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).

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?

Topless is More

A Go Topless event

Topless Equality Hawaii spokesperson Kyllie

Topless is more but naturism is most. Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I often use those phrases, with hashtags, when I post something referring to topless women, often celebrities caught on the beach, such as Celebrity Naturist of the Year Heidi Klum.
As a naturist, I look at topless as a halfway house. It's a stage between textile and naturism, a first step for women in the right direction, but one that often remains without its local conclusion, the conversion to naturism.
The reason that topless is the subject of a posting is of course the fact that next Sunday, August 25, has been proclaimed Go Topless Day by activists in the United States. In some locations, the day was held earlier, yesterday, August 17.
Their basic demand is topless equality or topfreedom, basically the right of women to be or go topless wherever and whenever men can.
Until now, most European countries and beaches are basically topless, i.e. if you're a woman - or man - and you want to be topless, you can do so. The problem lies of course with swimming pools and parks, and with beaches outside of Europe. In other continents, Asia, Africa, and even the Americas, women can still run into trouble, even when all they do is lie flat on their belly on a beach.
As a naturist, of course I believe that everybody, man or woman, should be allowed to wear or not wear the amount of clothing he or she is comfortable with in any place. Unfortunately, our societies are still too 'gymnophobe' or afraid of nudity, even when non-sexual. I know it's unrealistic to expect that in the near future, women will be allowed to walk topless around shopping streets, supermarkets and parks in the world's major cities, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try, and the beaches are of course the ideal starting point.
That's why groups of women have stood up, especially in the United States, to promote the cause of topless equality and topless freedom. Some women have already paid dearly for their insistence on non-sexual partial nudity by being forced into prison.
Fortunately, that has not scared other women from taking up the cause, with as a result the August 25, 2013 Go Topless Day, which is to be marked in several parts of the US, including Venice, California, and Boston.
The organization behind the event is Go Topless (http://gotopless.org), a group with a small religion as its background, the Raelites. Having grown up in a European country with one mainstream religion, I'm always rather suspicious of small sects or cults. In my country, people are either Catholic or non-believers, and other groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists and Mormons are being rather looked at with suspicion. If you remain aware that the creed of Rael might not be for you, then Go Topless is still a movement worth respecting.
The other movement I discovered is Topless Equality (http://toplessequality.com), which fights for the same cause and has appointed regional representatives, including in Hawaii. They have no religious agenda which could scare off some potential supporters.
No review of the topless world could be complete without a quick mention of the Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society (http://coedtoplesspulpfiction.wordpress.com, and yes, that name is far too long to memorize so I had to look at a piece of paper), a group of women who sit in New York parks to read Elmore Leonard novels while not wearing tops.
All these groups have their own ways of bringing the topless into daily lives, and while as a naturist, I would like to see those women take the final step and move on to naturism, I still believe that without being true naturists, they are making a positive contribution to the cause of non-sexual public nudity and therefore deserve our support.
See you on August 25, as topless as possible.
Pictures: on the left, a Go Topless event, on the right Topless Equality Hawaii representative Kyllie.