Real Naturist of the Year 2016: Lady God1va

(Photo credited to @nigelwill2001 by Lady God1va, World Naked Bike Ride 2012).

Each time around this year, I name someone who has promoted the cause of naturism as my Real Naturist of the Year. Unfortunately, this is just an honorific, there is no fancy artistic statuette, no impressive sum of money.
Past awards have gone to founders and owners of naturist hotels and resorts, and even to a country association.
This year, I am naming a person who has been promoting the cause of naturism on- and offline for many years.
Known as @LadyGod1va on Twitter, she has not only tweeted and blogged about the cause for naturism, she has also been active in organizing World Naked Bike Rides in London and has promoted the cause during an appearance at The Fourth Plinth, a public speech project on Trafalgar Square in 2009. As said here before, while WNBR is not a specifically naturist action but an environmental protest against the dominance of motorized traffic, its use of public nudity helps to promote the notion of the naked body as non-sexual and public.
Lady God1va has also played a crucial role in the naturist movement because she is a woman and a non-Caucasian, two categories that need to be persuaded to join naturism.
It was after I was already looking into her as my main candidate to become the Real Naturist of the Year 2016 that I found out she had been banned from Twitter, due to an avatar that was reportedly "too naked." I never saw the picture, but due to her naturist convictions, I am certain that there was nothing offensive about it. Social online media such as Facebook and Twitter claim to be the new vanguard, but their views on nudity are still hopelessly out of date and simply wrong.
Choosing Lady God1va as my Real Naturist of the Year 2016 is not just an award and a recognition of her years of work, but also a plea for more tolerance. Yes, you, Twitter, bring @LadyGod1va back.
Her blogs, which date back some time, are at http://ladygod1va.wordpress.com and http://ladygod1vadaily.wordpress.com
Lady God1va about her appearance on The Fourth Plinth: https://ladygod1va.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/the-plinth-hour/

The Naked Lunch

The news that rocked the naturist world - and much of the media beyond that - this month, was that London would get its own nude restaurant.
A restaurant where not the waiters or only the female waiters would go topless or naked, but where the guests would actually be allowed to disrobe and dine or lunch completely nude.
The idea was so popular that the number of people who registered to reserve a place shot up to 11,000 just within a few days, and has now surpassed 28,000 as I am writing this.
Most of those people will never make it, for the simple reason that The Bunyadi is a limited space operating for a limited time as a "pop-up" restaurant. Gawkers will be thrown out as they should be, and according to the website http://thebunyadi.com, visitors will even hardly see their fellow diners naked because of the interior outlay of the place.
So imagine my surprise to find the first criticism of the place not coming from puritanical or religious sources, but from nobody else than the head of the Dutch naturist federation NFN speaking to a women's magazine.
In the interview with vrouw.nl, Christine Kouman says the location might be wrong for naturism, and no real naturist would feel comfortable eating "in the middle of a busy city." Really, Miss Kouman?
You won't be sitting naked in front of a window for all passersby to see. It won't be a naked Starbucks, where anyone outside will be allowed to peek in and watch everything. As the organizers have said, there will be absolute privacy, and diners at different tables might not even see each other.
As a naturist myself, I was absolutely stunned during my first visit to a naturist resort, in Croatia more than a decade ago, when I was not allowed naked inside its restaurant.
As a result, after I woke up from my naked sleep, I had to put on clothes to go and have breakfast, then return to my room to take my clothes off before heading for the beach. By noon, I would go to my room to wear some clothes to go to lunch, then back to take them off, and the same annoying routine again for dinner. Is that how real naturists want to live? No, when they are at a naturist resort, they want to be naked all the time and wherever they can, weather permitting.
So I think NFN chairwoman Christine Kouman is totally wrong to condemn The Bunyadi initiative. She does have a point when she says that naturists on a nude beach should not be required to put on clothing when they go and order something at the beach bar, but her rejection of the London restaurant is something I cannot agree with.
Just like Spencer Tunick's mass naked photo shoots and the topless equality movement, The Bunyadi might not be true naturism, but as a form of promotion of non-sexual social nudity, it deserves the full support of all true naturists.
The Bunyadi website is http://thebunyadi.com/home.php
The article about Miss Kouman's views - in Dutch - is http://www.telegraaf.nl/vrouw/actueel/25648342/__Naturist_Christine__45____Naakt_dineren_is_geen_naaktrecreatie___.html
A general media article, one of dozens, about The Bunyadi project is http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/restaurants/would-you-dine-at-londons-first-naked-restaurant/
The picture above comes from the Croatia camping website camping.hr and shows guests at the Koversada naturist resort.