Florida votes with their pants on, or just what the heck does the world really think of us nudists?

After what must appear to have been a pity-party in my last entry I decided that I was going to continue on looking for others like me. I thought I’d break it down to a more personal level and start searching blogs - surely people like Naked Denver are posting as well, each of us struggling to get our thoughts out there and be true to our fundamental need to feel as though we are not alone.

I have to admit I was a little discerned when a blog search of nudist presented me with more than three pages of blogs which had entries posted that referenced news articles in which Florida nudists had petitioned for the right to vote naked. I have to tell you (maybe I don’t) that the blogs I referenced either had a negative view or made a mockery of the request and I have yet to stumble onto one blog that made a positive comment about the effort made within the sunshine state.

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OK - I’ve lied to you, I found some but all of those were comments made on nudist’s blogs, I never, ever found a positive comment made on the topic in a blog that was NOT written by a nudist or naturist - forgive me for not being journalistically accurate in attempting to make my point…

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After I stopped cursing hard-core textiles for their limited views I started to really think about the situation; I believe that the Florida residents that took up the good fight knew they would not get their request approved, but it occurred to me that maybe these people realize that new battles like this must be taken on every day in order for us to maintain what little ground we currently have! Daily when I look for articles that might be relevant to the rights of nudists I see editorials that continually challenge what small freedoms we have yet almost never hear of new or broadened privileges, increased land access, or decreased fear of retribution and reprisal. When our right to be active in a clothes-free environment is called into question and that activity is challenged when it is on private land or in your own home, then people like the good naked citizens of Florida have no other option than to bring something new to the legislative table in order to keep the jackals at bay.

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My hats off to the Floridians that fought for this because they did it not only for themselves but for me as well when I really didn’t realize it was my battle they were fighting, and my acceptance of the 30+ bloggers because even though I didn’t agree with or appreciate their comments they did keep the discussion going.

Maybe just one person out there realized the true battle that was being waged with this campaign and is reconsidering their position, even if they weren’t verbal about it.

And who knows, I just might get to vote President Obama into his second term when I’m buck-ass naked…

So where the hell is everyone or where does a nice, naked freak like me find a friend?

I am sitting home thinking that I really ought to come up with another witty and urban posting for this blog; something tremendously funny yet socially relevant in order for all of you out there to be so captivated by my humor and charm that the emails would just roll in.

Either you’re all in bed or you have other things to do, like talk to your friends, family, spouses, children or various telemarketers should you not currently be registered on the national no-call list.

Yes, I’m hoping for a telemarketer to call right now…

The truth is that I have no friends with this like passion. I don’t answer my door naked and ask people to remove their pants and top in order to come in, nor have I shared my need to be naked with people at work, my family, neighbors or any persons I may casually meet and think highly of. So I thought to myself “Self, why not use that internet thing that you like so much and start to look for others like yourself…”

Self was not too lucky, hence the reason you get this entry.

Fact is, that as I started to search the internet for links with search commands like Denver nudist, Colorado nudist, desperate nudist seeks like, really really really desperate nudist will pay for friendship, PLEASE GOD SOMEBODY LIKE ME and other bites I wasn’t getting very lucky. There seem to be about three Colorado organizations for nudists and a 4-5 clothing-optional hot-springs 80+miles from my house (current Denver temperature a balmy 26 degrees, wheee doesn‘t that sound like fun). These organizations seem welcoming but the fact that I have to be interviewed because I am a single male (different dues as well and y’all won’t let me get married and ever get the chance to see my dues drop) which makes me feel that I have to qualify to be a nudist much like I have to be qualified to get a job. What if you don’t like the tattoos or the piercings or that I believe in naked activism? How comfortable am I going to feel when I walk into the room and I am the only single person in a group full of couples and children - yep, I’m gonna feel like the freak that I’ve felt like since I was 5 and I’ve worked too hard to go through that again.

