Real Naturist of the Year: Festival Nudista Zipolite

Image courtesy of organizers Festival Nudista Zipolite 2020.

Living in Taiwan, I know how difficult to create a naturist movement out of nothing. When you mention naturism to someone, a majority of people might not understand what it is, while the rest looks at you in revulsion because they know what it is either.
That's why I admire people who can stomp a naturist movement out of nothing and still be successful at it. The prime example of such is the Naturist Association of Thailand, a previous winner of my Real Naturist of the Year award, which in a relatively short time went from nowhere to being the largest naturist group in Asia, with several hotels and resorts launching to address the need for more naturism.
I now turn my attention away from Asia and to another part of the world that maybe, has not been known for large-scale naturism: Latin America. I am happy to say that there too, things are changing, in a positive way.
Mexico has had one official naturist beach for 3 years now: Zipolite, in the well-known state of Oaxaca on the country's west coast. It's not as popular or developed as the household names of Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta or Cancun, which might make it more difficult to reach and less easy to book hotel rooms as they fill up faster.
But Zipolite is now more than just a beach. To add to its naturist image, people have organized a full-blown annual festival which takes over the town in late January - early February. According to the media, the participants and visitors to the event have grown from a couple of hundred to several thousand, making it one of the largest nude and naturist events in the world.
What I personally approve it, is that the festival is not locked away behind the gates and walls of a private naturist resort, which of course has its own positives and negatives. The positive is that naturist values can be seen by everyone, and that outsiders who might have been hesitant before could be converted to non-sexual social nudity - naturism - by witnessing the event. The only potential negative I can see is of course that it draws people not interested in wholesome nudity, but that's why the festival is well-guarded and policed.
Because of the role the event plays in advocating naturism in Mexico, Latin America and beyond, this blog names the Festival Nudista Zipolite the winner of the Real Naturist of the Year Award for 2019.
The event has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1464381013859578/
If you're interested in the 2020 edition, from January 31 to February 3, another Real Naturist of the Year Award winner, the duo Naked Wanderings, will attend and report about the event. You can find their advice and comments for Zipolite at https://www.nakedwanderings.com/2019/12/16/visiting-zipolite-nudist-festival/
There are also several hotels operating on at least a clothing-optional basis in the area, such as the Hotel Nude: https://nudexplorer.com/?select=&lp_s_loc=Zipolite&lp_s_tag=&lp_s_cat=&s=home&post_type=listing

Everybody Can Be Botticelli's Venus

Photo from Emily Ratajkowski's Instagram account @emrata

I've said it many times before on this blog, especially around the time I announce my Celebrity Naturist of the Year. Just because a famous person likes posing nude or issuing nude pictures to the world, does not mean they are naturists.

For most celebrities, we just don't know whether their preference for nudity only exists in front of the camera or extends into their daily lives. As celebrities, they are unlikely to appear at nude beaches with Jack and Jill Naturist, but will prefer a more private environment, at a villa or on a yacht near an isolated beach.

Emily Ratajkowski is a case in point. She became famous for wandering topless in the Blurred Lines pop video, condemned by many  as an example of pure sexism. Since then, she has been frequently posting topless or 'near-naked' pictures of herself on her Instagram, ensuring they get picked up by the world media.

Is she a true naturist? Difficult to tell. Eva Mendes, Heidi Klum and Rosario Dawson - to name but a few of my past Celebrity Naturists of the Year - are known to hang around naked in their homes or on the beach. If you look at the past Instagram offerings by @emrata, you must come to the conclusion, that at least when she's at home or at a villa with pool, Emily Ratajkowski enjoys it too.

Of course, there is the issue of looks and fame. The all-too-frequent reaction to nudity is that it's allright if the person in case is good to look at, but if they somehow don't conform to general ideals of beauty, they should remain dressed.

This is where naturism comes in. At a naturist resort, on a nude beach, it doesn't matter whether you look like Emily Ratajkowski or not. Everyone is free to enjoy the sunshine and the water on his or her skin, and doesn't have to worry about what other people will think. Not only social class distinctions disappear with the clothes, but notions of beauty as well.

In the naturist world, everybody can become Botticelli's Venus, just like Emily Ratajkowski.

Maybe that's an idea for a new photo album, people of varying body types posing for The Birth of Venus. Anyway, whether she's a naturist or not, I personally feel Emily Ratajkowski - and other nude-friendly celebrities like her - are promoting the idea that nudity is OK, nudity is relaxation and nature.

