Living the nude life

"I really kind of regret the whole venture. In naturism you're not trying to sell yourself — you're just being yourself. You're not looking to accumulate wealth or things... At Western they're just too shallow, superficial and addicted to clothing."

Post-secondary education is all about image. Students learn to package and sell themselves to get ahead while the prestige of their program determines whether employers give their resumes that crucial second glance. But for students like Lannon, naturism is an escape from the image obsessed rat race.

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Nudist hotel on Turkish coast receives public approval

A hotel that will only serve nudists in the Aegean resort town of Datça has received the support of locals, Doğan news agency reported Monday.

Open exclusively to foreigners, the beachfront nudist-only hotel Adaburnu Gölmar, built on a 14,000-square-meter plot of land located 15 kilometers from Datça’s town center, will open on May 1. It will be Turkey’s first hotel to serve nudists and the locals in Datça are excited about the opportunity.

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Topless March Legal Officials Say

Legislators and police are getting calls from people who are upset and want to stop a topless march planned for April 30 in Farmington, nearly a month after a similar parade of women and their supporters through Portland.

Locals say people in the western Maine college town got a glimpse Wednesday of what's to come. A 22-year-old University of Maine at Farmington student, Andrea Simoneau, walked downtown streets wearing only a long skirt and the word "Freedom" written across her chest. The day of the march was
written in pink of her back.

Simoneau and others who attended the April 3 march in Portland want to highlight what they say is a double standard that applies to women who want to appear bare-chested in public.

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Women strut their stuff for Boobquake

Dubbed Boobquake, McCreight encouraged women around the world to flaunt their breasts and their cleavage to prove the Iranian clerics wrong. She even came up with some cleavage-flaunting T-shirts that she was selling for charity with messages that read: “Boobquake 2010: Who says science has to be boring?” and “Boobquake 2010: Did the Earth move for you?”

But the truth is on any given day there is seismic activity. Did Boobquake have any effect on the earth? Apparently not.

According to the United States Geological Survey website there were 45 earthquakes worldwide as of Monday evening, including a 6.5-magnitude earthquake southeast of Taiwan and a 5.4 near the South Sandwich Islands region. In fact, over the last six days the number of earthquakes has ranged from 41 to 48.

According to the website, on Sunday, April 25, there were 45 earthquakes, including a 5.7 near the South Sandwich Islands Region, and a 5.0 in Tonga. On Saturday, there were 38 earthquakes, and on Friday there were 45.

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Naked celebrities: Why we'd all rather go nude

It’s all very vanilla. Yet there was originally a sniff of scandal about going naked, usually as a result of context rather than indecency. Way back in 1863, Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe shocked not for its nudity – that was commonplace enough – but for its modern setting, and that the naked woman was with a couple of fully clothed gents. When John and Yoko went full-frontal on the cover (and full-moon on the back) of their Two Virgins LP in 1968, it wasn’t the explicit nature of the photos that gave everyone the vapours. It was how humdrum, hairy and uninviting they both looked (Lennon later described it as a picture of “two slightly overweight ex-junkies”).

Full piece

Confront and accept your nude body

Explore the brilliance of nudity simply because our nude body in many ways is who you are. Each dimple has a story.

Each curve provides a journey. Each freckle dances a memory. Your body is not a political statement, at its core. It is not a thinking sex toy, at its core. It is not a trophy of pristine achievement, at its core.

It is you.

Full piece is here

Get Ready For The Boobquake

Blogger Jen McCreight has proposed that, on April 26, women worldwide don their most immodest tops and see if they can move the earth through the power of exposed skin. Fight foolishness, and join the cause here.

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Nakation Report

Enjoy this Andy Rooney type report from a non nudist.

11 Things I Learned at the Nudist Resort

Although the runners included some people who were in great shape, as a general rule, most people just aren’t that attractive naked, at least as the world defines the term. This was NOT “The Naked Mile” or “Girls Gone Wild”. One of the most liberating things about a nudist environment is that it gives you permission not to be a supermodel. You can simply relax and be Homer Simpson instead of feeling self-conscious because you’re not Matthew McConaughey.

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Nude tourism is popular in Europe

From China's People's Daily


According to the latest statistics, sales of real estate in Europe have fallen sharply due to the financial crisis, but housing developments in nude communities have seen unprecedented growth.

The generation of Hippies is aging, but the 'Back-to-Nature' movement promoted by anti-materialists has seen resurgence in developed countries, including Nudism, which rose in the 1920s in Germany.

The Mediterranean town Le Cap d'Agde, close to Montpellier in Southern France, is one of the biggest nude communities in the world. In the town, nudity is legal. 

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Topless Beaches for America - a Good Idea?

a sign of a civilized society

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Pistol packers, topless women should join forces

But the ultimate would be for Belanger and Simoneau to link arms, at least figuratively speaking, and conduct a joint march around Kennedy Park in Lewiston.

Both guys and gals could bare their breasts, strap on their handguns and mingle before marching to Gritty's to unwind.

More here

FCC, take a rest and stop censoring breasts

 [...]

