Naturist commentary @gbanudist - Tumblr Blog

Today in the United States of America smoking is legal. True there are fewer and fewer places people can smoke and you must be 21 or older to purchase smokes (like that really stops teens) but every year over one thousand Americans die from second hand smoke.

Today in America gun possession is legal, in fact it is enshrined in the second amendment. Yet every year over one thousand Americans die from "second hand gun possession". I'm just talking about the "I didn't know it was loaded" and the 5 year old who kills him 3 year old sister incidents. Not including the school shootings and place of worship shootings and shopping mall shootings, etc. etc. etc.

Today in America car ownership is legal. And cars are exceedingly handy for getting around. Plus you need to prove your competence behind the wheel and are supposed to be sober and not fiddling with your phone while you drive. Yet every year over one thousand Americans die from "second hand car". Some are in crosswalk, others on bicycles, some on sidewalks or bus benches or in stores or restaurants or at home when a car comes through a wall.

Today in America public nudity is illegal and punishable by fines, imprisonment, and placement on a "sex offenders registry". Yet I challenge anyone to show me one incident in the last ten years where a person died from the direct and exclusive result of seeing someone naked. And don't give me a man driving down a street seeing a naked woman and crashes into a tree or phone pole. That is contributory negligence.

While we are at it, how many rapists in the last year were naked before they selected their rape victim? How many pedophiles were naked before they chose the children they would molest? I am betting that if the number isn't zero it is in the single digits. That would seem to indicate that women and children are far safer around naked men than dressed men.

Also, how many naked people have carried a concealed weapon? How many naked people have hidden a bomb on their person.

Exactly who are anti-nudity laws designed to protect and from what?

Everyone must drive a gasoline powered automobile!

That is the equivalent, at least to me, of the mandate that we must all wear clothes under penalty of law.

If you, like me, believe in the harmful effects of climate change as well as the effects supporting the oil industry have in this regard, then you probably have or want solar panels and an electric car. Then if you also believe that the clothing industry is second only to the oil industry in it contribution to global warming, the mandate to wear clothing and support the clothing industry, by default, is the equivalent to a mandate to drive a polluting vehicle when there is a clear and available suitable alternative.

In the case of clothing the simple alternative is to allow anyone who wishes to go naked or nearly naked whenever they feel the weather is conducive.

Since I live in an area that struggles with water insecurities the idea that a single cotton shirt requires approximately 2,700 liters of water just to grow the cotton is worrisome. The amount of diesel or gasoline needed to plow, plant, harvest, ship and create that shirt also adds to its carbon footprint. The fertilizer, insecticide, and dies that end up in our waterways is also a consideration. And finally the fast fashion clothing that is clogging landfills here and around the world, as that clothing slowly rots letting off methane, is just mind boggling.

The less often I wear clothes, the less they need washing. And the less they wear out. Therefore I buy fewer and fewer clothes every year. But currently I can only be naked in my house and back yard. I can't work naked in my front garden. I can't be naked while putting out my trash bins, washing my car, or retrieving my mail. I have to wear a shame suit at the beach or a public pool even though I am not the least bit ashamed of any portion of the body God gave me.

Social media companies make it nearly impossible to show the simple truth that nudity is normal, natural, and nothing to be upset about. They instantly conflate nudity with sex and inappropriate behavior. In many places being nude in public can get your name on the same list as those who rape and abuse children. There is no equivalency between those two! How the hell do we get our message out?

Even those women who advocate simply for top freedom equality (like Cleo of Topless Topics) get continually censored, banned, and harassed for posting the simple truth that there is no anatomical difference between male nipples and female nipples. We have a society that praised guns and vilifies nudity, and then we wonder why we have so many mass shootings. Has no one noticed that a naked person has nowhere to hide a weapon? Naked people aren't violent! It is clothed people who rape and rob and traffic other humans. Yet I challenge anyone to find a TV show that shows innocent, nonsexual nudity. And if you manage, there will be blurred areas of the people's bodies. That is because the FCC banned any nudity when Janet Jackson's bejeweled right nipple made a less than one second appearance at a Super Bowl halftime show. I'm sure glad they are protecting the American public from the threat of unpasteurized milk.

I understand that in England, New Zealand, and Spain you can actually go naked anywhere in public without being arrested as long as you aren't doing anything of a sexual nature. It would both be nice and better for the environment if the rest of the world were that open minded. But then the clothing industry would suffer, and we couldn't have that, could we?

Capitalism Requires Anti-nudity Laws

I really hadn't thought about this until I read an article on Planet Nude about FKK in East Germany before the reunification. For a time the government there had decided that nudity was very egalitarian and small “c” communist. All their beaches became clothing optional. They promoted nude vacations for their workers but they weren't in remote and hidden “camps”. Nudity was commonplace and no one made a profit off it. Pornography on the other hand was illegal and almost non-existent.

Last year the swimsuit industry made between $21 Billion and $26 Billion worldwide. If the capitalist world had the attitude of East Germany all those billions of dollars would just disappear. No one would be earning them. Many jobs would disappear. Whole companies would not be in business.

That is just one small, though in my mind totally unnecessary, article of clothing. How many billions of dollars would be lost if women could go top-free and therefore didn't purchase bras, except maybe for running? Would anyone need special clothing for yoga? How many different sports really don't need clothing to be enjoyed? You think AI is a threat to the job market, just think what allowing nudity would do.

I certainly am not one who is in favor of anti-nudity laws. I would be very happy to be able to be nude as much as possible. I don't want to contribute any more than I must to the pollution generated by the clothing industry (second only to the petroleum industry in planet ruining chemicals). But the sad truth is that as long as there is a dollar to be made there will be those who will push to insure that they are able to get their slice of the pie.