I understand the need to meet and monitor new persons that join these organizations for the safety of all other members and please don’t get me wrong: every man, woman and child deserve the utmost safety in all situations but I have to think for one minute that policing our own to make sure we are all safe is a little different than having to pass the naked litmus test, because I’ll tell you now if you don’t like anything other than white bread chances are I won’t make it through the door.

Besides, it’s pretty sick that you make me pay more as a penance for not being able to find the right person to share my life - don’t you think that I feel bad enough about that as it is without hitting me in the wallet?

Sorry, I’m naked, I don’t have my wallet on me right now.

I know I sound bitter and I might be because there are other naked people out there talking with other naked people and I’m not.

I’ll try Google advanced search tomorrow….

What the hell have I done or OMG - Did you know that pictures get BIGGER when you click on them?????

I have to admit that I was really proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and posting myself on the internet and I mean ALL of myself on the internet.

I am not a good-looking man nor have I ever been. When I first started getting familiar with my naked self it was in the confines of my own home, safe from all of those that would judge me and the only negative comments I would get was when I had the bravery to look down (so often we are our own worst critics). With time I seemed to get more accepting of myself and my flaws and had the nerve to take my first vacation to a nude beach. I must admit that the freedom of being out in the open was liberating as was the ability to see that so many people like me, wanting to enjoy the warmth of summer sun and breezes on all of my skin yet I was greeted with two opposing realizations: one was joy to see all sorts of bodies, ages, races out enjoying a fine day, while the other was the resentment of all of those men and women with the perfect bodies who make the rest of us cringe just a little before we decide to ignore the tight abs and asses that have just passed by and get back to the feeling of freedom.

I thought that I was getting over the feelings of inadequacy and middle-agedness until yesterday…

Yesterday I posted a picture of myself that let it all hang and was intended to inform all others that I had truly arrived in the land of naked self-acceptance.

That was until I realized that when you click on said picture that it will be presented to you in the grand size of 280477 bytes, 1107 x 1600 pixels, which in my opinion is damn freakin’ large.
When this picture is opened to full size you get it: I’m 47, I have a little pot-belly that I was trying hard to suck in on that photo. You can see every pore, mark, blemish and wrinkle. When you look close you ascertain that I have a gut but no biceps, thank goodness you can’t see my calves because they are pretty sorry as well and I won‘t even comment on my sinking 47 year-old ass. Every part of my body that I have ever hated, ever wanted to cover up, ever felt inadequate about screams out in that photo and I had to fight my own demons from deleted the damn thing from the minute that I opened it up.

I’ve just recently met a new acquaintance on the internet with the same feelings on baring your body and baring your soul. This person is beautiful in every way and I realized what makes her so is her commitment to loving herself inside and out and this is apparent in her smile, her eyes, and her lack of self-consciousness when she is naked - just as it should be. I didn’t notice any flaws when I ran across her on the net; If she has them I’m not aware, however I still am envious of the look of innocence and joy when she is naked and the next time we pass an email I’ll have to ask her how she got there; I’d like to follow in her steps both to trace the path and to reach that destination.

So the picture stays as is: no resizing or cropping or cool soft-focus editing and I take another step in realizing that that we may all have defects and blemishes, some more apparent than others and some more amplified by our own fears until they are larger than life so we cannot look past them and cannot enjoy the day, the sun and the warm gentle breeze.

The picture stays and on the next warm day I promise to enjoy the wind…

Harmless Halloween fun or how Boulder wants to make innocent young men and women sex offenders…

In thinking that there is nothing wrong with a little naked fun and knowing just how diverse Boulder, Colorado can be, runners in the harmless Halloween event that streak down the Pearl Street Mall wearing nothing but carved jack-o-laterns on their heads are now facing criminal charges with indecent exposure that under Colorado law would require that these persons register as sex offenders.

During this event Pearl Street is lined with people who have come to expect a small segment of runners wanting to have a little fun since the 1999 to run down the street naked while attempting to balance hollowed out pumpkins in the cold Colorado evening on October 31.

It seems to me inexplicable that a groups of streakers who decided to participate in an inoffensive run that I might add is rapidly becoming a yearly tradition and helps to provide Boulder with a certain cache of a carefree and diverse city, could even possibly be considered close to what I label a sexual predator.

