudity in the past twelve months here on the Canadian prairies. A new fireplace and enforced social isolation meant that I didn’t need to wear clothing for the majority of each day. And now, that is about to change.

With Covid19 vaccines now available, I get my first jab in less than two weeks, the need for social distancing will ease, and with that, more time with neighbours and family who are not part of my naturist life experiences. They all know, but are quick to tell me that this nudity stuff is not their thing. I will still have opportunities to be clothing free, just not as often. And that is okay. I will still have more opportunities to be nude on the prairies than I did in either Mexico or Ecuador, two countries which were my winter home for the past eight years. It is getting better.

Still, I wonder where and when I will once again find a tropical paradise to call my winter home, a place where nudity will not be too sorely restricted.

Today I want to talk about being a writer, a poet, a maker of alternate universes. And naturally, I will draw on my own understandings, not necessarily truths. First, what is it that drives a person to write? It can’t be the idea of making money, though that is what does inspire works that are more about following templates than allowing what is deep within a person to emerge as art. I say this without trying to demean pulp fiction. Those stories fill a need, a fantasy that steers one away from one’s own depths, something that is too painful for many would-be readers. I want to talk about myself as a reader and writer, more specifically as a writer.

I read while clothing-free. Reading is a solitary event unless one is reading to a young child, or someone who is disabled in some form or other. Why one reads is unique to each individual, and even different from time to time for an individual. It takes a certain frame of mind to read blogs such as mine, or what I will call serious books.

“One cannot compose a poem when one is too involved in life, for outer existence affords too much gratification: there is no need to do or say anything original. … Nevertheless, the experience of solitude is a vital factor -necessary if not sufficient- for artistic expression.”

These words were written by Aldo Carotenuto in his book, Eros and Pathos, in a chapter called Solitude and Creativity. The book is seen in the photo to the right. Solitude is not necessarily a state of being which demands the absence of others. Much of my poetry was written while I was busy with life as a father, husband and teacher. Despite their presence in my life, there were many, many hours when they were in bed when an inner solitude pulled me to plunge deeper into the depths and expose the rawness within. More recent poems, as found in my Naked Poetry series, found a different level of creativity.

Being in a relationship does get in the way of writing, as Carotenuto mentions above. When life is filled with the relationship -hiking, activity, socialising, shared moments- the head is pulled into the outer world. An example from my life would be the week I spent at my son’s home taking care of the two youngest grandchildren. Outer life was filled from morning to night. There was no pull to write. My reading switched to a SciFi fantasy that didn’t demand any thinking. And sleep, filled the rest of my time.

Now that I am at home, there are hours when solitude presents itself. There is space and time for solitude. And with solitude, the journey inward appears in bits and pieces. And, in turn, the story that I am writing takes a turn further inward and downward. I am now beginning chapter 9, where the main characters are preparing to enter into an alternate reality, the world of gods and goddesses. Their mission is to discover the source of soul, the life force that animates. Mother Earth and Father Sky, the eternal relationship that has the two parent the world. Masculine and feminine circle each other for eternity, constantly attempting to unite as one. Though we expend so much of our energy in pursuit of that submersion into “other” we can never escape our skin. We can never become other. The other can never become us. Now, with that said, here are the first few sentences of chapter nine.

The Underworld – “You’ll follow me,” Zuhre told Meghan and Bruce. As she took a step through the moon gate, Bruce saw the framed space begin to shimmer in the darkness. Meghan followed Zuhre while Bruce hesitated.

“Our individual development depends on realizing that others cannot understand our experience.” I chose this quote to begin this post as I have constantly throughout the decades tried my damndest to have others understand me, my thoughts-ideas, and my orientation to naturism. That is a problem with my typology which has me focus on others almost from the word “go!” In an attempt to have others as the focus, I lost sight of what I was trying to do and basically passed on my own, individual development. Now, at the age of 70+ I see that most of us are oriented to twisting ourselves like pretzels in order to accommodate others. This is a problem.

What do you want for yourself? What do you perceive that you need for yourself? How do you take care of yourself? How do you achieve a basic level of satisfaction for being alive and on this planet? If any of your answers include an “other” then you are diverting the focus from yourself to an “other.” An example of this can be found in the photo above. I took this photo for my journal this morning. I wanted to capture the Buddha image and the fireplace in operation with my normal dress code in the morning. No “other” was involved in the image, nor was an “other” considered as a rationale for the image. It was for me, plain and simple.

When I typically add one of my images here, I consider “others.” That means I crop judiciously, or place the watermark in such a position to reduce potential tension in others. In doing so, the watermark becomes something different. Now, all of this is going on in my head. For the most part, no one cares one way or the other about the images I post here. What does have meaning, are the words used in the posts which the images act as visual illustrations. The posts that have something that connects with others receive likes and comments that have nothing to do with the images. Interesting.

So, here I am exposing myself to the world [well, the tiniest fraction of the world one can imagine] visually and ideologically. The screen stares back at me in silence, unmoved and disinterested. I intellectually know that once I hit the publish button, someone will read the words and see the image. Despite that intellectual knowledge, in exposing myself so intimately, I have removed myself from the collective, the norm. In effect, I am left with a feeling of heavy separateness – the focus on self equates with a real loss of others.

Naturists/Nudists – whatever the hell we want to call ourselves, know that in daring to be an individual – transparent, authentic, flawed, scarred, different, unique – we suffer the loss of others. Our social world contracts drastically. And so, we find ourselves putting on clothing even when weather and environmental conditions don’t require clothing, just so that we can be less alone.

Do any of these words resonate with you? I am listening.

I’m back home following an eight-day assignment of grandparenting so that my daughter-in-law could have time to work on her master’s level counselling degree program. Needless to say, I am exhausted. The two-year-old and a four-year-old were so time consuming and needy in comparison to their eleven-year-old brother. It was non-stop child care for the duration. It had been six months since we were last able to see the little ones during that time between first wave and second wave of Covid19.And, I wouldn’t have traded that for the world. If anyone ever wants to discover the ultimate meaning of life, it surely can be found in the hearts of children.

The six-hour drive was done in sunshine with not much wind. Once home, I was able to get a photo in celebration. Nudity is my natural state when at home. Now, back at home, I can once again hear silence. I woke up to a glowing fireplace that was ready for my presence. Coffee was ready and I became like some sort of cave-dwelling hermit meditating in front of a fire. And my meditations turned to what I would say here and the story that I am writing. You, my readers, are not forgotten.

On a different note, the Covid19 vaccine is coming to a town near me in the relatively new future. Before the spring is over, I expect that I will have had both my first and second doses of the vaccine since I am in my seventies, one of the endangered species among the human population [it is a calendar age thing, not a physical reality]. I have to admit that I am looking forward to the idea of being more “social.”

Since my neighbours are also in the same age bracket, once we have the jabs, we will be able to once again host each other for meals. It has been more than a year since I gave these neighbour friends a hug and received one in return. But, it has been worth it. Not one of us would have done well should we have broken the rules only to cause one or more of us the misery of becoming Covid19 statistics.