How many people would love to get rid of pornography? How many people make money exploiting it? And yet if nudity became ubiquitous pornography would all but vanish. How many dollars are spent on vitamin supplements that would be unnecessary with proper diet and maximum exposure to sunshine? How many medial conditions would not exist if people spent more time nude? How many dollars could be saved if people just liked their bodies better and weren't looking for a pill or procedure to “improve” them?

But the sad truth is that we need everybody to wear clothes and pollute the planet in order for all of us to live in a capitalist, consumer-sentric world were there are enough jobs to go around and enough money flowing so that everyone, poor, middle class, and super rich can all enjoy the profits to be found by insisting that the human body is unacceptable as God created it and so it must remain clothed 24/7/52. Mores the pity!

I have a problem with Gymnophobia

My problem is that I do not suffer from it. Apparently that is very un-American.

For those of you who don't know the word; the gymnos part of the Greek word for nudity and a phobia is an irrational fear. So Gymnophobia is the irrational fear of being seen naked or seeing someone else naked. It is the irrational part that I want to focus on. People have fears of heights or flying or bugs or snakes. Well maybe snakes aren't so irrational. But nudity? Totally irrational!

Because what exactly would happen to you if some random person saw you naked? How would their opinion of you have any impact on the rest of your life? What if you saw someone else naked? Has anyone ever died from seeing another person naked?

Yet Americans, in particular, hang on tight to this fear. While you would think that most people would want to get over their irrational fears not so the fear of nudity. Why isn't there a "Go-Fund-Me" looking for a cure? Why isn't the CDC pursuing a vaccine to offset the effects? Instead they look at anyone who doesn't suffer from it as being weird or worse. They even pass laws to enshrine this phobia as the right and proper way to live.

It seem oh so hard to even dampen or assuage anyone's fears. They have been so ingrained since childhood. Every parent makes certain to pass this fear on to their children, and anyone else who will listen. As such we naturists, the only rational ones around, are fighting an uphill battle just to preserve our own sanity in a world that insists we need to be just as neurotically phobic as everyone else around us.

Has anyone found a cure other than dragging people to naturists resorts to show them how wrong headed they truly are? I would certainly like to know what it is.

How do I opt-out of clothes?

I put solar panels on my house, bought an all electric car, and installed a car charger. Now I have essentially opted-out of petroleum and instead I am driving on sunshine. Well, I can't get away from the petroleum industry entirely (the most polluting industry on the planet) because just about everything you buy comes wrapped in plastic. But at least I have made a good start as far as I am concerned.

But what about the clothing industry? The second most polluting industry on the planet! How do I opt-out of at least some of it?

For comparison it is like they passed a law that you must drive a petroleum powered vehicle. Failure to do so can result in a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail for your first offense. That is what the US laws regarding clothing and body coverage amount to. Today it is 80f degrees (27c), sunny, light breeze, no precipitation. What do I need clothing for? To protect me from what? Who are they protecting and from what?

But it isn't an option to stroll down the street wearing just a pair of shoes. I have to purchase clothing. I have to wear clothing. I have to wash clothing, and eventually I have to throw away clothing. It would be so nice if those of us who want to minimize our footprint on this planet were given the ability to do that as we see fit. I see fit to be nude whenever practical (weather permitting)

What constitutes an obsession?

My wife has accused me with being obsessed with nudity. She says I live in an echo chamber of nudist blogs, videos and books. And while it is true in an average week I spend 75% to 80% of the time naked, I do get dressed for going out shopping, to church, etc. The blogs, videos, and books (research mostly) are trying to find something that will speak to her on the subject. And I have listened to and read opinions against nudity but they all come off as either dumb, ignorant, or twisting the truth to make a point.

My wife meanwhile is only naked in the shower. She can't go from the bathroom to the bedroom without at least a robe. When changing outfits she never gets completely naked, instead she keeps at least one article of clothing on from the old outfit while putting on some pieces of the new. It doesn't bother her that I am in the room at the same time, she isn't trying to hide from me.

So what do you think? Which one of us is obsessed? I have gone for weeks dressed while we were on vacation. She hasn't returned the favor.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 8 - The Challenge

For centuries governments, churches and other institutions have used clothing and sexual repression as a way to control their populations. Killing people doesn't work nearly as well as finding some level of personal freedom that people can be convinced to relinquish for the “freedom and safety” they offer. So once you agree to wear clothing everywhere you are free to do whatever you wish with your significant other as long as:

You dress appropriate to your sex at birth covering all the proscribed body parts.

Your significant other is of the opposite sex.

You don't do it on the sabbath, or the day before the sabbath, or on a holy day...

You do it purely for procreation.

Etcetera! Etcetera! Etcetera!

Of course you can expect to be punished to the full extent of the law should you break with these laws and traditions.

I am fully aware that our society, even if magically enlightened one day, cannot suddenly just start going nude with no repercussions. We have done far too good a job of painting ourselves into a corner to just snap our fingers and one day everyone just accept nudity as normal. Even though no one is harmed in any way by observing another person in the nude, violence, especially against women and children, would certainly ensue. It would probably take at least two generations to correct the problems we have bought upon ourselves. Just like the 40 years in the desert the Jews needed after leaving Egypt before entering the promised land. Our society would need a time to heal from the ill effects of these past “good intentions”.

