Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2015: Spencer Tunick

The Celebrity Naturist of the Year is a person who might never have visited a nude beach or a naturist resort.
But that's not the point. The point is that through his or her actions or words, he either actively or unwittingly helped promote the cause of naturism, i.e. non-sexual social nudity.
For the first time since I started announcing these awards, the winner of the Celebrity Naturist of the Year Award is a man: Spencer Tunick, the photographer famous for his mass nude ensembles of people, standing or lying anywhere in a landscape from the Dead Sea to a glacier to the Sydney Opera House.
Standing around naked on a street is not naturism in it self, but Tunick's work has helped to popularize non-sexual nudity. It has helped other people - "textiles," in the naturist language - see nudity as something natural, ordinary, common, acceptable, artistic and beautiful.
We were all born naked, and Spencer Tunick's work has brought the humanity and naturalness of nudity closer to daily life.
While naturists prefer to live together on beaches, in resorts and hotels separate from textiles, Spencer Tunick has brought us closer to a world where it doesn't matter whether you wear clothes or not in your daily life. Thanks to his work, you can imagine a world, a city, an environment, where some people were clothes and some do not, all living together without surprise or shock at each other.
The 48-year-old New Yorker (49-year-old, if you're reading this in 2016) can be compared to the Go Topless or Free the Nipple movement started by Lina Esco, a previous Celebrity Naturist of the Year. Not a naturist either, but a person generalizing the innocence of public nudity and breaking the link, still present in too many minds, that nudity equals sex.
A naturist who lives away from naturist resorts and nude beaches can still get a flavor of the lifestyle by volunteering for a Spencer Tunick shoot. That's on my bucket list.
www.spencertunick.com

June: A Month for Nude Weekends

The past weekend(s) was quite a high time for naturist and non-naturist nude activities.
As the logo above shows, the Naturist Association of Thailand held its 4th International Naturist Conference. I attended the previous conference last year, but unfortunately, due to other commitments, I could not travel to Thailand this June. NATCON is a true naturist event in one of the few Asian countries which has real naturist hotels. Even though, just like in most other Asian countries, public nudity is banned and there are no official clothesfree beaches, Thailand does allow naturist hotels with swimming pools as long as the activities are isolated from the outside world. The Bangkok area, Pattaya and Chiang Mai all have true naturist hotels.
In other news, last weekend also marked World Naked Bike Ride day in many parts of the world, including London and Manchester in Great Britain. While not real naturism, the activity does increase acceptance for non-sexual public nudity, as it allows men and women to ride bicycles naked through city centers. The original aim is to decry the lack of respect and support for environmentally friendly bicycles and to call for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, but the event has grown into a worldwide nude festival, in the style of Spencer Tunick's photography marathons.
A third recent event related to nudity was the Free the Nipple gathering on a Los Angeles beach, calling for "topfree equality," the right of women to go without top there where men are allowed to do the same. After the movie "Free the Nipple," the movement has expanded to take root in places as different as Iceland and Taiwan, where a group of young women has been printing and distributing stickers. More about that in a later post.
While some of those events have made the media, it is also important to note that even when nothing is going on, the press can still put naturism in a positive light. The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph is generally regarded as conservative, and it does support the Conservative Party, but on naturism it has been taking a mature line, often featuring positive reports. The latest was a list of seven nude beaches in the UK itself: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/11675401/Britains-best-nudist-or-naturist-beaches.html
While I still haven't made any plans for my summer holidays and I don't know whether they will include naturism, I wish my fellow naturists a glorious nude summer.

Nude at the Museum

Spencer Tunick has staged mass events at which naked people were the piece of art. Another American artist, James Turrell, has had an opposite idea: inviting guests to walk around naked to admire his art. Either way, it is a positive move that can benefit international naturism, the movement which encourages public and social non-sexual nudity.
Visiting a museum can now be added to the more traditional #thingstodointhenude, like swimming, sunbathing, sports, sleeping. While at first sight, meeting up with a bunch of total strangers to walk around a cold building seems a strange idea, but the participants in the event at Australia's National Gallery in Canberra were mostly positive.
It was not weird, because everybody was in it together, one person said, while a woman enjoyed doing a naked cartwheel. That is precisely the point about naturism: everybody is in it together, and nobody should feel shame about his or her body, about being different. Naturism is freedom, also from distinctions created by clothes, as the tour guide pointed out.
The visitors to the James Turrell exhibition - and there were two groups of 50 per day - should learn more about naturism and be able to get naked in more places and at more times than just during a short museum tour.
An idea for other museums: just like public swimming pools or water recreation parks in some areas organize naturist days or hours, museums could come up with naked-only tours at specific times.

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 Summer That Wasn't

The summer of 2011.
The summer vacation is officially over, and what an awful summer it was, for naturists like me and for everyone who likes normal old-fashioned summers, with lots of sunshine and bearable temperatures.
Of course I'm talking about the most naturist continent in the world, Europe. If you spent most of the past few months in Spain, Hungary, Greece or even Russia, you probably don't understand what I'm moaning about.
But if you live in countries like the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Great Britain, yes, you do know the summer of 2011 was one of the worst you ever lived through.
Right now, it's also official. Meteorologists - who are supposed to predict the weather but are often better at analyzing what's past - say the summer was the worst in 34 years. That means since 1977, a summer I don't particularly remember, though it followed the summer of 1976, which was one of the best summers ever, except in Cornwall, where I happened to spend my annual holiday.
This summer was also awful because it rained a lot: a total of 61 days during June, July and August, that's two months out of three. I know there are naturists who enjoy a couple of raindrops on their bare skin, but for two full months? No, thanks.
Despite all the misery for people having to stay in the aforementioned Western European countries, there were still nude events around the world that lightened up one's naturist heart.
Spencer Tunick was at it again, photographing hundreds of completely nude women and men in a garden outside a Belgian castle. The semi-nude to fully nude cyclists were out on the streets of several world cities again to protest against the waste of energy and fuel, and members of a cult advocated the legalization of just being topless for women. The magazines obsessed by stars from the entertainment world came up with their annual topic of semi-nude celebrities - not in sex scenes from movies or TV, but from public beaches where they enjoyed the sea, the sand and the sun as everyone would. Too bad they were not naturists, just topless.
And at the end of it all? Ironically, right now, I'm looking outside a window and what do I see? It's September 1, the summer holidays are officially over, but the weather is trying to give us one of the most summery periods for a while.
We lost the summer of 2011, but we can still win the early autumn. Naturists can still have an Indian summer.

