Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2016: Heidi Klum

(Photo Heidi Klum by Norman Jean Roy for Allure Magazine)
Sounds familiar? Yes, Heidi Klum was my Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2011 http://thenudeguru.blogspot.tw/2012_01_01_archive.html and received a mention as a runner-up back in late 2014.
She's still a naturist after all those years ... because she's still open about the lifestyle, which for millions of Germans like her is not some kind of exotic minority quirk that has to be hidden in the shadows, but just an ordinary habit, like collecting stamps or cycling or playing tennis.
As a model and as presenter of the fashion designer show Project Runway, one could accuse Heidi Klum of hypocrisy. If she's a naturist, why is she promoting clothes? Shouldn't she be doing the opposite, condemning clothes and telling everybody to throw off the tyranny of textile and design?
A world without clothing would be a wonderful thing - especially if you got to live in a country where temperatures are elevated enough year round - I'm thinking of parts of Thailand here.
Unfortunately, most people still live in environments where that is not possible - often for merely climatic reasons, but also because turning up at work or going out eating naked is not accepted in most parts of the world.
There are people working on changing that - I'm thinking of my Real Naturist of the Year 2016, Lady God1va, who went naked at a hotel in Thailand, or the Free the Nipple people, the Go Topless activists, the people behind naked restaurant projects like London's The Bunyadi, the World Naked Bike Riders, and so on.
Yes, Heidi Klum is not a total 100 percent naturist, but thanks to her comments in interviews, she shows that naturism is not the outrageous hobby of a small minority, but is a practice that should be acceptable to every and any "body."
A Heidi Klum interview with Miami's Ocean Drive magazine:
https://oceandrive.com/heidi-klum-on-project-runway-her-lingerie-collection-why-she-loves-miami
Heidi Klum's only partial nude photo shoot for Allure in 2012:
http://www.allure.com/gallery/heidi-klum-2012
More Heidi Klum, from Allure and from the Young Naturists of America website:

To Heidi Klum or not to Heidi Klum?

As the time quickly approaches to select our Real Naturist and Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2014, a person who is always a strong contender for the latter title reemerges. German supermodel and Project Runway host Heidi Klum, our Celebrity Naturist for 2011, had loads of advertising posters put up in Las Vegas. But not for long, because the authorities thought there was too much nudity and the pictures might not sit well with 'families.'

While as usual, in no way related to naturism, the pictures are absolutely innocent, tasteful, and on the whole, I can't imagine them offending anybody's taste. They're sexy but not provocative, artistic but not cheap, and they look a lot more high-class than say, pictures of baseball players tasting burritos.

The news about the ads being taken down incited sniggers in the media about this being Las Vegas of all places, the city of sin. Yet, the pictures have nothing to do with sin, and those who might have objected to them are not aware that naturism is a family movement. No family should be offended by the ads, because families are one of the mainstays of naturist movements, holiday resorts and beaches around the world.

The ads have now reportedly been put back up, but in a 'sterilized' version, without what the authorities would have termed 'excessive' nudity.

So in the end, there is a victory but hidden within a defeat.

The same could be said about the Miss World decision to end bikini parades for its contestants. At first sight, it is a victory for people who object to women being paraded as just 'chunks of meat,' beautiful 'objects' to look at, but not to listen to. In that sense, the abolition of the bikini contest is a victory, though it could also be interpreted as a defeat to 'neo-prudishness' fueled by conservative religious beliefs. Just wait and see.

And finally, Kate Upton was named the sexiest woman alive. While I might not share that assessment, the good thing about Kate is that she is not one of those 'heroin chic' models who are too thin for their own good. Again, Kate's victory has nothing to do with naturism, but it could tell young women that thin is not the only way. On the other hand, it might be a defeat of sorts if it tells women that they should have larger breasts.

Everything is open to interpretation, but the fact remains that naturism is the way to a positive body image. When people are naked, they are all equal in their imperfections. Naturism breaks down barriers, images and unnecessary demands on the human body.