But in order to get anywhere we need to start somewhere. A full generation of home nudity would be an excellent place to start. We need to breed out that “Macho Superiority” that many men and boys feel. We need to teach men to truly see and appreciate women as equals. And women need to see men and other women as they truly are in order to get past the myth that only a woman with a perfect body is acceptable in society. To see the whole person and not just a collection of interesting body parts. To see and understand that “every body is beautiful. Psychologists have shown that seeing and being seen in the nude is an excellent way to achieve this goal. The more comfortable we can be with our own nude bodies and with the nude bodies of everyone else the more we can recognize the person inhabiting that body.

I would be very curious to see what anyone could write under the heading:

“How Society Benefits from Everyone Wearing Clothing all the Time”.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 7 - Religion

Oscar Wilde once observed: “If God had wanted man to go naked we would have been born that way.”

In the third chapter of the very first book of the Bible it describes how God made man and woman in his own image, made them naked, and said they were VERY GOOD. In all the remaining chapters in all the remaining books of the Bible He never once recants that statement. Our society has decided otherwise.

Our big problem is that we read the Bible with the filters provided by the society in which we live. We have private bathrooms with doors that shut in order to keep others out. We have clothing that is plentiful and cheap and can wear a different outfit each day. For people in biblical times their one outfit probably cost them the equivalent of what our car costs us today. And they didn't have financing. Of course they could make their own clothing rather than buy it, but it probably took most of a year to do so, what with combing, spinning, weaving, and sewing all done my hand.

They had open public latrines with no privacy barriers between stalls. That or they had open fields and maybe bushes to hide behind. In order to bathe they went to a lake, river or public bath with no segregation of the sexes. Seeing others naked was very commonplace, no big deal.

If you only had one outfit to cover your body, and you needed to use that to sleep in at night as well as go about your day, would you risk getting it torn or dirty at your job? Why do you think Peter, James and John fished in the nude? Would someone farming or gardening or gleaning in the field risk tearing or even dirtying their one garment or would they remove it and put it in a safe place while they worked nude. “Better to wash your body than your clothes.”

It certainly makes the circumcision of the penis that God told Abraham to use as a sign of his belief more understandable. In that day it was almost like broadcasting your Jewishness. Today all Jewish and Muslim men have circumcised penises as a sign of their faith, just as Abraham and his whole family did, but you would be hard pressed to prove it. How is it a sign if it is constantly hidden? Would you put up a stop sign at an intersection then cover it with a burlap bag so people weren't repulsed by its octagonal shape or embarrassed by its red background and white letters? How useful would that be?

When Jesus was hung on the cross naked (all four Gospels tell of the soldiers taking all his clothes) it was obvious to anyone watching that he had a circumcised penis. That helps to explain why Pilot's sign saying “Jesus Christ King of the Jews” was truly an in-your-face act against the Jewish leadership that forced him into crucifying Jesus. There would have been no question that Jesus was a Jew.

When God told Isaiah to preach nude for three years (Isaiah chapter 20) he truly meant bare-ass-ed naked. But he wasn't telling Isaiah to commit a sin. Nudity was only considered a shame in that it displayed your poverty or status as a slave, not because it displayed your genitals. Isaiah was warning the people they would be lead away bare-ass-ed and in chains into slavery if they didn't change their ways. No one was bothered by the sight of Isaiah's bare-ass nor his penis. His message on the other hand was graphically delivered and understood, even if not well heeded.

While you will not see any reference to it today, certainly not in Christian movies, when Jesus arose from the tomb and cast aside the burial cloths (in both Luke's and John's Gospels) He emerged naked. That is why Mary at first thought he was a gardener. Gardeners logically worked naked. Jesus would have remained naked until His assention into Heaven. Where would He have gotten any clothing from? Why would He have needed any? Since He kept popping into locked rooms and disappearing from dinner after He said the blessing, would His disciples have kept clothing available for Him to put on and collected the pile of clothes He left when He disappeared again? Remember, God's attitude about human nudity hadn't changed. To Him we are still perfectly acceptable just as He made us.

I can really only speak for Christians, although I have some understanding of Jews and Muslims since we all read the same book, more or less. But I suspect that in all religion's origin stories the creation of man is seen as the last and greatest achievement of the powers that created the world. What I consider the zenith of God's creative genius. Of all the wonderful and marvelous things on this earth, in our solar system, in our galaxy, and in the universe, man is the very best of the very best. It seems very odd to me then that the very best thing in all creation is the only thing in all creation that is unacceptable as God created it.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 6 - Rape Culture

“What was she wearing?” This is the question everyone seems to want answered after a woman has been raped. Like somehow she was asking for it. That she provoked him. And it doesn't really matter if she was wearing a micro skirt and a crop top or a burka that was half a size too small. Somehow it was still partially her fault. After all, she is the one with the female body.

It certainly doesn't help that women's breasts have been labeled a sexual organ rather than a food source. And what exactly is a woman supposed to do about them. They are up front and prominent by design. And our society insists that women must wear a bra to keep them from jiggling around too much and attracting more attention. The bra is also necessary to suppress the nipple from poking out of their shirts as an additional distraction. All in all breasts for women have become an attractive nuisance.

And every civilized society today has rules, both written and unwritten but understood, that women must comport themselves to a higher standard than men. The primary example in the US is that women must cover their breasts while men don't have to. This effectively says that women are less important than men. Not quite equal under the law. Second class citizens. And in some men's minds that means that men therefore have dominion over women. The patriarchal society makes certain of this.

The effect of these rules can be seen most glaringly when you look at rape statistics. Only 26% of rapes are are committed by strangers. The rest are by intimate or former intimate partners, friends and relatives. That means that 74% of rapes are done by “family members” who feel their superiority over women gives them license to do something that they really know they shouldn't.

