Nude beach trepidation - damn, again?

I’ve been through this before; the minute I book a vacation (and all vacations over the past 5-6 years have been nude vacations), there’s a feeling of anxiety that takes over. No sooner have I clicked on that Expedia button to confirm my flight and then booked my hotel do I start to see every other man who possesses what I do not - the six-pack abs, a chest twice the size of mine, calves and biceps and thighs and asses of men who’ve dedicated themselves to gym time and eschewed the burgers and fries that I manage to wolf down for dinner before moving on to do the laundry and other mundane chores.

I also notice the ease that others have, the complete confidence and effortlessness that others enjoy their time naked, without any recognition that another person could be judging them for their height or weight or age or choice of “modifications“. You can recognize these people; they walk the beach and you can tell that they are enjoying the sun and wind and they don’t notice any glances made towards them, or if they do they don’t think for a moment that someone may be picking out any flaws with their body, or else they just don’t care…

It’s so funny how I think that everyone else at any given time on a nude beach is beautiful in their own way and if I could talk to each and everyone of them I would, if for no other reason but to acknowledge or our common enjoyment of the complete freedom that comes with a clothing-optional lifestyle. I would share with them my thoughts of wanting to be able to live in complete freedom and just share with them how nice it is to be in this brotherhood of people.

I still haven’t learned completely how to do that.

I still have problems with myself naked.

I have to admit that the first minutes on a nude beach are almost painful - there’s an unease, an apprehension when I first get naked, It’s age and gravity’s toll and genetics of being too tall and skinny. It’s a discomfort in being painfully, obviously Irish around tanned bodies, and it is two steps back emotionally because the vast majority of persons around me are shocked or put off by my choice of certain body art. None of these components should prohibit me from being at the beach enjoying the feelings that only nude recreation seems to bring me, yet the combinations of differences seem to make me feel as if I am some kind of naked piriah; tattoos would be ok if I was 20, being of pasty Celtic ancestry would be acceptable if I was really buff, and maybe being near 50 would be fine if I had those 6-pack abs (and a huge penis - a whole other esteem issue that warrants a page in and of itself).

I went through this last year before my vacation and sadly I have no time to get killer tan (not possible) or get those abs that others work on for 2 hours a day after work. Instead I have 14 days to quickly talk myself into truly accepting myself not only for how I look, and to ignore that others may be critical and possibly offended by my appearance. I have to really, really grasp that this should not prohibit me enjoying this time completely unencumbered.

Funny how I could tell any other person on earth hat none of this matters because it doesn’t matter.

Someone just remind me that it doesn’t matter ;>)

Has Stephen gone to far?

As nudists, most of us have heard of Stephen Gough. Tales of the Naked Rambler first surfaced in 2003 when he began crossing between the southwestern and northeastern tips of Great Britain, all while naked. The first crossing of the island was almost considered comical by all - a naked man walking across England tempered negative news of wars and economic depression and pain around the world. For a while there were few who held Stephen’s naked journey with contempt but instead it was almost as though his walk was the innocent traverse made by a man who wanted to be clothes-free, and as far as England was concerned there was no real harm done as he wound his way from Land’s End to John o’Groats.

Then Stephen Gough started to do it again.

So frequent have Gough’s immediate disrobings landed him in jail, resulting in as many Contempt of Court and Breach of Peace charges that he now faces life imprisonment for his naked civil disobedience.

Many people who shared Stephen Gough’s views, while not following suit, cheered him on and even stood by him through his first few incarcerations. However each time Gough was released he refused to clothe himself and with each new charge it seems the vast numbers of nudist organizations that once cheered on his efforts of body freedom fell silent, as if to say enough is enough - you're calling too much attention to us.

Has this man gone too far in trying to promote his right in being able to live a clothes-free lifestyle? Has he fallen from grace because many of us profess that we want to be able to choose when we are undressed, but none of can imagine walking out our front door naked and then turning the corner of our street that way? Is it because we state we want a clothing-optional lifestyle but we don’t like it when our wants are thrust onto the front pages of the news based on another person's actions, and the man responsible for this lays in solitary confinement in a Scottish prison?

I think that many do feel Stephen Gough has crossed the line, only because the minute his expression of body freedom became illegal and the frequency of his transgressions called into question his motives and mental stability, many organizations once vocally in favor of this man fell quiet out of concern of how the public’s opinion of this one person might now impact the status of “legal” nudism.

In essense, nudists have become concerned with the non-nudists view of us based on their comments and actions in response to Mr. Gough's exteme fight for equality.

