Real Naturist of the Year 2012: Philippe

The Real Naturist of the Year Award celebrates a person who is both a true naturist and has done something outstanding to promote the cause of naturism over the past year.
The award for 2012 goes to Philippe, the first naturist and man to appear full-frontally nude on evening television in Belgium.
The show 'Manneke Paul' on Dutch-language TV channel VTM wanted to report about plans to open a 'naturist forest' in Belgium's coastal province, but had to delay because it just couldn't find people to show living the naturist lifestyle. That's where Philippe came in. He volunteered and the TV show could go ahead.
Philippe is a 52-year-old teacher who teaches Dutch for foreign-language pupils at an elementary school in the city of Ghent.
The courage of people like Philippe does more for the cause of naturism than anything else: show ordinary people like you and me enjoying naturism for what it is, and you will convince people that non-sexual public nudity is not a sin, it's the way we were intended to live.
You can find the original Dutch-language report about Philippe at the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws at http://bit.ly/TjbApL

A Summer in the Nude?

Summer is almost here, at least for us people in the northern half of the world. North America, Europe and Asia are still up to a point suffering from the leftovers of winter, but the most popular season for naturist activities is almost here.
It is ironic that I will be traveling from naturist-unfriendly Asia to the home of free beaches and naturist resorts, Europe, but that all summer I might not have the opportunity of practicing naturism at all, for family reasons.
Apart from the classic weekend treks to the nearest free beach or the two-week stays at full-blown resorts on or close to the Mediterranean, there are also other occasions to get naked.
In late May, a theater in Utrecht is staging a special performance of its naturist play Viva la Naturisteracion - the actors are always naked in that one, but on May 29, the audience can also go nude.
June will mark the next World Naked Bike Rides, in world towns that missed the earlier round predominant in the Southern Hemisphere, including countries like Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.
Spencer Tunick will also resume his activities, with one of his typical mass nude photo shoots at the castle of Gaasbeek in Belgium in early July.
While I will be unable to attend any of these events, I will be looking out for them in the media and reporting on them, maybe here, but at least on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thenudeguru.
Enjoy your naked summer!

The Importance of a Free Beach

Good news from Belgium. The government there has finally given its full license to the country's only seaside naturist beach - in Bredene near the main coastal town of Ostend - 10 years after it first opened. The main campaigner behind the beach was a politician from the local city council. While thousands of people have been crowding the beach for years, the final official license was still missing, threatening the 350-meter stretch of sand with closure. The slow red tape also meant that professional rescue services could not be present on the beach. While the beach is popular, any expansion right now is off the cards because that would need the approval of the neighboring town of De Haan, where there is no majority in the city council for naturism. The existence of the Bredene Beach is a key to promoting naturism. Belgium has several naturist grounds spread all over its territory, but visits are as far as I know limited to club members. Members of the general public eager to try out naturism will not visit those grounds, and most of them do not know about their existence and location anyway, but everyone knows about Bredene. That proves the importance of free beaches, where 'amateurs' can try out naturism for the first time. Especially in the case of women, naturism begins with topless bathing - which luckily is now legal and general in most of Europe. The second step - from topless to fully naked - is obviously more difficult, and that's where free beaches come in. If you see other men, women and couples with children fully naked and comfortable being so, you put aside your own inhibitions and become willing to try out complete naturism too. The step to real naturism requires a comfortable environment - and that's why we advocate the existence of free beaches in combination with reasonable policing - so that real naturism does not become threatened by extreme behavior that is not compatible with naturism and that can be exploited by opponents to call for a shutdown of the beaches. In the meantime, congratulations to Bredene and its naturist campaigners. By the way, the picture up here does not show Bredene, but another free beach popular with Belgians - Groede, just across the border in the Netherlands.

Look! Up There! A Naked Man!

The cool weather prevented me from developing any naturist activities during my recent two-month stay in Europe, but at least, if you're made of plastic and stuff, you can do anything.
A naked man hung above a major plaza in the medieval Belgian town of Bruges for several days before the weather got too much of him. No, we're not talking about one of those naked mass groupings for Spencer Tunick nor about the World Naked Bike riders.
The man in question was an effigy of Polish artist Pawel Althamer in the shape of a balloon and served to publicize a festival of Central European art in the Belgian city. The balloon, about 20 meters long, almost deflated due to a gash caused by strong winds. By the end of the week in late October, the naked man was taken down and moved to more comfortable but cramped quarters inside a museum.
The reaction on the street? Mostly positive. Passersby interviewed on the street appreciated the art, with some women saying it was good to have a naked man in advertising for a change. Despite the discussion of what constitutes art or not, the coming of Poland's Naked Man has certainly benefited the case for non-sexual nudity - in the city which already welcomed a Spencer Tunick mass nude event a couple of years ago.
For a picture of the Naked Man, see Tom Brinckman's blog at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fototbr/5101894734/ and for a filmed report, watch http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/mediatheek_en/1.883668
And if you think I've forgotten all about my plans to convert this blog, do not worry. During my nearly two months in Europe, I had little access to the Internet, but the planning is going ahead. More about my plans in future postings.

Vitaya: Readers Show their Breasts (2)

Readers of Belgium's women's magazine Vitaya showing their breasts to other readers. A strange promotional idea for a magazine with a new name? No, because if it were, they would have made a lot more noise about it. The cover on the magazine has none of the pictures, only the title of the article among many other titles.
So why did the magazine come up with this photo report? The reason is, of course, the international action against breast cancer symbolized by the pink ribbon. In an earlier posting, I showed you the Taiwanese models who went naked for the cause.
If you look at the top left woman in this picture from the pages of Vitaya, you'll see a former victim of breast cancer. It is important to know that women should not be judged for the size or look of their breasts, but that all can be proud of their breasts, as the women in the magazine report say they are, from the smallest to the largest.
If you know where to find one in your neighborhood, wear a pink ribbon and support those women who fell victim to the terrible disease.

Vitaya: Readers Show their Breasts (1)

Female readers sending in their topless pictures to a magazine. Can you imagine that in your country? No, it's not a racy magazine for men. And it's for a worthy cause. But more about that later.

Vitaya is a television station in the Flemish or Dutch-language part of Belgium. Its target viewers are women, so a large part of its programming consists of shows about gardening, cooking, style, animal protection, and imported drama shows.

Through business deals I don't understand anything about, it managed to have an existing magazine known as Evita change its title to Vitaya. And it's the first monthly edition under the new name, available from Belgian newsstands last month, that contains the topless pictures from readers.

Breasts from A to Z is the theme of the report, and it lists the pictures from the smallest to the largest sizes of breast, with comments from the ladies pictured about what they like or dislike about their breasts, mostly the former.

Again, naturism is not about showing off one's naked body to others, that could be mere exhibitionism, but it is about feeling good in one's body, no matter how it looks to others. Too often, you read comments in the mainstream media about how so many naturists are "ugly." Those are mostly written by immature spirits heading for the nude beach to spot irrealistically beautiful people, model men and women from a model world. Reports as the one in Vitaya show that there are all kinds of people, and all of them are beautiful in their own way.

As to the reason for the magazine pictures: more about that in my next posting.