2017: Nude Calendar Ahead

Another year is nearly over, which means it's time for me to look around to see whom I will name Real Naturist of the Year and Celebrity Naturist of the Year near the end of this month. It also means that the world is getting ready to buy calendars, and a rising proportion of those are nude calendars.
For several years, the phenomenon has been expanding, and since naturism is about the acceptance of all bodies, including naked ones, the trend is to be applauded.
A group of elderly women in Great Britain might not have started the trend, but they certainly succeeded in giving it a boost when their handiwork became the subject of a successful movie. Until then, most nude calendars had been thought of as pornography, or at least as things you would hang in a garage but not in your home.
Despite Italian tiremaker Pirelli's decision to move away from nudity in its calendars, the trend to link nude calendars with good causes has persisted and is growing.
What inspired me to return to my blog after a long absence, was actually spotting an article on a Belgian newspaper site this morning about a Dutch woman, Marisa Papen, who was banned from Instagram for posting too many nude pictures of herself. As a result, she decided to head for safer shores: publish a nude calendar of herself, with the proceeds going to a worthwhile cause, in this case the protection of the oceans against the avalanche of plastic rubbish.
She called her project www.plastic-sushi.com  and we can only wish her - and the pollution fighters - success.
Nudity might be a way to seek the spotlight for causes or to promote one's own fame, but if it promotes acceptance of non-sexual public nudity, why not.
While I'm not in the business of drawing up a list of best nude or naturist events of the past year, I can still note that several other nude phenomena have been doing well. The World Naked Bike Rides, the World Naked Gardening Day, World Topless Day, all seem to be growing in provoking interest. The International Naturist Federation held its World Congress in New Zealand, and I do hope naturist beaches around the world will expand. Here in Asia, the Naturist Association of Thailand has expanded, and is helping to find investors in a new resort, showing that naturism in Asia is possible.
While in some parts of the world, there is cause to worry about the regression of tolerance for nudity and naturism in the face of religion, on the whole I am still optimistic that naturism can expand, if it promotes itself as non-sexual, wholesome, and open for men, women and children. Maybe the global naturist movement can learn from the successes of the gay rights movement around the world, but that's fodder for another blog post.