Through a Naturist Lens

It’s Sunday morning here on the Canadian prairies. It rained a bit overnight, not enough but at least the dust has settled. The forecast is for another shower later this morning and then tonight when we are sleeping. It’s a good time for taking some time to think about things in general. For me, the thoughts are turning to this whole idea of blogging to the naturist community.

I have a dependable, but small number of followers who show their support. I guess I could call you my community of like-minded souls. In truth, you are the reason that the blog site continues to exist. I am not thinking of taking down the blog site, so don’t worry about it suddenly disappearing.

Somehow, over the past few days, my viewer numbers skyrocketed. My typical viewer visits hover around fifty per day. On June 6th I had 122 visits, on June 7th I had 1023 visits, on June 8th there were 528 visits, and a day later there were 184 visits. At the same time, I was inundated with hordes of porn accounts following me on Twitter – I blocked and reported as usual. However, it does bother me that this is necessary. Will a few of the new visitors find something of value other than hopefully seeing a penis? Hopefully yes. I seriously can’t think of any man or woman actually getting excited seeing any of my images.

Okay, enough with the Sunday thinking. It’s time for me to make breakfast.

Okay, I am a man. Not so long ago, I wrote about the male gaze. Then, I wondered if there was such a thing as the female gaze. My research took me to someplace I didn’t expect. The female gaze is about women looking at women, not at men. Of course women do look at men, but not in the same way. So much for a male’s proud display of his “assets.”

My wife confirmed this, sort of, with a comment about why she takes time to dress well and do her hair, etc. Since she knows that I love how she looks regardless of whether or not she is in very casual clothes or dressed to kill, she tells me she dresses for being seen by others, specifically by women. Women evaluate each other, perhaps more than men evaluate women. Why? Perhaps it is about comparing oneself to others because one is self-critical. I won’t speculate any further as that is something women need to answer, if an answer is to be found.

Yet, women do look at men in terms of deciding whether or not a man is suitable for a relationship, for mating; or more suitable to remain a friend or just as an acquaintance. When it comes to relationship material, the hair, the head, and the butt are the primary zones of interest. When it comes to the penis which men feel is vital to their identity, here is what one woman said in relationship to this:

“Penis-obsession is a male thing, not a female thing. The reason we don’t like unsolicited dick picks from random strangers is that penises, to be frank, just aren’t that attractive. Disembodied penises even less so.“

During the years that I spent in China, I learned that women chose mates with no regard for their looks or their physical assets. A career, a place to live [apartment], transportation [car preferred], and social status were the primary factors to be considered. Though I was in my sixties walking down the street with my wife beside me, a young woman hit on me suggesting that I should divorce me wife and marry her. There had to be at least a 40 year age gap. I had one extra qualification – I was a foreigner. It was an ego boost until I realised that they didn’t really see me. I was just a projection. I was objectified.

Men objectify women and women objectify men. It happens and it is predominantly a biological response. One sees it in the animal world, especially with birds who strut their stuff hoping to be chosen by a female who is ready to mate and procreate. I doubt that the male gaze can be eliminated as it is necessary for the survival of the species. However, I do think that men can behave better, much better.

I still gaze at my wife and I do catch her gazing at me. Like I said, it is hardwired into our bodies. That we still enjoy gazing in our seventies is a blessing, not a curse.

Well, so much for a third free-hike this year. The wind is gusting to more than 50 km/hr and the sun is playing peek-a-boo with most of the time spent hiding behind clouds. There was even several minutes of showers during the morning. This afternoon, the possibility of storms is growing stronger. The last thing I need is to find myself miles from nowhere where trees are strangers to the environment in a storm that could include hail. So, I stayed close to home today.

My project of turning my book, A Small Company of Pilgrims into an audio book is causing me all kinds of stress and agony. In order to make it work, I find myself rewriting the story so that sentences are shorter and more concise. A few nights ago I had tried recording the first chapter at least five times with none of them working for me. I kept eliminating words or changing them in hopes that I could get a better flow. After the fifth time, I decided to rewrite the complete chapter. In the process, I think the book is becoming better. The test will come when I try to record that chapter when time allows in the next two days.

On a side note, I did get out for a second free-hike, a shorter hike of just over five kilometres. I was too tired to walk more as I had already had a good countryside walk with my wife, wearing shorts of course. Still, even though it was shorter, it was worth it. More free hikes will happen in the weeks and months to come.

Of course, my life isn’t lived always nude. I do have to go out into public. Such was the case yesterday when I travelled to the city in order to do another hearing test. I wear hearing aids and I get free annual hearing tests and hearing aid cleaning from the place I bought the hearing aids. It is what it is and I much prefer hearing what is being said, or when sitting on my deck listening to birds that seem to enjoy the water fountains and bird baths I have in the backyard.

My hearing loss wasn’t due to aging. I blame the standing on stage with big speakers flanking me while I played guitar and sang with assorted bands. I also blame the sound of my rifle made when I went target shooting or hunting. I didn’t wear protective hearing gear. I didn’t even know that such gear existed. In case you are wondering, I don’t hunt anymore. I gave my rifles to my grandsons and they repay me with occasional venison from their own hunts.