The fact that men build buildings and bridges, and highways and even whole countries says that men must be more important than women. In history and even still today some men have multiple wives and are able to have children by them all showing that they are indeed more important. Surprise, anything a man an build, a woman can build as well. The fact that one man can have several wives only really proves that other men were superfluous or expendable. And women can build one thing a man cannot, another human being. Sure, she needs a man to get the process started, but his part takes five minutes, her part takes nine months followed by twenty more years. As far as keeping the human race going, women are far more important.

Consider what would happen if because of a nuclear holocaust the entire population of the world were wiped out except for a small group of just one hundred people. If it was 99 women and one man, the human race would most likely survive. If it was 99 men and one woman the human race would be doomed. But, on the bright side, she would have one hell of a nice house.

Lets take a look at the woman's body for a moment and see just what we are sexualizing. She has two breasts which aren't that much different from a man's chest except for additional fatty deposits behind the nipples. They are supposed to be the only necessary source of nutrition for a human child for the first six months of life. Doesn't that sound sexually enticing? Between her legs is the gateway into the world for all of humanity. With this in mind if you view a naked woman you see a body perfectly designed to gestate, birth, feed and nurture the next generation. It is only when you put “censored” bands across these body parts that you distort this image. You convert a true masterpiece of art, function and design into something smutty and sexually stimulating. With the proper mental focus the naked woman's body is far more modest than when it is covered for modesty's sake.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 5 - Porno-Prudery*

Oscar Wilde once observed: “the commonest thing becomes exciting if one but hides it.”

So what is this commonest thing? With over eight billion people in the world there are at least four billion penises, four billion vaginas, three and a half billion pairs of breasts (dropping off half a billion for prepubescent girls), and eight billion butts. To help you comprehend just how common those things are, you have to live over thirty-two years in order to live one billion seconds.

Porno-Prudery says that pornography and prudery are really two sides of the same coin. That without prudery (e.g. covering certain body parts with clothing in order to achieve “modesty”) pornography cannot exist. Consider this example from the last hundred years:

In the 1930's men won the right to remove their shirts when swimming at the beach and elsewhere in public. What if at the same time women had also won that right as well and proceeded to exercise it just as men did. Jump forward twenty years and almost all men and women would be seen topless at beaches, lakes, and pools as well as gardening, washing their cars, and walking their dogs or playing in the park on hot days. Along comes Hugh Hefner with the idea to make a magazine called Playboy and feature naked women showing their breasts and butts. Considering you would probably see pictures of topless women in Time, Life, Better Homes and Gardens, and Vogue, who would be interested in buying Playboy? Maybe men with a fanny fetish, but everyone else would have to read it just for the articles. It wasn't until the 1970's that he started including vagina's in the images, but even if he had done it earlier it only proves the point; if it isn't normally hidden it isn't really interesting. I can always see more elsewhere for free.

In that case today no one would even know who Hugh Hefner was. Nor Larry Flint of Hustler or Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild. And we would not have a whole slew of other magazines, titty bars, or videos that exploit women's breasts.

I figure that most Americans by the time they are eighteen have been “up-close-and-personal” with the genitals of a person of the opposite sex and had a person of the opposite sex has been “up-close-and-personal” with their genitals. Any woman who had given birth to a baby has had several people she had never met before staring at her vagina for hours checking her dilation and looking for a head to appear. So why, outside those two situations, are we so shy about being seen naked? It is no secret what men and women have. Only in very extreme cases is one man's penis so dissimilar from all other men's penises, or one woman's vagina so dissimilar from all other women's vaginas. Few wives could pick their husband out of a line-up if all she could see were the penises. Even fewer men could pick their wife out of a line-up if all he could see were vaginas. Our faces are far more different and recognizable than any of our genitalia. And yet we have no problem showing our faces and cringe at the thought of someone seeing our genitals.

So why are we so attached to our clothing? It doesn't prevent spouses from cheating on their spouses. It doesn't prevent rape. It doesn't protect children from pedophiles and molesters. All it seems to do is keep the clothing industry and the porn industry profitable.

But what if bathing suits had never been invented and at all beaches, lakes, and pools everyone just naturally went nude? That would also mean that at home or in the park they might also go nude on a hot summer day. What effect would that have on the porn industry? Full frontal nudity would have no interest, your vacation pictures have that in them.

How about sex acts, would they still be videoed? Sex makes a lousy spectator sport. Seeing those forbidden body parts lends excitement to the activity so that some people keep interested. Without any body parts being covered or forbidden in normal public life, the resulting video would work better as an instructional tool that something that excites prurient interests. About as exciting as a video about how to remove and replace the exhaust manifold on a 2010 Equinox.

While there will always be those who crave things of a pornographic nature, without the prude covering of certain body parts by the general population the creation of pornography would not have sufficient return on the investment to make it worthwhile for any but the smallest operations. Certainly not the billion dollar “industry” that it is today. In other words, no prudery no pornographic “industry”.

*With thanks to David L Hatton for coining the word and defining it.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 4 - Breast Feeding

Not too long ago we were experiencing a crisis in America that would never happen in a third world country. We had a shortage of baby formula. Most third world mothers never had the option of baby formula, they either breast fed their baby or it starved. Here in America we seem to do everything we can to discourage young mothers from breast feeding or encourage them to quit as quickly as possible.