More about Emily Ratajkowski's Botticelli pictures: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5266209/Emily-Ratajkowkski-evokes-Birth-Venus-nude-photo.html

Kim Kardashian also went 'one step further' with her most recent nude post, according to the media: http://www.tmz.com/2018/04/24/kim-kardashian-almost-shows-off-vagina-nude-photo/



We'll always have Paris ... at least until October 15

A world where you don't have to wear clothes.
It's hot today, the sun is out, you don't have any clothing ready, and you don't really need any because it's not cold, so you step out the door and walk to the baker's, the grocer's, the supermarket, or even your work, without any clothes on.
Science fiction? I have often thought of writing such a story myself, a novel or a screenplay set in a world where being naked anywhere anytime is absolutely normal and acceptable. Or it could be the other way around, a world oppressed by excessive clothing where a handful of rebels and innovators take the lead to change the ruling mentality and 'free the masses.'
In the meantime, in the real world, there are small steps that help us in that direction. The worldwide naturist movement, the opening of naturist beaches and free beaches in more and more countries, naturism in parks in Germany, the topfreedom or Free the Nipple movement.
Paris, the capital of one of the most naturist-friendly countries in the world, is finally following the example of German cities like Munich.
A park area in the Bois de Vincennes has opened daily for use by naturists. As an experiment, it will only function in that role until October 15.
Naturism in the open air  in Paris in September and October, I hear you say? Sure, most of that time might be rather chilly, so they should have launched the project in spring and keep it going all through summer.
But it's a start, and if it works out well, if there are enough true naturists, if there are no incidents with harassment or fake nudists, then the experiment will become an example, and hopefully next year already, be expanded, both in time and space. One of the problems of naturism is often that you have to find really remote places, such as isolated beaches at the end of unmarked rocky paths, before you can enjoy the practice.
Inaugurating naturist spaces in or near major cities is a positive move forward, so I wish the Bois de Vincennes tryout  all the best.
Actually, earlier this year, another European capital, Brussels in Belgium, also faced a proposal to open an urban naturist space, but it went the other way from Paris.
Naturist beaches are already a feature of all European countries, the top equality movement is making headway in the United States, so why not join forces and campaign for more non-sexual nudity in society, not just at the edges?
(Photo courtesy of ANP, the Paris Naturists Association).

Naked Wheels and the Return of Lady God1va

June hails  the advent of summer, of the summer holidays,  at least in the northern  half of our Earth. That's why it  is also a popular time to start taking  those clothes off and launch naturist and half-naked events. One of those is the 6th edition of Natcon, starting today, as the most popular naturist event in Asia, based in Thailand.

Not purely naturist, but gaining popularity worldwide, is the World Naked Bike Ride, with several locations around the world this Saturday, including London.

The event is not just nudity for its own sake, it’s a protest against energy overconsumption and against ‘car culture.’

As to myself, I am a naturist and I love cars, visiting the Taipei Motor Show every year. I have nothing against cars, but I am of course against people who think they don’t have to respect other road users just because they drive a car, a certain type or brand of car. All road users, including cyclists, should respect the rules and the rights of other road users, especially the weakest among us, the pedestrians.

In the margin of the World Naked Bike Ride, it is nice to hear again from a naturist activist, the British woman who used to be known as @ladygod1va and whom I chose as my Real Naturist of the Year 2016. She was banned for life from Twitter, even though there was no reason to do so. She has always been a true naturist, even though on Twitter you find many fake naturists who post pictures that have nothing to do with naturism, yet they never get banned.

You can find Lady God1va’s latest message at https://ladygod1va.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/london-wnbr-10-june-2017/ and the World Naked Bike Ride at http://wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org/

Each location seems to have its own separate page with routes and times, so browse around online and get naked on wheels.

(Photo by Paul-in-London from Wikimedia Commons)