We cannot allow this man to sit in prison without him knowing that we are pulling for him and recognize the great lengths to which he has gone in fighting for his freedoms. I admit readily to saying I would like to be naked at anytime and that I should have the right to do so, yet when I think of what it would be like to walk out my door naked, go to the corner, and then keep going, fully aware how people (including fellow nudists) would be standing in judgment of me and how the legal ramifications of these actions would impact me, well lets just say that I couldn’t fill Gough’s boots.

Contributions and well-wished for Stephen can be found by going to the following link:
http://www.nakedwalk.org/

Has Stephen Gough gone to far? If you ask me he went this far for us and quite possibly we haven’t gone far enough for him.

News feed - Search for items marked "nudist"

Well before I came out of the “clothing-optional” closet, long before the fist visit to a nude beach, naked cocktail party, and long before the first naked dare, I went on the internet and started seeking out other persons who had this undying need to be naked. With ever-advancing technology the search has become easier to find other nudists/naturists as well as scanning for events and news involving us.

Or so I thought.

Everyday I scan my inbox looking for something of value - something that tells me that we are making headway with our rights or at least that our wants and needs are being vocalized in a manner that presents us as deserving individuals. I look for news that we’re wishing and fighting for privileges that allow us broader freedoms, allowing us to think of something other than immediately needing to lower the blinds in our own homes before we take off our tops and bottoms.

These days my inbox is filled with stories of the latest NBA player whose nude cell photo has made its way from an admirer’s phone onto the internet or the ingénue’s public statement that either she’s so liberal she’d do a nude scene in her next movie or else that she’s too moral to ever consider it.

Not really nudist news if you ask me.

I keep looking for press releases from local, national, and international nudist organizations about growing enrollments, about what they recognize as the next lost liberty, about the latest beach to lose nude status, and coverage about the man seen naked in his own home being charged with indecent exposure and jailed.

I’ve stated before that we should all consider joining nudist and naturist organizations and I still feel this way. It may be difficult for many to find one they fully agree with or one that they feel represents their type of nudism. It may be hard as a home-nudist when you feel that aligning with a public organization doesn’t yield any personal benefits and even more it may cause feelings that a personal threshold has been crossed, and sometimes that’s a very scary thing. But I suggest that we use these organizations for two reasons; we use them as a vehicle for each and every one of us to be counted as a woman or man that requires certain rights that we feel are currently not available to us (or are being eroded slightly every day), and that we ask these organizations become cohesive with one another in representing us more publicly in order for a stronger voice to be heard. I know in this day and age $20.00, $30.00, or $50.00 is often needed for food or utilities or that there may be concerns about taking your own personal nudism to the next step in participating with any organization in any manner, but I think we must join and then we must start the public dialogue.

We have to join hands and unite voices, and whether we do so with our real names and faces and bodies or we do so with aliases via the internet, we collectively have to fight for our rights while preventing the few we have from slipping from our hands.

Now, the next time I see some real news about us I’ll pass it your way…

I’m back, with apologies

So I’m back; it’s been almost a year without having posted anything to this blog or having spoken with the people I met by starting it, and I have to admit writing this one is tough - I’ve thought of doing it for a couple of weeks now but like all difficult things I have a tendency to procrastinate when something’s not joyful or fun.

What’s not fun is that I have to apologize to everyone who ever read the blog or contacted me about it because I now have to explain my reason for having been absent, not only from the blog but also for having abandoned what I believe in.

Early last year I started seeing someone and during the relationship I basically deserted nudism in favor of a relationship with a person that did not believe in it.

Now I’m back after that door has closed and I’ve had a little time for the pain to the softern the loss.

I’m not proud for having let a person I care about change me, not proud for wanting to be with a person that wouldn’t accept what I was about, and in the end I still am having to determine which was worse - my wanting to be with someone so much that I would be with a person who wanted me to change so drastically or the fact that I did change and gave up a small part of myself to reach for something I believed might be more important.

Finding someone who accepts you for who you are is important - I hope I’ve learned my lesson.

I must look back and determine why I felt I needed someone else so much that I allowed them to alter me. It’s not the first time I have taken two steps back in personal growth, hoping that this one might be the one, putting my own wants and needs aside. Compromise is one thing, but giving up the way you want to live and who you want to be is more than compromise, it’s desperation…

During the past 10 months I’ve bought a house, had the company I work for purchased by a multi-million dollar publicly-held corporation, and ended what I thought might be a last chance at happiness.

Some good changes and some bad changes, plenty of fodder for a blog.

My apologies to you for dropping of the face of the earth without a word - too bad because many of you, more than friends and family who have known me for a lifetime, understand me.

I think it's nice to be back.