For this formula crisis it would have been very handy if there were a shot or pill mothers could take to restart their milk once it stopped, just for emergencies like this. But that would be bad for the formula business and besides men run the pharmacy companies and would never think of anything like that being needed. My mother certainly could have used that when her mother died just a few days after my brother was born. Her milk dried up from the shock and since formula didn't exist in that day she had a hell of a time finding something he could keep down because of his sensitive digestive system. Somehow he survived.

The human female body is uniquely designed to maximize the bonding between mother and baby while nursing by stimulating all five of the baby's senses:

Touch – If a topless or naked mother holds her baby (in only a diaper) to her chest they will feel a special skin-to-skin bonding. With clothing in the way the bond is not nearly as strong. Try hugging someone you love with both of you dressed and then both of you naked and you will see just how much more stimulation you receive from skin-to-skin contact.

Taste – The baby tastes the goodness of the mother's milk and taste creates a memory that last a long time. The baby renews that memory every time he nurses. Mother's milk has a different taste from the formula.

Smell – The baby smells the mother and the mother smells the baby which generates the same strong memory as taste. With each repeat the bond grows stronger.

Sight – The mother can look at the face of her baby and the baby looks at the mother memorizing that special person so the baby lights up at the sight of the mother once it is old enough to focus and recognize faces.

Hearing – The baby hears the mother's voice and quite possibly her heartbeat which was a constant companion in the womb.

All of these sensations help to create a lasting bond between mother and baby that we fathers can never fully achieve or appreciate.

Some of those senses are still in play if mother and baby are dressed and draped for “modesty”, but it isn't as strong a bonding event as when it is done nude and in the open. But our society says women's breasts should not be seen in public, they are sexual, shameful and disgusting. Breastfeeding in restaurants should be done in the ladies room. Breastfeeding in church should be done in the cry room. Women are encouraged to bring a bottle whenever they are away from home rather than resort to the beast. Women are also discouraged from breast feeding longer than six months. Six weeks is even a more appropriate time to stop. In third world countries it I more like two years.

If our government were to pass a law that said all men must remove their shirts before bottle feeding their babies, how many men would have a problem? I know it sounds like a stupid law but most fathers would have no problem in any situation removing their shirt to feed their baby if that is what was required. Neither my daughter nor my daughter-in-law would openly breastfeed in my presence. The reason for this dichotomy is that in our society men can go topless whenever they want while a woman who tries is subject to arrest and ridicule. (Yes legally there are exemptions for breastfeeding.) This makes no sense. If anything it should be the other way around. Men's nipples are ugly, hairy, and totally useless and should be hidden and scorned if seen. Women's nipples and breasts are beautiful, curvy, soft, and can at times serve a useful purpose. If our society really cared about women and breastfeeding babies, as pediatricians recommend, we would remove all obstacles. The greatest of those is women needing to hide their breasts in public. Naturism, of course, has no such restrictions and instead celebrates the human body in all of its shapes, sizes and sexes. Naturism therefore presents the true “Family Values”.

I would be very curious to see what anyone could write under the heading:

“How Society Benefits from Women's Breasts being Hidden”.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 3 - Health

Many people today suffer from vitamin D deficiency. This is ridiculous when you consider that just 15 minutes of sun exposure over most of your body daily will resolve this issue, at no cost. But today everyone is so worried about skin cancer that they remain covered except for hands an face most of the day. The use of sunscreen will not interfere with the production of vitamin D but few people strip down and use sunscreen rather than remaining fully dressed outside.

The human body greatly benefits from the direct connection to fresh air as well. Along with being better able to adjust to ambient temperature in the nude, the shedding of harmful bacteria and toxins is also greatly enhanced, whether by moving air or water. Bacteria and yeast like to grow in warm, dark, moist places. While no woman wants a yeast infection that is exactly what a vagina in underpants provides. Vaginas do a wonderful job of self cleaning when exposed to open air for some portion of every day.

Many men today suffer from low sperm count and poor motility. This is a direct result of keeping their testicles warmer than mother nature intended by wearing pants and underpants all the time. Even spending part of the day with testicles uncovered and exposed to fresh air can help make up for the time when they are being kept too warm for the proper production of sperm. Even when a man is not concerned with attempting to father a child, free exposure to air can help with general testicular health.

Sweat works more effectively in its job of cooling the body when that body is nude. And while not exactly eu-de-parfum (more of a musk) the smell of sweat is far less unpleasant when bacteria are not provided with the warm, dark, moist pits you have within a shirt. Any clothing brings with it bacteria and toxins from the manufacture and washing, so any time spent not encased in clothing is time when your body can shed what it does not need.

The fact that nudity exposes all of a person's flaws may also help to encourage people to look their best. Exercise feels more pleasant in the nude. Most sports can be done in the nude and may feel less tiring and more exhilarating when the cool breeze is not inhibited by the presence of clothing. The ability to go from hiking to tennis to swimming with nothing more than changing or removing shoes and no need for privacy may also encourage more varied activity. Getting your steps in or keeping your cardio up is simpler when various fun and social activities can be accomplished with a minimal amount of down time and outfit changes in-between.

And then there is stress. Just about everyone today is troubled by stress on a regular basis. Usually from work but also potentially from financial, social or relational issues in their lives. Some people use drugs to help relieve their stress. Alcohol, nicotine, and marijuana are today's socially acceptable stress relieving drugs. But all of those are potentially addictive and bring with them their own set of problems. How many people have tried shedding their clothes as a way to shed their problems. First of all there are no addictive/harmful side effects. Many women can't wait to get out of their bra after work while men are shedding neckties. So why not try removing all of your clothing as soon as you get home from work?