I’m a bit late with getting in my first free hike of the year and I blame it on the weather. Whenever it has been warm enough, there had been strong winds. I want to enjoy hiking au naturel, not simply do it just to say I have done it. I guess that is the guiding principle of anything and everything naturist – do it because it feels good and gives you pleasure. There are no ribbons or trophies to win by simply shedding your clothing. That said, I should get back to my naked journey of seven kilometres this morning.

I drove to the end of a dirt road and parked my small truck. I left my shorts and shirt in the truck as it was very highly unlikely that I would meet anyone once I began my hike. I opened a gate to enter an alfalfa field which would allow me to begin climbing the hills at the edge of the hay field. One of the things one needs to deal with when hiking in the prairies, is the presence of ticks. When I hike nude, I find that I rarely have an issue with ticks. As a result, I can allow my mind to relax and just enjoy being present.

It was cool when the sun disappeared behind a cloud, a coolness accented by the breeze that reminded me that I wasn’t wearing clothing. It’s strange how one adapts to cooler temperatures much better when there is no clothing between the skin and the air. It didn’t take me long to reach the hills and climb. I scared up large jackrabbits as I climbed, descended, climbed again, and skirted little bluffs of short brush.

I watched where I placed my steps as there were scattered rocks, golfer holes that could result in a twisted ankle or worse, and cactus thorns close to the ground, thorns sharp enough and long enough to pierce the soles of running shoes. As a hiker familiar with the prairie hills, I was well aware of my steps.

Once I completed a loop of the hills, I returned to a distant point and made my way back to my truck where my shorts and shirt waited patiently. It was time to leave as the skies had turned darker and threatened at least a shower. It was a good first free hike of the year.

The wind has faded and is now a light breeze. The young leaves on the trees are rustling rather than clinging onto their branches as if in danger of being ripped off by one of the powerful gusts that have become normal. The temperature this morning stands at 8° Celsius with tiny openings in the cloud cover to allow stray pools of sunshine to appear. It’s a good day to be alive.

A passing half ton truck raises a cloud of dust. A young boy cycles down the sidewalk headed toward the school, too early for classes, yet still in a hurry. Across the street, a small torn Canada flag gently flutters against the dividing wall that separates two apartments. There is a quietness that returns with the passing of the truck. This is a typical early morning outside of my window.

Filling my coffee cup, I walk to the microwave oven to be reheated. It has been more than two hours since I brewed the coffee. I woke just before five this morning as usual. When the sky lightens, my body responds as though being called to witness the birth of a new day. Taking the hot coffee out into the yard, despite the chill that is still in the air, I settle into an old plastic lawn chair to listen to sparrows, grackles, a solitary dove, and occasional warbler. The finches have left but will return in a few weeks.

I don’t rush drinking my coffee. At my age, it is enough to just be able to experience morning coffee outside without suffering any aches and pains. I’m not in a hurry to lose this morning.

I can tell we are back home because of the wind. Our time away from home was a time that was basically without wind. When we left home more than a week ago, we left the wide open spaces of the prairies for woodlands, forests, meadows, and occasional rain showers. Our home on the prairies continued to experience drought and wind. I have to admit, it gets tiring.

I am not sure when I can get out for an enjoyable long hike in the hills, as it is dependent upon the wind. It is impossible to enjoy hiking in the hills with strong winds buffeting blowing bits and pieces of nature onto one’s body. As a result, I am left with sheltered corners in my yard, or other sheltered areas when outdoors.

A return to home is also a return to writing, and that includes posting here. Over the next while I hope to spend a lot of time producing my first audiobook. The hardest part is beginning, an act that involves choosing which book to start the process. I am torn between a stand-alone novel and the Pilgrim series. If all goes well, I will eventually turn all of the books into audiobooks. Before I do anything, I need to go and make myself a mug of tea.

Well, it has been a very adventurous week with my daughter and her family. Monday we stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and did some hiking in the badlands canyons, the Painted Canyon trail. The next morning we stopped at the Yellowstone Hot Springs pools in Corwin Springs for a few hours of relaxing in the hot springs before going on to Yellowstone National Park and a visit to the Mammoth Hot Springs before heading to West Yellowstone to our rented cabin.

The next three days were packed with hiking and visiting geysers in all forms. Naturally, Old Faithful, the Firehole Lake Trail, the Canyon Village and an assortment of falls kept us occupied so that our days were packed to the limit so that we ended each day exhausted. Our last day was spent without our daughter’s family as they went for a white-water rafting adventure. We went for a 17 km hike along and old freight road that took us to the Grand Prismatic Spring.

The hike was quite memorable as we twice had to share the trail with bison. This bison was totally disinterested in me and didn’t want to leave his munching. We were very slow in edging our way around him. We got to see a lot of animals in the park and on our journey there and home. Elk, antelope, deer, pheasants, and more.