 

Topless is More

A Go Topless event

Topless Equality Hawaii spokesperson Kyllie

Topless is more but naturism is most. Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I often use those phrases, with hashtags, when I post something referring to topless women, often celebrities caught on the beach, such as Celebrity Naturist of the Year Heidi Klum.
As a naturist, I look at topless as a halfway house. It's a stage between textile and naturism, a first step for women in the right direction, but one that often remains without its local conclusion, the conversion to naturism.
The reason that topless is the subject of a posting is of course the fact that next Sunday, August 25, has been proclaimed Go Topless Day by activists in the United States. In some locations, the day was held earlier, yesterday, August 17.
Their basic demand is topless equality or topfreedom, basically the right of women to be or go topless wherever and whenever men can.
Until now, most European countries and beaches are basically topless, i.e. if you're a woman - or man - and you want to be topless, you can do so. The problem lies of course with swimming pools and parks, and with beaches outside of Europe. In other continents, Asia, Africa, and even the Americas, women can still run into trouble, even when all they do is lie flat on their belly on a beach.
As a naturist, of course I believe that everybody, man or woman, should be allowed to wear or not wear the amount of clothing he or she is comfortable with in any place. Unfortunately, our societies are still too 'gymnophobe' or afraid of nudity, even when non-sexual. I know it's unrealistic to expect that in the near future, women will be allowed to walk topless around shopping streets, supermarkets and parks in the world's major cities, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try, and the beaches are of course the ideal starting point.
That's why groups of women have stood up, especially in the United States, to promote the cause of topless equality and topless freedom. Some women have already paid dearly for their insistence on non-sexual partial nudity by being forced into prison.
Fortunately, that has not scared other women from taking up the cause, with as a result the August 25, 2013 Go Topless Day, which is to be marked in several parts of the US, including Venice, California, and Boston.
The organization behind the event is Go Topless (http://gotopless.org), a group with a small religion as its background, the Raelites. Having grown up in a European country with one mainstream religion, I'm always rather suspicious of small sects or cults. In my country, people are either Catholic or non-believers, and other groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists and Mormons are being rather looked at with suspicion. If you remain aware that the creed of Rael might not be for you, then Go Topless is still a movement worth respecting.
The other movement I discovered is Topless Equality (http://toplessequality.com), which fights for the same cause and has appointed regional representatives, including in Hawaii. They have no religious agenda which could scare off some potential supporters.
No review of the topless world could be complete without a quick mention of the Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society (http://coedtoplesspulpfiction.wordpress.com, and yes, that name is far too long to memorize so I had to look at a piece of paper), a group of women who sit in New York parks to read Elmore Leonard novels while not wearing tops.
All these groups have their own ways of bringing the topless into daily lives, and while as a naturist, I would like to see those women take the final step and move on to naturism, I still believe that without being true naturists, they are making a positive contribution to the cause of non-sexual public nudity and therefore deserve our support.
See you on August 25, as topless as possible.
Pictures: on the left, a Go Topless event, on the right Topless Equality Hawaii representative Kyllie.