Once you realize no one is going barge in on you in your own home and your family love and respect you no matter how you are dressed, you can relax about your nudity and you will find that all the other stresses of the day are also shed right along with your clothing. Your home should be a stress free and worry free environment. If you aren't comfortable completely nude try wearing pajamas or just a robe. However you do it, get away from everything tight fitting and confining and as close to loose and free as you can.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 2 - Family Life

If you live alone then being nude at home doesn't present much of a problem. But if you have a family it suddenly becomes a whole different situation. How can I be nude in front of my kids?

In Mark Twain's book “Letters from Earth” he writes:

...they [Adam & Eve] heard God walking among the bushes (which was an afternoon custom of His), and they were smitten with fright. Why? Because they were naked. They had not known it before. They had not minded it before. Neither had God. In that memorable moment immodesty was born, and some people have valued it ever since, though it would certainly puzzle them to explain why. Adam and Eve entered the world naked and unashamed – naked and pure minded, and no descendant of theirs has ever entered it otherwise. All have entered it naked, unashamed and clean in mind. They entered it modest. They had to acquire immodesty in the soiled mind; there was no other way to get it. A Christian mother's first duty is to soil her child's mind, and she does not neglect it.

My daughter has six year old twins. A boy and a girl. Since birth they have done everything together. They bathe together. They sleep in the same room so they get dressed and undressed together. Every day he sees her little vulva. Every day she sees his little penis. And yet they really don't notice them. It is merely part of who they are. When they are playing together it makes no difference whether they are dressed or nude, there interactions are identical. When they were potty training the little girl was certain that she could pee standing up just like her brother. Her mom had to let her try and then had to clean up the floor afterward because she would not be convinced otherwise. She saw, but she didn't see. What is totally obvious to an adult escaped her notice completely. Seeing me in the nude when they burst into my room while I was getting dressed, or showering with their parents has no impact on them whatsoever. They just see people. So far their minds have not been soiled. Why would any naked child think anything was unusual when seeing a naked adult?

I do not understand the logic that says from the time a child is five or six years old until they are eighteen (the age of consent) we must protect them from seeing any naked body except their own. It makes just a much sense as forbidding parents from serving their children alcoholic beverages until the reach the drinking age in their state. Then on that auspicious birthday we send them off to party with their friends, admonishing them to “drink responsibly”. We have seen how well that works. Now picture yourself saying: “Son, now that you and your girlfriend are both eighteen please explore each other's bodies responsibly.” We have a name for people who think that works – Grandparents.

In a study done by Doctors Marilyn and Norman Story of the University of Northern Iowa they found that in terms of how positive respondents felt about their bodies, their attitude toward their genitals and what the research termed “total body self-concept” nudist children and adults scored higher than non-nudists in all categories.

In their book “The Naked Child – Growing up without Shame” Dennis Craig Smith and Dr. William Sparks report on a scientific study they did interviewing young adults that grew up in a nudist environment. What they discovered was that these young adults were just a well socialized as their peers but that they had fewer body hang-ups and issues than their peers, became sexually active later in life than their peers, had fewer unwanted pregnancies than their peers, and had little to no interest in pornography. What they didn't seem to find were problems that resulted from their “unusual” up-bringing.

What all this tells me is that exposing your children to the truth about naked bodies, all naked bodies, has far more benefits than drawbacks. And the safest place to do this is at home. Families should be comfortably nude around one another at any time and in almost any situation. So if you divest of all your clothing when you get home from work, and your spouse does too, then your children should also divest of their clothing when they get home from school. You can do homework in the nude. Eat dinner in the nude. Watch TV in the nude. And get ready for bed in the nude. Children may need to wear pajamas to bed because the sleep like whirling dervishes and would not get a good nights sleep if they were to toss the covers off, but the reason for any body coverings at home should never be related in any way to body shame.

By merely practicing nudity at home, without any other instruction, you can teach your children so much more about accepting people as they are and understanding the differences in peoples bodies at different ages than any sex-ed class at school can hope to teach. And the more family members you can involve, and even non-family members, the better. There is no safer environment to bring up your children without the burden of body shame and with body positivity than your own home.

How non-sexual nudity benefits society and the planet

Item 1 - The Environment

Even a simple T-shirt has a carbon footprint. Consider what goes into it:

Some number of square feet of cotton must be planted, watered and grown to obtain the raw materials. That means food crops cannot be grown and watered on that same piece of land. But every year we are losing crop land east of the Rockies because of flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes. And every year more crop land is left fallow to the west of the Rockies due to severe drought. Rising sea levels aren't going to help with that either. But while crop land may be shrinking, the world population continues to grow. Someday not growing cotton in order to grow food may become a necessary choice.

Cotton requires massive amounts of fertilizer and pesticide some of which runs off into the local waterways polluting streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Machinery that runs on fossil fuel is used to harvest, de-seed, bail, then transport that cotton to a factory.

More machinery is then used to comb the cotton and spin it into thread. The thread is then either woven or knitted into cloth.

The fabric is probably dyed one or more colors and the excess dye will probably run off into the local waterways polluting streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

At possibly another factory the cloth is cut and sewn into a T-shirt. It is then packed with cardboard and plastic and shipped to a warehouse or store.

Finally either you or a delivery driver takes it the final miles to your house.

Every step of this process contributes something harmful to or detracts in some way from the environment. And this is true for every piece of clothing you own. Whether it is made in China or right next door to your house it still cannot help having some impact on our environment.