Throughout time men, women and children have been raped, molested, abused and exploited making their lives hell and halting forever the ability to have normal relationships and a healthy view of themselves and the people around them. So explain this to me Lucy, how in the world does something as innocent and totally non-violent and non-sexual as a late night streak ever get qualified in the same breath as rape or molestation?

I contend there is something wrong with Boulder and the rest of the world when they decide to focus on something as trivial and light-hearted as this when daily thousands if not millions of people face inexplicable intolerance and pain at the hands of others. I hope that Boulder and all other cities that react in this manner take just a moment to reflect on their priorities and then maybe get off of their asses and start dealing with those issues that need dealing with and helping those persons that are truly being hurt and mistreated, accepting the Pumpkin Run for the harmless cultural event that it is

I’ve provided the link to the Pumpkin Run site as well as the link to the last Rocky Mountain News article on the 2008 run:

http://nakedpumpkinrun.org/
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/nov/07/sex-charge-worries-streaker/

I’ve also archived the RMN article in the event that the link should become expired

Throwing my naked self up on the internet

So here I am ready to make my first post to my very own inconsequential blog and it seems to me that there's a need for a definition of exactly who I am and what I stand for, what I want, what I need, and what I want to accomplish with all of this. Although a blog's standard definition (to me at least) is a series of electronic ramblings that need not be linked by a common thread, it seems to me that most of what I have to say is relative to a couple of topics that have become close to my heart as I travel down the road of life - I might add that at my age more of this road could be considered behind me and less in front, and maybe this little public view of me is my attempt to make amends with myself in regards to the person that I wanted to be yet never was before now.

Maybe this is my attempt to be who I want to be. I think that if you present yourself in this medium you can either lie and be someone totally new and different (the person you want to be) or you can become the person you profess yourself to be when you have those little conversations with yourself during the quiet times at night (the person you should be)…

So, if I were to start placing tags on me should someone want 4-5 words to delineate who I am and whether any of these makes me worth investigating, then these would be the ones:

NudistQueerLonerAgnosticQuasi-Liberal

These items are most important to because:

As a nudist I am not able to live my life as I see fit and this is a predominant issue in my life because there are so many obstructions in my wanting to live that way. I think that the human body (and I mean every body) is beautiful, something to be celebrated and that nakedness is nothing to be ashamed of. This is a huge part of who I am and what I believe - I feel that if I should want to go to the store naked I should be able to do so without any ramifications and since I consider nude activism a plausible way to work towards these rights, I assumed that I should be open about this. I only reference my orientation (not preference but orientation) because it does NOT dominate my life. I do not segregate myself from those who have a different orientation or gravitate towards only those people which share the same orientation; I mention my being gay only because I want to be open in the event that someone should query this or feel that knowing my sexuality is a prerequisite before navigating up and down the pages of my little corner of the web. I am a loner and I try to determine why I isolate myself on a daily basis - my hope I that in some way this electronic "exposure" may have some answers for me and allow be to be a more social person, although I believe I have buried myself into a corner because I have not been totally comfortable with announcing that I was a gay, naked, agnostic, quasi-liberal before today. Religion (or lack thereof) is an intrinsic segment of many peoples lives - I acknowledge, possibly even envy, people who have found their god or their beliefs and live by their sacraments trying make this world a better place; I cannot condone people who have found their god and believe me to be a lesser person for not having the same god or persons who feel that all others must have the same god as well or be condemned to an eternal hell complete with fire and brimstone. I do believe that if there is a god that this god would be joy and love and acceptance and caring and compassion and understanding and if your god isn't like this I really don't think I want to get to know him. I say that I am a quasi-liberal only because I am tired of the need to define myself as fitting into any one of the many political parties. I believe many things that fit into one or more of these pre-defined political buckets and I am sure that as this blog progresses many of these ideologies will float to the surface solely for the benefit of me being able to preach from my new electronic soapbox...