The holiday is over and it is time to get back to writing and enjoying as much of my life lived nude as possible.

Grandson number 4 graduated today. Since he lives eleven hours by car from my home, it involved a full day of travel to get to his home. Yesterday it was all about a garden social with some of his classmates and their parents in my daughter’s backyard. Today, the grad ceremony took front and centre with all sorts of photos taken at the site and then in the front yard to celebrate the event and record it for posterity.

For the next week we will be touring together, first with time spent at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Then, next Saturday, I will begin making my way back to my home on the prairies. Naturist time? Non-existent and that is more than okay with me. a full life isn’t defined by clothing or its lack. Still, if the world was different, I would enjoy more opportunities to shed my clothing.

But not to worry, back home I will return to a large part of my life and my writing lived au naturel. Hopefully by then, the contributors to the “male gaze” series will have sent me their material which will provide me with a number of intriguing posts.

Though I am a naturist and I am comfortable around other people who are unclothed and refrain from sexualising my nudity or their nudity, I am a man who has sex on my brain. I am drawn to women and not to men. But to be more precise, I am not usually sexually attracted to some women who are often strangers. Thankfully, this all happens within my head and doesn’t get acted upon. I have my sex drive under control.

Now, as most of my readers know, I have a life partner who is a woman. I am fortunate in that despite being together since 1970, we still find sexual satisfaction in each other on a regular basis. In between, we find it difficult to be apart – sight, sound, and touch reaffirm connection. So, why do I find myself drawn to other women, especially those who are found more in cyberspace than in my local, real world?

Simple answer – I am a man. My dreams and fantasies are about women. For those women who are in my local world, those dreams and fantasies remain unexpressed and are not acted upon.

Why? Well, those dreams and fantasies are not really about those women but about my inner world and my psyche. There is a separation between inner world and outer world. When the ego refuses to accept an inner world, there is difficulty in containing those dreams and fantasies. Unwanted advances, sometimes even rape, sexual innuendo or verbal comments that are unwelcome are often the products of that lack of self-awareness.

As I wrote those words, I thought of other options. There are many other options. Some people are polyamorous, some are bisexual, some as couples simply like to experiment with others whom they trust. None of these options are wrong. Self respect and respect for others are vital in approaching other options. It can’t only be about pleasing “self.” Focus on just pleasing self reduces the “other” to being an object rather than an equal partner.

If one is only focusing on self, then those thoughts must be kept internalised – or taken to a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, or psychiatrist in order to safely come to terms with what is boiling under the surface of the ego.

I went to Puerto de Chuburná, a small Yucatecan fishing village in Mexico, in January of 2009.  on one side of Chuburná was the Gulf of Mexico, on the other side of the village was an estuary, a salt-water swampland.  I had gone to this corner of Mexico to get away from the cold Canadian winter hoping to enjoy an extra three months of summer. That was all. There was no other intention. I would write, take photos, get a tan, and all would be well with the world.

The heat, the sea, and the swampland; put all these elements together and I was ripe for some major alchemical work, a process of transformation.  The Mayan ruins, the birds, the iguanas, and the Mayan added other key elements into this alchemical cauldron. 

But it was the mangrove laguna which held both the fear and the hope for my inner journey.  Because of the fear, it took me two weeks before I dared to approach the swamp. Until then, I stood carefully the end of a broken and paved narrow highway that led out into the swamp. Why? Why the swampland? Why was it in the mangrove swamps where I finally dared to shed my clothes in the outer world and those barriers between my conscious self and all the unconsciously repressed stuff of my past?

There came a time in my life, when continuing the daily patterns, the carefully constructed career and lifestyle of my outer world became more than just problematical.  Something was causing a pervasive pressure, something coming from a dark place, an unknown place.  My sense of self was suffering “dis-ease.” 

Sleep was difficult, and when it came, dreams disturbed those precious hours so that there was no respite, no escape from the darkness that shifted beneath my awareness, something ominous at the edges.  Fear began to creep into ordinary, everyday moments. There was a real fear that others would see the shadows that surround me, sense the loss of belief, the loss of hope. 

This was a call to a life of meaning had been sounded deep within my soul.  Would the “self,” the core of my being respond to the call?  Or would I dig in deeper into the way life has been planned and ignore the call? I chose, or rather my psyche chose to answer the call? When my clothing fell off in the swampland, that was my answer. My intuition overrode my ego which was telling me to behave and maintain the persona that was crumbling. I had a choice and I took it.

If I hadn’t answered the call I would have shrivelled like a raisin in the sun. Yes, that was said deliberately. I know people who didn’t answer the call. They are ghosts of their old selves. Many of them are bitter despite their material wealth.

And your journey? Be warned, everything and everyone you hold dear will be challenged. Everything will be at risk even your sanity. Now, sometimes it might seem like there is a choice, but there is always a choice. A word of advice, if you are going to answer the call that is requiring you to enter into the shadowy inner world of your soul, it might be a good idea to take a guide.