Out in the garden

It's the first Saturday of May ... meaning it's also World Naked Gardening Day.
While I grew up in the countryside in an old house with a literally huge garden, I somehow never caught the gardening microbe.
Yes, I went into the garden to play hide-and-seek, to sit in the sunshine and read a book, to set up an Indian tent, to play with the cats, to pick strawberries and other berries whose English name I don't really know, but neither gardening nor naturism were ever an option.
I discovered naturism by traveling overseas, first of all to Croatia - which was then still known as Yugoslavia - and later to Sweden and the United States. Santa Barbara, California, had a stretch of ocean beach where nude bathing was allowed, but when I visited years later, it had disappeared.
Back to gardening: I chose to live in a densely populated urban society in Asia, where gardens are an unheard-of luxury.
Some people put pots of flowers on the top of their high-rise apartment tower, up on the 11th or the 24th or the 30th floor, or find a place for a potted plant inside their apartment, but that's about it. When you have 23 million people crammed in a space the size of the Netherlands, and half of it is occupied by tall mountains where nobody can or wants to live, it's easy to understand why housing prices in the cities are so high, and why most people can't afford to buy the European-style house with a garden.
But I still have a garden, only it's not a naturist-friendly one.
Back in Europe, there were lots of walls and trees which could have theoretically been useful if I had been able otherwise - read: if my relatives had been naturists too - to want to use parts of the garden for naturism.
But here in Taiwan, my 'garden' is a narrow balcony with almost top-to-bottom windows. If I stand naked in that 'garden,' people down in the street outside, including the police officers directing traffic during rush hour, will be able to witness my naturist endeavors.
So all I can do is pop over naked in the morning to open the windows up to morning air, and to pop back inside quickly - or take a picture first, as I did yesterday morning, in preparation for this blog post to mark World Naked Gardening Day.
With this, I wish everybody who does have a real garden or at least a patch of green where he or she can live as a naturist, even if it is only for a brief time, a productive day.
If you google the term World Naked Gardening Day, you are going to find lots of articles today. The main website of course is http://www.wngd.org

Naked with your colleagues?

Naturists usually go on holiday just like other people do, in a nuclear family setting: husband and wife with children, but what if non-naturists suddenly have to go on a naturist holiday with ... colleagues at work?
Belgian online magazine Charlie sent its staff - five women and two men - on just such a trip.
Editor-in-chief Jozefien describes how most of the bodies we see, especially women but now also men, are at least partly fake: advertising uses 'perfect' bodies, sometimes photoshopped, never natural, never the way you see your own body, the one you wake up with or take into the shower., which means people have a warped idea of what a natural human body looks like. The magazine's experiment wanted to change all that, she says.
Sexuologist Wim describes how a long time ago, people saw nothing wrong with nudity, while today, the quickest way to be thrown off Facebook is to post a picture of women's breasts.
The three women staff members interviewed in the 1:28 minute video about their experience say how they very quickly got used to being naked and seeing their colleagues naked. Only one of the three said she had enough and did not regret having to put her clothes back on at the end.
They say that usually - meaning, in advertising - all breasts are the same, but here, they saw all types of breasts, in a natural way. They also emphasized that everybody had to be naked.
At present, there are more and more "CO" or "clothing optional" resorts, where you are not forced to go all naked. The practice is designed to introduce those still alien to the idea of total social nudity to the concept. Especially women who are new to naturism might feel more comfortable if they can at first go topless and see how it goes, though the ideal is that they overcome their fears and join the naturists as soon as possible.
As to myself, a naturist for more than 35 years though limited by my geographical location in Taiwan, I can hardly imagine going on a naturist holiday with my colleagues, or even my relatives and friends. It's not that I'm too shy, it's just that I don't think they are up to it, or even understand the concept.
When Taiwanese go on holiday to "naturist-friendly" countries, say in Europe, they will visit historic monuments, famous scenery, and go shopping, but a stay at a beach is hardly ever on the schedule, partly due to time constraints, partly because Taiwanese and Asians in general are not as beach-oriented as westerners.
As a result, most Taiwanese have never been to a beach in Europe, so they are not aware that women can be and are topless on most beaches, let alone that there are so many naturist and free beaches around the continent, even in supposedly colder countries.
The Charlie Magazine article (in Dutch): https://www.charliemag.be/zin-in/billen-bloot/
The Charlie Magazine video (in Dutch): https://youtu.be/j4it26zKFrw

You don't have to be Kate Moss ...