The Heatwave of 2013

A French weather forecaster made headlines about a month ago by predicting the summer of 2013 would be one of the worst on record, at least for France and the surrounding countries. July is almost over and what do we have: heatwaves in Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius for some considerable time, interspersed only with a few violent thunderstorms with hail, 39 degrees C in Italy and Austria, and similar high temperatures in the Northeastern United States and the Kanto region of Japan, i.e. the capital Tokyo. However, the weather forecaster hasn't give up yet. He says August is yet to come.
He may be right, but the high temperatures have been good for naturism. Reports from the UK suggest that more than ever, higher temperatures and sunny skies mean people want to find out how and where they can wear fewer or no clothes. Not all people can spend time on the beach or in the water swimming, so it's only normal that people want to move beyond to a fully unclothed lifestyle. Naturism is not just about hanging around the beach naked, it's also about being naked in any possible circumstance anywhere and anytime.
The heatwave has also benefiting a new attempt to get naturism into the record books by staging a mass skinny-dip. At Vera Playa in Almeria Province, Andalusia, Spain, a total of 729 people went naked into the sea together, breaking a Guinness World Record previously set in New Zealand. Of course, Vera Playa is a perfect place to try that kind of event, because you don't have to go far to look for naturists, many of them already live there, even outside of the holiday season. If I were to search for a place where I could live as a naturist as close to 24/7 as possible, Vera Playa would be it. I've always been a fan of the Mediterranean, and now that I live in a hot country that has no naturist culture whatsoever, I am dreaming of moving to some place like that. You can find more about Vera Playa at www.veraplayafriends.com.
Nudity has always appealed to celebrities, though some of it are really into it because it makes them feel good, others because it provides them with acres of news coverage. I'm not qualified to say in which category Lady Gaga falls, but we all know she's not afraid of outlandish acts. She must have run out of ideas, because instead of wearing steaks, she is now wearing absolutely nothing on the cover of V Magazine www.vmagazine.com. The feat probably won't get her a Celebrity Naturist of the Year Award from me, because I am not convinced her deeds promote the naturist lifestyle.
Heidi Klum, German supermodel and presenter of Project Runway, might not be a true naturist either, but at least she promotes a lifestyle with fewer clothes. Tweeting holiday pics from Tahiti recently, she said she had always been sunning and swimming topless - just like thousands of other German and European women - so the latest pictures were not meant to shock or create a media stir. Her mother was the one responsible for taking the pictures, she said, so there. You can follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@heidiklum.
There is no European holiday in my near future, so I'm going to have to stick to read about how other people are enjoying the lifestyle around the world. Just follow me at www.twitter.com/@thenudeguru, where I usually tweet about naturism-related items I find in the world's press, mostly in the US, UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Taiwan.
My personal naturist experiences this summer look like remaining limited to sleeping naked and home naturism behind curtains.
Have a Great Naturist Summer of 2013.

Celebrity Naturists of the Year 2012: Sandra Bullock and Chelsea Handler

http://bit.ly/YdpgPy
That is the short and irreverent piece of film which allowed Hollywood star Sandra Bullock and TV host Chelsea Handler to win the accolade of Celebrity Naturists of the Year 2012.
Are they naturists? Probably not. Is taking a shower naked a naturist thing? No, it's everybody's thing. The difference is: they talked together naked in the shower, even if just for a skit, and it got broadcast without being labeled a wardrobe malfunction. It still got covered by blurry 'mosaics' to prevent an outcry, even though we naturists would not do so.
Nevertheless, we believe Sandra Bullock and Chelsea Handler, through the shooting of this minimovie and its broadcasting during the talk show Chelsea Lately, sent out a message that nudity on television should not be as offensive as some people think.
Nudity is beautiful if it comes with respect for the human body. Nudity is part of us, and even religious people who do not like nudity have to admit that humans received their body from God, so where is the problem?
Sandra Bullock and Chelsea Handler join the series of famous people including Eva Mendes, Rosario Dawson, Hilary Swank and Heidi Klum to be named Celebrity Naturist of the Year. Some of them are true naturists, some of them aren't, but they all, one way or another, knowingly or unknowingly, promoted the cause of naturism, of being naked in public without meaning to offend or insult.
Have you noticed how all our Celebrity Naturists of the Year have been women so far? Spencer Tunick of course is a strong frontrunner every year and will eventually win the prize, but we feel that because barriers to naturism in our society are higher for women, it is important to find female role models who point the way.
Congratulations to Sandra Bullock and Chelsea Handler for their Celebrity Naturists of the Year Award for 2012.

The Allure of Naturism

I started out by thinking that I would have restrict myself to writing about the bikini pictures of Julia Roberts, Naomi Watts and Rihanna. Then a new US television series came along, 'Don't Trust that B**** in Apartment 23,' where the female lead does her ironing in the nude. I can't watch US television where I am, so I can't actually tell you how much was shown and in what context, though the title sounds negative. Then there was Melody Thornton - a former member of the Pussycat Dolls, the media tell me - who showed up at some Hollywood event wearing a see-through dress and nothing underneath.