We live in a society that expects everyone to be dressed in some way all day every day, with only a little time out for showering or bathing. Because of this, the carbon footprint for that T-shirt continues to be added to every time you wear it and then have to wash it, using water, electricity and possibly gas to dry it. Because of this process that T-shirt will one day wear out, be thrown out, and need to be replaced. And when you throw it out, it goes into a landfill which also impacts the environment. Even if you donate it to a thrift store and someone else also gets use of it for a while, sooner or later it still ends up in a landfill.

I live is a small city/large town of some 2,000 inhabitants. If each of us threw out only one pound of clothing per year, that is still one ton of clothing just from my little burg. With the US population at about 330 million people that is 156 thousand tons of clothing per year. But who throws out just one pound of clothes per year? A T-shirt weighs just half a pound but a pair of jeans is two and a half pounds. Think about how many outfits you replace every year. Even if you aren't a “fashionista” you cannot help having an impact on the environment just from wearing clothes.

But our society demands our wearing of clothing, and punishes us if we chose not to. So lets just start at home, where you get to set the rules. What if one day a week you didn't wear a shirt? That would mean that in one year every shirt you owned would last 52 days longer than before. That is a 14% increase in the life of your shirts.

But why stop a just a T-shirt? What if one day a week you wore no clothing at all for 24 hours. You could do all your house cleaning and laundry in the nude. If your back yard is secluded enough you could even do gardening or work on construction projects in the nude. You can cook in the nude (maybe with the help of an apron) and even sleep in the nude. And if you aren't doing anything strenuous and don't work up a sweat, maybe you can even skip showering for a day, especially if you live in a drought area. Now you have a 14% increase in the life of all your clothing, and a 14% reduction in what you are sending to the landfill each year. That may not be very much if just you do it, but if everyone in America did it that is over 22 thousand tons a year (if everyone only threw out one pound) not going into a landfill.

But you say one full day of nudity just isn't practical since you still have to go shopping or to church? Then how about every evening when you get home from work you divest of your work togs and don't put anything on until you are ready to go out the door the next morning? Even if you stay dressed to socialize a couple nights a week, you will still either extend the life of your clothes or have a bunch of items in your wardrobe that very rarely get used so they don't need to be washed or replaced very often.

On hot summer evenings when you get off work, your clothing really isn't helping you much. With clothing on you feel the need to crank up the A/C in order to cool off. But maybe instead you try getting nude and just turning on a fan. You will find that your body can accommodate to any temperature better when you aren't lying to it. If you are wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts then your bodies central core is reporting a temperature over ten degrees warmer than your arms and legs are reporting. Your body is unsure how to adjust. With nothing on, all parts of your body are reporting the same temperature and it can more easily adjust. On a hot day sitting nude in the shade of a tree, umbrella or EZ-up with a gentle breeze blowing can be as comfortable as sitting fully dressed indoors with the A/C on. Maybe even more comfortable. Of course when the temperature is in the high 90's or triple digits that may not work. But if you can skip the A/C and just use a fan you can save some power for those in hotter areas and possibly help avoid brown-outs and black-outs.

Okay, that's great for summer, but what about the rest of the year? I heat my house to 65 degrees and can stay comfortably nude year round. At first it may feel cool to you and if you are just sitting may even feel cold. (I have heard that 60 degrees is officially freezing in California.) But your body will quickly adjust to it and in the process use some extra calories so that you can hypothetically loose weight while just sitting reading or watching TV. Summer mornings at my house are around 60 degrees and 90% humidity. I find I can comfortably go out in the nude to let the chickens out and play with the dog while enjoying my first cup of coffee in my back yard. This is even true when it is overcast or foggy, not just when the sun shines.

When the sun is shining and/or you are keeping active it is possible to feel comfortable at even much colder temperatures. For example I have shoveled snow wearing nothing but shoes and not frozen off any vital appendages. There is a YouTube video of a group in France that goes cross country skiing on sunny days. Those people remain nude in freezing or near-freezing temperatures for many hours. Finns and Russians like to go from a very hot sauna into a freezing lake or river as an integral part of the true sauna experience. If the people who used to live at Tierra-del-Fuego could survive nude even when it was snowing, then you and I can tough it up and live nude whenever the temperature is between 60 and 90 degrees. You would be amazed at how well your own naked body can adapt to temperature extremes if you only give it the chance.

Women and Children are Safer in a Nudist Camp than in Church

I recently read that "63% of pastors confirmed that they were struggling with secret sexual addiction or compulsion". Now this was in a Naturist Fiction book called "The Girl Who Stopped Wearing Clothes" by D H Jonathan so I didn't know if it was at all accurate or he just made it up for the story. So I Googled "Clergy with sexual addiction". I got a whole lot of different percentages depending on if it had to do with viewing porn or pedophilia, or extra marital affairs. Anywhere from the low teens to over 50 percent. I couldn't justify a 63% figure but the numbers were concerning.

At a church there is no one over the pastor (at least not on site) and he/she doesn't own the church. If his/her proclivities are discovered there is a potential to lose the job, marriage, etc. Their first instinct is to keep it secret. So if you are a victim, who do you report to and will it be believed? Whether believed or not, would you leave the church? Just that church? Would you tell anyone else or would you feel too ashamed? Kids certainly would feel ashamed and not even tell their parents.

The Catholic Church has been dealing with this problem for several decades now, but they are far from the only ones. They and others (Methodist Convention and Southern Baptist Convention for examples) have a hierarchy that should handle such things, but more often they try to avoid embarrassment and shame brought onto their organization and hide it from their parishioners/congregants. Smaller churches may have a church council that might act, but also might try to bury the accusation.

On the other hand, a nudist camp or resort is a private business that relies on multiple family memberships in order to survive. While someone may still be drawn back to a church when wronged because of religious beliefs, a nudist club cannot expect any such loyalty. When one person complains the owners must take swift action to resolve the situation and eject the offender if the situation warrants. Sexual misconduct cannot be allowed to escalate into sexual harassment much less attack. Also, because everyone is more vulnerable when nude everyone is looking out for everyone else. They are especially looking out for the children. And victims are much more likely to be believed.

So my advice is, if you feel drawn to religion (and I highly encourage such beliefs), then try to find a church that meets in a nudist resort. It is a great way to worship, you can feel safer, and you are in a very enjoyable setting to spend your entire weekend. A win, win, win!

Why did God choose circumcision as a sign

The following quote is from nudist minister. I found it in the book Nudist Society by Dr. William Hartman. The book records a scientific study of nudists done in the late ‘60s and early 70′s in the US.

As official chaplain of several nudist parks I am able to render pastoral services, conduct weddings and funerals, and Easter services for this special group of people. I became a nudist in my own beliefs, as a result of my own study of health and moral problems, years before the nudist movement was heard of in America. I am an uncircumcised gentile, and became curious as to the exact causes or reasons for the rite.

No satisfactory answer was forthcoming till I did research on ancient religions. In an old edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was a statement: “Every known religion of the ancient world, with the exception of the Hebrew, was a system of sex worship in one form or another.” At the time when the rite of circumcision was given to Abraham, he was living among the Amorites and was in league with them against the Babylonians. God did not want his people to become too chummy with the sex-worshiping Amorites. Therefore, God commanded Abraham to show his repudiation of the Amorite religion by a deliberate, though relatively harmless, mutilation of their most sacred religious object. Because of its function in reproduction, the male organ was their supreme symbol of life-giving Deity. A sign is not a sign unless it can be seen. The wide-open clothing of that age left the male organ commonly exposed to view. If God had been the author of the heathen superstition of bodily obscenity, He would have commanded Abraham to conceal his genital instead of commanding him to make a signboard of it. It was a consideration of these things that compelled the conclusion that the doctrine of bodily obscenity was of heathen origin, not Devine. This was years before there was any nudist movement in America.

The Bible says that God created us male and female. So far as I am aware, the Creator has never apologized for having done so. When we are ashamed of God’s handiwork, it is really God Himself whom we are setting ourselves up to criticize. Instead of being a mark of piety and reverence, the obscenity superstition is the most filthy and brazen insult which mortal man ever aspired to fling in the the face of his Creator.

I would add that still today all observant Jewish and Muslim men are circumcised, although you would be had pressed to prove it. Circumcising your penis then covering it with clothing as a sign of your religious belief makes as much sense as putting up a STOP sign at an intersection then covering it with a burlap bag. We wouldn’t want anyone to become scandalized by seeing its octagonal shape or its white lettering on a red background. So obscene!

If a circumcised penis is truly a sign of your belief in the “One True God” then you should be as proud to display it as you are to wear a Star of David, a Cross, or a Crucifix around your neck. More so because that is the one symbol that God Himself ordained.

What did Jesus wear?

In this time between Easter (Jesus’ Resurrection) and Pentecost (just after He ascended into Heaven) I have been thinking about what Jesus would have been wearing when He was seen “not by all, but only by those chosen in advance”.

We know from all four gospels that the soldiers divided Jesus’ clothes among themselves and cast lots for his cloak. Therefore, contrary to any crucifix or painting you may see, Jesus was crucified in the nude. The Romans were all about shame and pain in their punishment and didn’t worry one bit about public opinion or someone exposing their genitals.

The last two gospels (Luke and John) both mention the burial cloths left in the tomb. It is rather impractical to think that Jesus tried walking about while wrapped in burial cloths so we should figure He didn’t even have them for covering Himself.

All the Christian movies we see show Jesus fully dressed as He meets with His apostles after His resurrection. So where did those clothes come from? Did He go back to the solders and demand His clothes back since their Crucifixion of Him obviously failed? Certainly he didn’t steal them from someone’s clothesline, that’s not His style. He couldn’t just go buy them at Target or J C Penney, He didn’t have any money.

And why would He need clothes anyway? Certainly God didn’t feel the need to hide any part of His greatest creation. When He had created Adam and Eve naked He said they were “very good”. I have never seen a translation where He said “not bad, but they will look better when we get some clothes on them”. And after Adam and Eve sinned God asked “who told you that you were naked?” Think about it, people who have never worn a stitch in their lives, and never seen anyone dressed suddenly wanted to wear clothes! You can’t be what you can’t see. Clothing or shame of nudity had to be the serpent’s (devil’s) idea, not that of Adam and Eve.

When Jesus appeared in the upper room “with the doors locked for fear of the Jews”, did Jesus appear with resurrected clothing? Did Jesus have to strip off so the disciples could put their hands into His side? Would it seem odd to Peter, who was fishing in the nude, to spot Jesus on the shore, also nude? Was it unusual in that day for someone to walk down the road in the nude or sit at dinner in the nude? Certainly there were enough slaves and poor people at that time who did not have or could not afford clothing. Jesus’s nudity was probably just not worth mentioning, so you won’t find it spelled out anywhere in the gospels.

So then why do we insist on putting clothes on Jesus’ “Glorified Body”? Why are people today, especially Christians, so hung up on certain parts of our bodies that they insist on placing clothing where it historically does not belong? Whose values are we espousing, God’s or Satin’s?

For me personally: “Naked, I follow a naked Christ”.

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