Becoming a nudist – An introduction

Nudist? You mean being nude, naked? Displaying your willy? Are you an exhibitionist?

This was some questions I received when I told friends I was a nudist and loved to stay nude on beaches, resorts or simply at home. Nudity equals sex for many, if not most, people. To be fair, as I was going through adolescence, I forgot my early discovery of nudism and felt sexual arousal while hormones were transforming my body. However, as I was feeling so good while naked, I started questioning the link between sex and nudity. The string broke when I set a foot on a nudist beach unknowingly, as a young adult. People were naked, playing beach volley, calmly sunbathing, swimming or just chatting. There was no sex, no lewd behaviours, no blatant exhibitionism, just simple and casual nudity. I dropped my swimsuit on that day to enter a nudist world fully.

In the subsequent posts, we will explore various aspects of nudism and of the journey that leads to what I call the “nudist enlightenment”. The more I reflect upon it, the more I see this as a series of epiphanies. Some people discover nudism and decide on the spot this is something they like. Others require more time but eventually embrace nudism. Some are sitting on a fence, not sure they like it. Others are finding nudism gross and unacceptable. However, all nudists, from all day to holiday ones, discover nudism step by step. We don’t all realize this journey. But when, as I did, you stop, ponder, and reflect on your various nudist experiences, you realize that there were small events along the way. You were told about a book or a blog about nudism, you were invited to a naked barbecue, you experienced your first nude hike or nude yoga session, you met new nudists, etc.

Being a Nudist Is Hard

Each of those events made you discover, most of the time without realizing it, a new facet of nudism. Nudism is actually like a polished diamond: it’s incredibly beautiful and each facet reflects the light differently. However, diamond is one of the toughest stones. Being a nudist can be incredibly hard sometimes. Hard to just get naked whenever and wherever we would like to. Hard to make people understand that nudism is a social and family lifestyle. Hard to be understood for who we are. It’s because it’s hard that nudism matters a lot.

Nudism matters because it makes people understand our fragility. The World Naked Bike Ride movement was created for “simplification, human harmony and love. For a future to exist for tomorrow generations, we have to stop wasting the lifeblood energy of the Earth, stop fighting and killing in the name of consumerist wealth accumulation and learn to love and respect all life on this planet.” Nudism matters because it makes people develop respect for oneself and others. Nudism changes the way you look at others and at the environment that surrounds you.

A Nudist Journey

In this series of posts, I invite you to a journey. A personal journey, that you can and should share with your beloved ones. Nudism is personal and social. Personal, in the feelings and sensations you and only you will perceive. Social in the sharing aspect of those feelings and sensations. It covers nine chapters.

In Nudity, body and sexuality, I look at the relationship most people make between nudity and sexuality. Society and religions have forged this relationship to better control individuals. To allow nudism to flourish, we need to untie this link. There are neither natural nor rational reasons to sexualize the body. It’s agreed that we have a brain that allows us to think and to feel emotions. We will use it to understand that a naked body is simply a naked body and that there is no link to sexuality if we decide so. This part will help any nudist and textile to draw a clear and indisputable line between nudity and sexuality.

Nudism or naturism? will help us with the definition of the nudist lifestyle. There are numerous discussions and definitions of nudism. Nudism in some geography means something different from naturism. Who is right and who isn’t? Well, we will see that if it seems the disagreements seem deep, there are almost irrelevant when you go back to the various aspects of the nudist lifestyle.

Nudists know that when being nude feels so good. We will look at this in Physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual nudity. Nudism is more than physical nudity. We will explore the various dimensions of nudity, so we understand that our natural evolution built us to be nude. This important part will help us to move to The end of the shame, that will put a final point to the tie between sexuality and nudity. In this part, we will look at what shame means, how it’s unfolding in our brain and how we can take it away to consider nudism as a normal shameless lifestyle.

By knowing how to get rid of the shame, we allow nudity to bring us joy. The next two chapters, The joy of nudity and Sharing the joy, will explore the topic of the joy, comfort and fulfilment feelings that permeate our life when we provide an adequate space. It’s also by allowing the joy to be nude to flourish that we can share it with others. We will look into how we’re planting seeds into textiles fertile soil for nudism to grow.

Being a nudist means something different for every nudist. Each human being is different and lives his or her nudity differently. However, in this eponym chapter, we will spend some time understanding what it means to be a nudist, beyond being physically nude. Labelling people is always tricky but necessary to define who we are and why we are who we are. It will help transition to Sharing nudism, a chapter that will focus on the step by step process to not only be open to the world about nudism but also to help textiles to join us. Nudism is a social lifestyle and the more the merrier.

Finally, we will wander along the path of making nudism an everyday lifestyle in Nudism in everyday life. What is it to be nude daily? Is it possible? How to handle textiles? How to react when faced with angry reaction? So many questions that require sound answers to help nudists to decide whether they want to embrace nudism as their everyday lifestyle.

Spreading Nudism

I hope that when you close this book, all your answers about nudism will have been answered. I hope you’ll be able to become the nudist you want to become and to explain to others that nudism is the sanest and most natural lifestyle. We need more nudists. We need more places where nudism is accepted. We need the world to accept that nudism is inherently not sexual and has its place in our everyday lives. This book is my contribution to this. As you have a copy into your hands, I need you to make the commitment to share it with at least five people around you, nudists and textiles alike. If each reader shares it with five people, we can reach millions in a matter of months. By reaching millions, we can make millions think about nudism and many will change their minds, try and become nudists.

One by one, we will contribute making the world a better place, by allowing more people to respect themselves, others and our beautiful planet, by becoming nudists.

Chapter 1. Nudity, Body and Sexuality

Strip nude, stay nude, live nude and share the love for nudism!

Photo Gisele Porcaro from Brasília, Brasil, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons