Well, that happened! Our world has just flexed its shadow and all is not well in the world. We now have the dark twins, Covid19 and the terrorizing right wing extremists running rampant in the world. No political landscape is escaping the pressure of the right wing which appears intent on collapsing all democratic governments in the world. With the real threat from Covid19, the right wing is able to escalate and draw more and more people under their umbrella. Covid19 is bad enough on its own.
I don’t want to talk about the USA, Canada, the UK, France, or any other country experiencing the toxicity of the upswelling of hate and fear that is being stoked by the right wing. Rather, I want to talk about individuals, and naturists in particular. After all, each of us needs to start there. The changes and the personal responses cause ripples in the fabric, the psychological and sociological fabric of the world. Perhaps, more importantly, individual change – defiance, resilience, and compassion – allows us to stay sane. We dare not give up hope. We dare not embrace the shadows or we become lost in those shadows, indistinguishable from those shadows. We become the enemy.
So, how can we do this? I can’t give you all of the answers. The truth is, we each have to find our own way forward. However, I can say what I am doing, and some of what others are doing to keep the light from being extinguished. The first thing for me to do was to draw my personal line in the sand. I am a naturist. I am a writer. I am a valid human. I am valued precisely because I am authentic, an authenticity that refuses to give up smiling and loving others.
I reject hate. However, in doing all of this, I remain fully aware that hate, evil, racism, misogyny, and every other denial of humanity continues to exist. I refuse to remain silent in the face of these faces of the personal and collective shadow. Darkness only knows one thing – destruction.
Others in the world of naturism are facing the same threats. We even find those threats coming from within the community of naturists in the social media. Being nude doesn’t mean one isn’t embracing the right wing. There are haters, misogynists, porn-hounds, racists, homophobes, yellow-vesters, Patriots, Proud Boys, etc., in the naturist community. And, they are not remaining silent. The dialogue which had been polite, has begun to display toxicity.
Like others in the naturist community, it is enough to be a beacon of light for those faces to come streaming in, intruding on one’s space and wreaking damage along the way. Yet, like Emma, enough in the community are standing up and saying “No, we will not be silenced! No, we will not be drawn into the darkness. No, we will not cower. We are strong within ourselves. We are stronger within our shared corners of social media despite the dark sides of social media.
Yet, there are those who have become quiet though they refuse to give up. Their quietness isn’t silence. Their silence isn’t defeat. In truth, their silence is about survival. The noisy voices, the angry birds who poison the air are more than willing to fill up every corner and space in social media. For those of us who dare to confront that silence, some of that space in social media can be claimed as ours.
It truly is a time to pick sides, even if one does so in silence.