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!

December in the Nude

Most parts of the world are covered in snow nowadays. A large part of North America, Europe, China, Japan. Even the rest doesn't look so bright. Strong winds and rain in the Middle East, usually a refuge for European holidaymakers.
So how does a naturist survive the winter? There are two answers: either by going textile and limiting his nudity to warm quarters like home and the sauna, or by moving (temporarily at least) to warmer climes.
There are numerous examples of those where naturism is still possible: Australia has naturist beaches and resorts, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and even Thailand.
Those are faraway places for most of the rest of the world, so staying at home and turning the heater up or frequent visits to saunas are more realistic alternatives.
For most of us however, waiting until the spring or summer will be the thing to do.
Naturists are above all realists. Even though we prefer to go through life in the nude, we know this is not always possible. Therefore we go textile when we have to, to protect ourselves from excess cold or heat. December is one of those times. But snow doesn't mean we have to cover up all of the time. Remember, there are people who go skiing in the nude, and they do it on the same type of snow as all other skiers, so it is possible to combine nudity and snow, and to survive. Didn't Spencer Tunick take one of his mass nude shots on a glacier?
See you later this month, so in the meantime keep warm.

The Nude Guru

Asianaturist has tried for six years to report about naturism in Asia in general and Taiwan in particular, while trying to promote the practice of healthy non-sexual social nudity in the region.

Since naturism is still banned in most countries in the area and news about naturism in the region is few and farbetween - despite recent positive developments in Thailand and Malaysia - I have decided that the blog has served its purpose and a new approach is necessary.

The Nude Guru will continue on the same lines as the Asianaturist blog but on a global scale. We already brought you reports about naturism in Italy and other places, and brought you the Real Naturist of the Year and Celebrity Naturist of the Year Awards without any obvious Asian connection.

The new line will follow all that's good and bad about the naturist world and discuss it with you here and on Twitter. Free beaches, nude yoga, World Naked Bike Ride, Spencer Tunick's mass nude art, public breastfeeding and breast cancer, everything will find its place here, as long as it is related to healthy naturism. As on other naturist sites, if you are looking for exhibitionism and pornography, this will not be the place to visit.

The Nude Guru wishes you a warm naturist winter and looks forward to sharing naturism with you here on this blog and at http://twitter.com/thenudeguru.

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.

Taiwan's Glory in Sydney

Only yesterday, I wrote about the latest Spencer Tunick mass nude event in Sydney, hoping the same thing would be possible in Asia.
Just one day later, the omnipresent Taiwanese media found out that among the 5,200-strong crowd, there was one Taiwanese present.
In the front row in Sydney was a male Ph.D. student from the southern city of Kaohsiung, Lo Ching-yao. Not only did TV station TVBS identify him, it also tracked him down for a short interview.
Lo said the event was unique and a once-in-a-lifetime experience he just had to go for. At first, he was nervous, but as he saw the Australians around him take off their clothes without any hesitation, he already felt more comfortable. Lo said his sister approved of his decision to participate.
Even more interesting, Lo uttered the suggestion that the same kind of event could be staged in Taiwan itself. A proposal we fully support.
Lo's appearance in Sydney earned him the nickname of "Taiwan's Glory" or "Taiwan zhi Guang," an appellation used for all Taiwanese who become famous overseas, particularly in sports, but also a pun, since the Chinese word "guang" can also mean "naked."

5,200 People and One Tunick

5,200 Australians were nude and they had only one Tunick. But it was Spencer Tunick, the famous American who succeeds in persuading thousands of people worldwide to take off all of their clothes in some of the most famous public places. The event is never a secret, since apart from Tunick's own crew, the world's media also never pass up an opportunity to take pictures.
Tunick has done it everywhere, in New York, London, Bruges, and now outside the Sydney Opera House. He calls himself an artist and the mass nude events 'artistic installations,' but whatever you think, his 'art' has proved an immense success, and has made a contribution to the acceptability of non-sexual nudity. Standing around naked or lying naked on the steps of the Sydney Opera might not be naturism, and might or might not be art, but it certainly promotes the acceptance of nudity.
Asia has been conspicuously absent from his list of locations, and we all know that is because of the antiquated legislation on the books in most Asian countries. Why can't we have masses of naked people in front of the famous durian-shaped arts center in Singapore, on the massive place in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, or - even more daring - on Tiananmen Square in Beijing? Tunick could start with the ostensibly most 'westernized' places in Asia, namely Hong Kong and Japan, and see where he can go from there.
Public response from the local population might be more timid then what we see in Europe or Australia, but with the help of foreign residents and an official permission from more enlightened authorities, his events could come a long way, and better understanding of naturism would follow in his footsteps.
For 12 pictures of the Sydney event, visit the website of the Italian newspaper La Stampa at http://www.lastampa.it/multimedia/multimedia.asp?p=1&pm=1&IDmsezione=24&IDalbum=24578&tipo=FOTOGALLERY#mpos
Spencer Tunick's website is http://www.spencertunick.com.