Kim Kardashian or Not

Each December, I go looking for a Celebrity Naturist of the Year who did something during the past year which might benefit the cause of naturism, i.e. non-sexual social nudity, without necessarily being a naturist himself. Over the past few year, the Free the Nipple movement has, without advocating true naturism, played a major part in normalizing the female breast, whether it be breastfeeding a child or sunbathing in the park.
Most of my past Celebrity Naturists of the Year have been famous women, actresses, stars, entertainers, because they often serve as role models, as examples to be followed. My reasoning is: if they think non-sexual nudity is allright, then maybe naturism will also get a bigger chance of being heard.
There are some stars though whose link with nudity is too sexual and whom I therefore am highly unlikely to name or even consider as Celebrity Naturist of the Year: the obvious example is Miley Cyrus, who seems to see nudity purely as provocation. Lady Gaga and Madonna also still go too far in the direction of the erotic and sexual to be considered.
However, one person recently crossed the line for me - in a positive way.
I have never been a fan of Kim Kardashian or of any other member of the Kardashian - Jenner clan. Basically, I don't understand why they're famous. They're extremely good at promoting themselves, but they're not actors, they're not singers, they're - well - entertainers I suppose. I do not like persons who only think about themselves, about promoting themselves, about making money only. The latest addition to the clan - Kim Kardashian husband Kanye West - might be a talented singer and musician, but his antics with Taylor Swift show he has a huge ego.
Still, Kim Kardashian crossed the line into 'consideration for Celebrity Naturist of the Year' for me thanks to her recent nude selfie, the most recent of many similar selfies.
Other stars such as Bette Midler and Chloe Grace Moretz inadvertently helped by condemning her. Even though she might have only posted the pic to promote herself, Kim Kardashian helped show that it's allright to be naked, to live naked. She is not and might never be a naturist, but she helped the cause of nudity and won support for it. Sharon Osbourne and Emily Ratajkowski promptly imitated her to praise her action.
Commentators talked about the third wave and the fourth wave of feminism, with the latter including a group of younger women who feel it is not sexual exploitation or pornography to be naked. They see the right to be naked or at least topless as a field where equality with men has still not been achieved. Breastfeeding in public is still being contested, topless sunbathing and swimming is still not allowed in many parts of the world, including the supposedly liberal United States.
Whatever Kim Kardashian's motives, breaking the Internet or promoting herself, she did break my barrier keeping her from being considered as a Celebrity Naturist of the Year. Whatever you think of her, she did at least one favor for the cause of naturism.
But remember: all bodies are equal, not just the beautiful ones. Naturism is not only about non-sexual social nudity, it also brings the message that everybody can be naked if he or she respects the other.

Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2013: Lina Esco

Lina Esco of Free the Nipple is The Nude Guru's Celebrity of the Year 2013.
Her campaign and her movie have the potential to move the acceptance of non-sexual nudity forward by one huge step. As she explains at www.freethenipple.com, women in New York have been legally allowed to walk around topfree since 1992, but in 37 US states, even topless bathing on beaches is still banned, decades after the practice became commonplace in most European countries.
Lina Esco is a producer, director and actress. Her first TV appearance was in an episode of CSI: New York, her best known work is The Cove, a movie about the killing of dolphins in Japan. Free the Nipple is also a movie, but in order to make it work and have the end product shown on screens across the US, she turned to crowdfunding at Fund Anything.
As on previous occasions, some readers might point out that Lina Esco might not be a naturist, and that walking around New York topless is not naturism. That's right, but achieving the aims that Lina Esco has set, will be taking society one huge step closer to the acceptance of naturism, i.e. non-sexual social nudity.
Previous Celebrity Naturists of the Year have included Eva Mendes, a prominent 'home nudist,' Rosario Dawson, who visited naturist beaches, and last year Chelsea Handler and Sandra Bullock for their nude shower scene, which afterward proved to have been less nude than might have been.
As you can judge from my previous posts, topless equality or topfreedom has been a major topic in 2013. The Rael religious group held its annual international Go Topless Day in late August. Although I do not oppose religion, I have the average European's traditional suspicion of cults and sects and that held me back from picking the organizers of the day as my choice. Another interesting group, Topless Equality, with activists as far away as Hawaii, vanished off the radar before the end of the year. Yet another active movement, centered on New York, is the group of coeds which holds topless book readings in the city's parks.
My biggest initial doubt about Free the Nipple was provoked by one of its supporters. Over the past year, Miley Cyrus has been anything but a symbol for wholesome nudity or for naturism, which is why I first hesitated. Her name recognition will lend the cause some popularity, but I did conclude that Free the Nipple and Lina Esco are honest about their intentions. The campaign is not about Miley, it's about allowing women everywhere to enjoy the sunshine, swimming, and the basic freedom of wearing what you want.
That is the main reason why I think Lina Esco should be this year's celebrity naturist.
You can read more about her campaign at www.freethenipple.com.

Word of the Year 2013: Topless

Topless.
To a naturist on the lookout for news, that was a word even more frequently found in 2013 than the term selfie.
There was the Ukrainian women's group Femen, which traveled around the world to protest topless everywhere against all kinds of topics, from mistreatment of animals to prostitution and bans on abortion. As a naturist, I don't think being topless is shocking, so having more and more topless protests might actually dilute the news value of those protests.
In August, there was the annual Go Topless Day organized by the religious group Rael, which is gaining news exposure worldwide. The picture above comes from their website, www.gotopless.org. The next international Go Topless Day by the way, is August 24, 2014.
Around the same time, I found out about another group active on behalf of 'topfreedom,' Topless Equality, which had spokespersons as far as Hawaii. Unfortunately, since then, something seems to have happened to this group since its website is offline and no recent tweets were issued.
The most recent topless news comes from actress and director Lina Esco, who is looking for funding for a movie about women's rights to go topless at www.freethenipple.com. Her action received the support of Miley Cyrus, who makes lots of naturists, including me, squirm with what often looks like a vulgar and sexual interpretation of nudity.
Other topless news items this past year included the continued activities of a co-ed topless reading club in New York, with topless women reading books while sunbathing in parks. While not condoning topless equality, Pope Francis seemed recently to approve of public breastfeeding, a positive step if ever there was one.
To a naturist, topless is a halfway house. It's a matter of the glass being half full or half empty. For many women, topless might be the first step on the way to true naturism, while many other women will never go further than lying topless on the beach.
As a naturist, I believe that the increasing occurrence of the acceptance of topless women is a positive trend, because it makes more people more comfortable with more nudity. Toplessness should not be about provocation, but about the acceptance of nature, of people's natural state.
As topless activists say, breasts should be decriminalized. Violence is apparent everywhere in entertainment and in the media, so why should a beautiful creation like the human breast be banned from view?