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barefootguyinco
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 Posted - 10/27/2010 : 2:19:52 PM
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In the last couple of years I have become an activist for nudism in our area and thought I'd share some stories about how we go about it. Now I have a girlfriend who joins me in promoting nudism and the lifestyle.
It seems some areas like Boulder Colorado are going backward instead of forward and this bothers me as it could start a trend in other cities as these things often do. I'm 300 miles away on the other side of the state, maybe thankfully, but I hope a movement will grow to reverse these laws and to educate people as to the true nature of simple social nudism. We as a community need to promote a better image of nudity and the nudist lifestyle.
Just for example, here's what we are doing. I started a nudist group here in Colorado called the Grand Junction Naturists,(www.gjnaturists.com) and we do things like we hosted a World Naked Gardening Day at our house this year and we invited the media to cover the event if they agreed to present it in a positive light. We made the front page of the local paper and were on TV 4 times and all of it was very positive. Next year we plan on hosting it again and again inviting the media to cover it, plus we hope to begin some safe advertising to grow our group and offer free information for those who want to learn about our lifestyle. Our website has a decent amount of educational material on it already and we plan to add more including a printable version so they can share it with others in a printed form.
This year my GF and I decided we no longer cared who knows we are nudists, including her employer and fellow co-workers, as well as family, and guess what? We have had almost no negative reactions. Some were a little shocked and said they could never do that, but most were curious about why we do it which opens up to the door for us to be ambassadors for the lifestyle and to try to encourage them to get over their negative body issues.
And it's working, slowly, a little at a time, but we are having an effect. Here's some examples. One friend of ours is very heavy set and was very self conscious of her body and said she could never go naked around others. Well over the course of maybe 8 months I gave her reasons why she shouldn't be embarrassed about her body and just slowly let her know about the nudist values and way of life. Finally one day she went to a private commercial hot springs with us and surprised us all by dropping her robe with nothing on. Since then she is much more comfortable being nude around others and in talking about it.
Case #2 - My Girlfriend and I have lived together for about 1.5 years and in that time I've been chatting with her daughter on facebook and generally working on her. She is also heavy set and did not like her body or nudism. But now after all this time she now is fine with us being nude at home when she and her hubby visit and she is MUCH more comfortable with her body. She has told us that she is even nude at home a lot now and she posts comments on her Facebook page about positive body acceptance and supporting our nudist lifestyle. When it warms up next year, or if they come over for an indoor party by themselves, I plan on suggesting they get comfortable here and not worry about the clothes. But, if she has her sons with her we can't do that as we can't be nude around them since their father (her ex) is not ok with it, yet. We've been slowly educating the boys about nudism and even put a nude photo of the two of us by our pool on display where they could see it. The photo is very tasteful and while we are fully nude, I'm sitting while Carla stands and no genitals are showing. Anyway, they saw it and mentioned it which gave us the opportunity to further explain that we are nude whenever they are not around and that we are more comfortable with no clothes. We also explained that there was nothing wrong with, nor in seeing our picture. We hope to have them out to soak in the hot tub one day and we plan on having a sign stating that no suits are needed in the tub, which will again get them talking. Then maybe one day they'll want to go without suits as well, even if we can't yet. Or we will take them to Orvis hot springs and explain on the way what to expect as it's clothing optional. We'll 'probably' wear suits to prevent problems with my girlfriends daughters ex but if the boys say it's ok for us to not wear them, we probably will go without. Anyway, it would be a good way to get them around a larger group of people who mostly soak naked.
So, slowly, we are helping friends and family, as well as strangers, learn to be comfortable with social nudity and hope to expand our efforts in the coming year.
If I could afford it and had the freedom I would like to do much more, almost full time, but for now I'm limited to part time activism. Maybe one day......
Body shame, like prejuduce, is not natural. It is learned from others and benefits no one.
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blavan
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Posted - 11/02/2010 : 1:31:10 PM
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Your experience is a very good one to share. We have only allowed a few peole to know about out nudist lifestyle. Some of them have accused us of rediculous things that really expose their ignorance. They will have nothing to do with us, and they used to be friends. Others have reacted by saying, that's pretty cool. We are gaining the courage to be more open about it.
We changed churches a few years ago because of it. There are members in our new congregation who are aware of our nudist activities, and there has been no backlash at all. I would say that we are making progress. If people just listen, read, and become aware of how great ndism really is, then there will be more acceptance.
Being Naked and Being Real
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barefootguyinco
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Posted - 12/10/2010 : 10:34:25 AM
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blavan, I find that it's easiest to approach the subject casually. In other words we don't just blurt out that we are nudists or that we run around naked in our backyard, but instead we find an opening to mention it. For example, if the subject of laying out comes up we might mention that we love doing that when we get the chance but we don't like getting tan lines so we go without clothes since we have a private backyard. Or if we mention using our pool we'll state that we love skinnydipping in our pool or we don't allow swimsuits in our pool since it's private and no neighbors can see us. Simple statements like this often lead to questions and we just answer them non chalantly.
I think the key to getting others to accept it is to present it in a manner with confidence. If you act nervous about it or act like you are doing something perverted they'll most surely make incorrect assumptions. We'll never have everyone accept nudism but if we present it well then we can gain more acceptance than doing so with trepidation.
Body shame, like prejuduce, is not natural. It is learned from others and benefits no one.
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