Naturism? No, just different shades of nudity.
Then there came Allure. A magazine I don't follow, but which has the custom of asking famous people - women, of course - to show up naked for artistic pictures. The person honored with the magazine cover was nobody else but our 2011 Celebrity Naturist of the Year - German supermodel and Project Runway host Heidi Klum.
Also featured in the Allure naked photo list are actress Debra Messing, Maria Menounos and some other celebrities I was not familiar with, and Taraji P. Henson.
Miss Henson was nominated for an Academy Award for one of my favorite movies of the past few years, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where she played Brad Pitt's mother. Apart from that, she comes across as someone who likes nudity like a naturist would.
Miss Henson says she likes walking around in the nude in her New York apartment and asks whether she's on a nude beach before taking her top off.
Miss Henson, let me tell you this. You can take your top off at any beach you like, because being topless - wearing a monokini as Europeans say - is not nudity. You can do so at any European beach. At a nude beach, you can take everything off and be totally free. We would love Taraji P. Henson to visit Europe and spend at least a day on a real naturist beach, without the paparazzi in tow.
The Oscar nominee comes closest to the spirit of naturism. The allure of being naked is not exhibitionism or press coverage, it is the feeling of being completely free, of feeling the sunshine and the water on your skin, of being close to nature and to yourself.
Congratulations to Allure, since, while not being a naturist magazine, you might have done a service to naturism by launching this project.
To be a true naturist, you don't have to be a celebrity, you don't have to have a body like Heidi Klum or Taraji P. Henson, you just have to be yourself and feel comfortable as a human being in the middle of nature.
Turning away from Allure to my own picture and the ones in the two previous postings: they hail from a tourism brochure around 1991 for the region of Istria, then in Yugoslavia, now Croatia. The country has been a destination for mass naturist tourism since the late 1960s.

Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2011: Heidi Klum

German supermodel and Project Runway presenter Heidi Klum is the Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2011, but if you follow me on Twitter, you already knew that.
No, Heidi is not naked like a naturist would be in these paparazzi pictures shot last summer on a Mediterranean beach.
But like our previous Celebrity Naturists of the Year Eva Mendes, Hilary Swank and Rosario Dawson, her liking of the naturist lifestyle and her relaxed attitude to non-sexual nudity while sunbathing or in the home are well known. Having grown up in Germany might have played a crucial role in Heidi's love of nudity, because that country has one of the highest proportions of naturists in the world. All over Europe, Germans are frequent visitors of naturist beaches and resorts.
Due to her celebrity status and the prevalence of paparazzi, Heidi might find it difficult to do the same and visit those resorts, but her attitude is enough for us to select us as the 2011 Celebrity Naturist of the Year, i.e. a famous person who through her words and deeds promoted the cause of non-sexual social nudity over the past year.
Congratulations, Heidi.
You all know this blog has been through some problems, but The Nude Guru is still fully operational at http://twitter.com/thenudeguru. You also know I also selected the Real Naturists of the Year 2011. They will appear soon on this blog too.

Naturists of the Year

Ali Larter is a naturist. Ali Larter, the actress from the hit TV series Heroes. Stars have been known for appearing nude in movies, pictures and ads, but that doesn't make them naturists. In this case however, Larter said herself she was a naturist, so we can trust her, so says the web site Clothesfree International in its latest TV news about naturism.
With her declaration, Ali Larter puts herself immediately in line as a prime candidate for the title of Celebrity Naturist of the Year which will be announced about a month from now. This blog - then still under its name of Asianaturist - has announced the awards for three years in a row. Eva Mendes won in 2007 due to her avowal that she liked gardening naked, Hilary Swank in 2008 because she says walking around naked at home was no big deal, and Rosario Dawson in 2009 as she said her mother took her to naturist beaches near New York. Ali Larter should be a frontrunner for 2010, though let's not forget other celebrities who are also widely known as having taken a liking to non-sexual social nudity, including German model and Project Runway host Heidi Klum.
Each year, this blog picks the end of December to announce its awards, which also include a Real Naturist of the Year Award for someone who might not be famous but has also made contributions to the cause of naturism "on the ground" or at the grassroots level. Last year's winner of that award, by the way, was the web site ClothesFree International, where I found the Ali Larter news item.
To find the winners of the awards for 2010, visit this site again before January 1, 2011.