Kate Moss, the British supermodel, has done it again. At the age of 43, she has appeared naked - well, in theory she's apparently 'wearing' - though it looks more like carrying - a designer piece. This time, it's the latest edition of W Magazine which has done the honors, putting Miss Moss up as one of five strong women, in the company of Jennifer Lopez, Taraji P. Henson of Empire and Hidden Figures fame, Versace chief Donatella Versace, and Jessica Chastain of Zero Dark Thirty, Interstellar, and other movies.
Critics might say Kate Moss's nudity is not pure naturism, because it only exists in function of fashion brands, which want us to wear their clothes, not to take them off and feel good in the nude.
Yet, for years, I have regarded the supermodel's nude stints as more than that. She has appeared nude or almost on beaches and yachts, making it look as if she is really comfortable with nudity, and I think she is.
The whole message I want to bring about is this: yes, Kate Moss is a supermodel, a beautiful woman who looks beautiful with or without clothes, but you don't have to be Kate Moss to feel good naked.
The naturist movement has always had some problem in attracting women to its cause. An imbalance in favor of men, women worried about that same imbalance making them feel vulnerable, women feeling they don't have the looks to venture out in the nude.
Tawdry and stupid comments by online males saying that naturist beaches are only populated by old people or that some women should never appear naked have only fueled the female reluctance to try naturism.
Only recently have campaigns against bodyshaming and in favor of so-called 'plus-size' models managed to start redressing the situation.
No, you don't have to look like Kate Moss to try out naturism, but you can just feel like Kate Moss: free in your own body, free to enjoy your body, free to go naked when you feel like it. Naturism is not about looks, it's about feeling free, right and comfortable.
The full article in W Magazine about Kate Moss's latest picture is here:
http://www.wmagazine.com/story/kate-moss-model-proudly-naked-at-42-going-strong-as-fashions-reigning-muse
Photo above by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for W Magazine.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Real Naturist of the Year 2015: Vritomartis Naturist Resort, Crete

I've only been to the Greek island of Crete once in my life, decades ago, probably four of them. That means you understand I have never been to the Vritomartis Naturist Resort on that island.
Yet, I must admire them for their pluck and courage. They're hyperactive on the Internet, with a blog, on Facebook, on Twitter.
They have a photography contest. They organize nude hiking expeditions in the mountains. They organize nude cruises in the Mediterranean off Crete. They welcome nude weddings.
As I said, I have never been there, but even I'm ever again in the neighborhood, their online activities and the excellent pictures on their website are enough to draw me in.
It must be quite a feat to have started a naturist resort on the south coast of Crete, the side of the island furthest away from the airports and from the crowds of the north coast. When I visited Crete decades ago, I never even saw the south coast, and I didn't venture further east than Agios Nikolaos.
My Real Naturist of the Year award is just a title. It doesn't include any financial rewards, there is no fancy piece of art that gets handed out and there is no ceremony. At the end of the year, I just name somebody or something, a resort, a person, an association, that has been active in the spread of real, true naturism.
Having been active this year on Facebook, I came to the conclusion that the Vritomartis Naturist Resort, despite or maybe because of its apparently isolated location, is one of the most active resorts, not just on behalf of itself, but also on behalf of naturism in general. That's why it deserves to be named the Real Naturist of the Year 2015.
www.vritomartis.com

Naturism: All You Need Is A Smile

I never thought I could fall in love with an image.
On Facebook, NUSA Sun Inc. puts up pictures directly and indirectly related to naturism. I have no idea where their picture above was taken and who the person in the picture is - yes, she looks a bit like Michelle Obama, doesn't she? - but this is the most beautiful promotional picture for naturism I've ever seen.
Outsiders who stumble upon a nude beach or first-time visitors to a naturist resort sometimes say that there are only "old people" there - a statement I have always found to be untrue. Visiting scores of nude beaches across the world, from California to Sweden via Croatia, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as naturist hotels in Croatia and Thailand, I have never had the impression that only old people were naturists.
Certainly, there are old people at each naturist beach or resort, but there are also young couples with childrens, middle aged singles and couples, and just about any kind of people.
The real problem with some naturist areas is that they don't get enough women because it takes some courage for women to be persuaded to visit. Ethnic minorities are also a problem, but then again, that's also understandable. For many Caucasians, naturism might not be about more than getting that nice tan, while people in East Asia for example tend to run away from the sun, favoring open umbrellas and whitening creams to sunshine and tans.
And that's where the beauty of this picture lies: a woman, an African-American woman, who nevertheless wants to take part in the naturist lifestyle.
I don't know who she is, I don't even know whether she's just on a regular beach or a nude beach, I can't tell whether she's just topless or naturist, but her smile says it all. Naturism is all about feeling happy and contented.
The woman is saying: in naturism, you don't need clothes, all you need is a smile.
Good luck to you, and good luck to NUSA!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/NUSA-SUN-INC/463335600439579?fref=photo

August 2015: Month of the Breast

Nudity isn't sexual.
That's one of the basic tenets of naturism. Naturists go naked, not because they want to be exhibitionists, not because they want sex, but because the naked state of the body is the most natural one, and the one most comfortable to swim, sun, and live in.
'Nudity isn't sexual' appears in the AP photo above, not with a story about naturism, but in a story about topless women - and men.
While not directly related to naturism, the topless equality movement - which says men and women should have equal rights to be topless in similar conditions - has been making giant strides over the past year, so much so that as a naturist, I have been devoting several stories to the topic.
The topless equality movement seems to have become the forefront of the non-sexual nudity movement, a twin sister of naturism.
The month of August this year seems to have turned into an outright celebration of toplessness. Just consider these events and incidents:
1. Three Canadian sisters surnamed Mohamed went cycling topless, but were stopped by police demanding they put more clothes on. Normal, many people might think, were it not that being topless is legal where the sisters cycled. The incident gave rise to last weekend's Bare With Us protest where the AP shot its photo.
2. On a less happy note, a woman who was sunbathing in a bikini - not even topless - in the French city of Reims was attacked by five reportedly Muslim women who called her indecent. If things like that can happen in the country that gave us Brigitte Bardot and Cap d'Agde, a warning bell must ring. Fortunately, many French women and men condemned the violence and took to the streets to defend women's rights.
3. The Big Latch On: a bizarre name to most of us, but it is the motto for World Breastfeeding Week, currently happening. In New York, young mothers staged a joint outside breastfeeding 'event' to underline women's right to feed their babies wherever and whenever those go hungry. Public breastfeeding has long been a topic of debate, but even so-called 'conservative' Asian societies are coming around.
4. The biggest topless-related event is coming later this month: World Go Topless Day. While concentrated in North America, the success of Lina Esco's 'Free the Nipple' movement, despite being unrelated to the Go Topless Day, has made so many people worldwide aware of the campaign for topless equality that the August 23 day is bound to be a resounding success.
While naturists believe in being fully naked socially rather than just topless and also do not approve of exhibitionism or needless provocation, I fully support the topless equality movement because it could signify a huge step forward in the acceptance of social, non-sexual nudity.
I believe naturists everywhere, men and women, can take part in Go Topless Day events and believe they did something for a good cause. I made modest financial contributions to the Free the Nipple movie and to a related Taiwanese sticker campaign. If I were living in a country where August 23 is marked as Go Topless Day, I would go and participate because I believe it will serve the cause of naturism.
Never before has a month so been dominated by news related to toplessness, so August 2015 really deserves the title of 'Month of the Breast.'

Things to Do in the Nude: Bungee Jumping

Imagine the scene: a group of tourists from Hong Kong line up to try out bungee jumping. One young woman in the group shows up in a black bikini and suddenly takes it all off before she takes the leap.
Nobody complained, nobody seems to have been shocked enough to call in the police, and as the picture from Coconuts Bangkok shows, the young woman had a great time.
Yet, before last weekend, this simple event in the northern Thai town of Chiang Mai suddenly became international news, with even newspapers in Taiwan devoting ample space to it.
The reason was that somebody had posted pictures of the event online, and that somehow the police department in Chiang Mai had noticed those, and visited the premises.
The result was a fine of 1,000 baht or about 30 US dollars for the operator of the bungee jumping site. While one can understand there are laws in this respect, going to fine nude bungee jumping a week after the fact, when nobody complained about it, is totally unnecessary and a waste of resources.
The authorities in the city thought of mentioning that the event would harm its international standing as a location with a rich culture, but Chiang Mai is hardly likely to be remembered from now on as "the place where that woman jumped in the nude" rather than as a scenic must-go place in Northern Thailand.
While some reports said the Hong Kong woman was a model, named Natalie, who was out to garner fame, her actions were nothing more than an innocent fun thing to do, like skinny dipping. She showed how much more fun things can be when you do it in the nude, without the restrictions of clothing, feeling the wind and the sunshine on your bare skin.
And for those who want to try real naturism in Thailand and do things in the nude without the fear of being fined - though I think bungee jumping would not be possible - they can turn to http://thailandnaturist.com, where they can also look up naturist hotels and resorts in the Southeast Asian country.

Naked Germany at CNN

 

Congratulations, CNN!

On the whole, I don't really like a lot of the international media, but in this case, CNN - at least the website, I don't know about the TV station - has brought a balanced and serious account of naturism, in Germany.

The main reason is that the story comes from an insider: a German who like most of his compatriots grew up in a family where naturism was not an ideology but a way of life. He tells the story of what naturism is, how it originated more than a century ago as a health movement, and what you can do and not do in the nude in Germany.

Freikoerperkultur - Free Body Culture, the German term for naturism - may have most of its followers in that country, but as Germans traveled all over Europe from the 1960s on, naturism expanded. It came back from the Mediterranean shores to envelop all of Europe.

Proponents of today's Free the Nipple movement in the United States and Asia would do well to study the lessons of naturism and follow its example. The starting points of both movements are widely different, but in the end, it is all about respect for others, for one's body, and for the freedom of non-sexual social nudity.

You can and should read the CNN article at http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/06/travel/naked-germany/

The German naturist federation is at www.dfk.org.



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.

Free the Nipple hits Iceland

I'm a naturist, not an exhibitionist.
So, if I were a woman, would I walk down the street in Iceland with these young women and bare my breasts in close-to-zero temperatures?
You bet I would.
They're not out there to shock the world, at least not in a negative sense. They may call themselves feminists, but what they want is just a logical progression from what has been happening in Europe for the past 60 years or so: after the bikini, women started going topless on Mediterranean beaches, then they brought that habit back to Western and Northern Europe. After all, if women can go sunbathe and swim topless on foreign beaches, why can't they do so in their home countries?
The wider acceptance of women's breasts as more than something to be watched by dubious men has gained ground, with breastfeeding and advertising and topless or naturist beaches spreading the idea that breasts are, well, breasts.
The newest movement has a feminist underground not seen since the 'Burn the Bra' calls of the 1960s. While not a follower of any rigid ideologies myself, I can see women have a point: if men can be 'topless' in certain situations, why can't women?
The Iceland event started with a feminist 17-year-old posting a close-up picture of a nipple, being criticized for it by men, and then coming back in a big way, with loads of Icelandic women and even a politician posting theirs.
While I'm not naive enough to believe that women with bare breasts will be walking around major cities in Europe any time soon, let alone in other continents, I think naturism can only benefit from the movement. Naturism is the acceptance of non-sexual nudity, be it male or female, be it young or old, be it thin or obese, every body can be free.
Free the Nipple activist and director Lina Esco was my Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2013, Scout Willis was my Celebrity Naturist of the Year 2014 (see below), and Adda Smaradottir is the subject of my first post on this blog for 2015, so the Free the Nipple Movement must be doing something right.
Unlike Femen, their actions are not designed as a negative statement to shock, but as a positive measure to allow women to be themselves, in real life and on social media which too often still treat women's bodies as porn.
Thanks to one 17-year-old in Iceland, March 26 will be come another date on the calendar, in addition to World Naturism Day and the World Naked Bike Ride. They day should be known as Free the Nipple Day, not just in cold Iceland, but all over the world.

The Real Naturists of the Year 2014: Malaysia Nude Games

Previous choices as my Real Naturist of the Year were mostly people living in countries where naturism might not be generally known and prevalent, but at least they were free to promote naturism, to take part in naturist activities, or to run naturist resorts.
This year, the situation was different. Several naturists in Malaysia were questioned, detained, fined and even sentenced to prison for organizing a nude sports event which nobody even saw until it was distributed on the Internet.
The Malaysia Nude Games took part on the tourist island of Penang on Malaysia's northwest coast during the first half of the year. I saw the video of the event - which later circulated online and caused the legal problems - in Thailand in early June.
As could be expected, the Nude Games were just that: a series of innocent beach games, on a much smaller and more modest scale than naturist athletic events taking part every summer in parts of Europe.
The galling thing about all the legal fuss is that nobody actually witnessed the Nude Games and complained about it to the authorities as they happened. The only complaints were based on the video which was placed online later. In other words, nobody outside naturist circles actually knew of the event before or when it happened, so there was no reason for anybody to be offended.
While the Nude Games were at the time seen by the naturist community as a breakthrough for naturism in East Asia, where most countries still ban the practice, the treatment given to organizers and participants will scare off future naturist events in Malaysia, even if they are being held behind closed doors.
For their bravery, and as a sign of support for naturists fighting against persecution, we named the organizers and participants in the Malaysia Nude Games as the Real Naturists of the Year 2014.
You will find an account of the event on this Malaysian blog http://psantubong1.blogspot.tw/2014/08/malaysia-nude-sports-games-2014.html
and a media report at
http://hype.my/newsdesk/nsfw-malaysia-nude-sports-games-2014/
The video of the event seems to have been taken down.
As a sign of sympathy and support, naturists in San Francisco staged their own Nude Games last October: http://www.mynakedtruth.tv/2014/09/we-need-your-donations-malaysia-nude-beach-games-in-san-francisco-october-4-2014/

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.