It’s not like people aren’t unwilling. Janet Jackson did the world a favor on Super Bowl Sunday a few years back and she’s practically charged with lewd and lascivious behavior right there on stage. She delivered the goods and I got to watch football, but instead of pinning a medal on her America banished her to dating Jermaine Dupri and starring in Tyler Perry movies. It’s cruel and unusual punishment just for flashing her God-given talents.

If that wasn’t enough, what did we get the following year: Paul McCartney’s corpse playing the best of Wings. I’d rather see him topless than listen to Wings.

Why did this happen?  Paul McCartney was safe.

Safe? Last time I checked nipples didn’t kill, discriminate, cause cancer, or default on a loan payment. Nipples help nurture and bring life. As far as I’m concerned, that is the exact definition of safe.

If America would just loosen its top and take away the negative and mysterious stigma associated with the female breast, we would all be better off.

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Avoid Baggage Fees With Nude Vacations

Spirit Airline's latest baggage fee -- up to $45 for the privilege of stuffing your bag into an overhead bin -- has at least one travel group hoping vacationers will start packing light... very light.

The American Association of Nude Recreation advocates vacation at nudist resorts and says the rising baggage costs make these so-called "Nakations" even more attractive.

Spend a week at a nudist resort and all you'll need -- sunscreen, cap, sunglasses, shoes and toiletries -- will fit in a bag easily stowed under the seat in front of you, said Erich Schuttauf, executive director for the AANR.

Nakations are not just for aging hippies, but for Gen X-ers and echo-boomers as well, according to the AANR. It says that 23 percent of echo boomers and 18 percent of X-ers are looking for a nude recreation experience, proving that the times they are a-changing.

More at ABC News

Going Topless

Here is an excerpt from a woman who was in the march for top freedom who really gets what it means.

The fact that about 300 men showed up to watch and photograph really brought attention to the fact that the fetishization of women's bodies is, as always, an issue. The breast fetish in our country is perpetuated by media and advertising. Do I think that it's going to go away tomorrow? Absolutely not. Do I believe that going topless more often in more areas will start to challenge this? Absolutely.

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How to Go Skinny-Dipping
Uploaded by Howcast. - Parties, dorm life, and other college videos.

Londoners love getting naked

Above the entrance to Old Street Tube station, model Yazzy Phillips is currently suspended midway through a nude leap across a billboard. She has been there since last week, and she's quite distracting. 

But before you all abandon your route home and jump on the Northern line, she is (and other models, male and female, are) doing the same thing right across London. Posing naked in adverts for a TK Maxx, HomeSense and Cancer Research UK campaign and imploring us to join in and “Give up [our] clothes for good”. It seems her appeals are working because, right now, London is having a moment of nudity.

[...]

If you were thinking of shedding your threads, however, Andrew Welch is keen to emphasise that naturism is entirely non-erotic. “Naturism is just about a good feeling,” he says. “There is an assumption that everybody will be offended when they see a bit of flesh, but they actually won't be … It becomes commonplace and you stop noticing.

“When the weather gets warm, we have a whole wardrobe of clothes to choose from,” he says. “We choose to choose none.” Something in the London air suggests that, this summer, he won't be the only one.



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Welcome to Nude York

The notice at the entrance to the show at the Museum of Modern Art warned of nudity "and other images which may be disturbing to some." Visitor discretion was advised.

Inside the gallery, a crowd had formed in front of a nude couple in a corner. An old man, supporting himself on a cane, gamely stepped up to the man and the woman, who stood immobile, just inches apart, like caryatids flanking the doorway to another room. Brushing up against their naked skin would be unavoidable. The choice: face the man or the woman, as he squeezed through. (He chose to face the woman.)

A couple of rooms farther along, an undressed man lay on a bench with a skeleton draped across his chest and, just before the exit, a nude woman had been mounted to the wall, perched on a kind of bicycle seat, her arms spread wide in a tableau that resembled a crucifixion.

Whether this is indeed a cultural moment or just the effects of spring, New York has looked (and felt) like the naked city in recent weeks. And while the days of Rudy Giuliani's decency commission are long gone and a less censorious mayor has taken his place, the works have people talking.

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Women Protest for the Right to Bare Breasts in Public (Video)

Women have come a long way in this country from the days that they couldn’t vote and were not allowed to attend college and were not allowed to own property.

But they still have not reached full equality with men. At least when it comes to taking off their shirts.

Only one state has made it legal for women to walk around in public topless in the same manner that men do. And that is New York. And only because of a 1992 court ruling that said it cannot be illegal for a women to be topless if it is legal for a man to be topless.

However, in 2005, 25-year-old Jill Coccaro was arrested in New York City after she removed her top in public. She sued and won $29,000 two years later.

There have been other landmark victories for the so-called topfree movement.

But despite the laws that forbid women from being topless in most other states, most women don’t seem overly concerned about walking around topless. If anything, the real battle is over breastfeeding in public.

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Heidi Klum's Family Fine With Nakedness

Heidi Klum doesn't mind her parents seeing her naked.

The German-born supermodel and host of US TV show 'Project Runway' said she is comfortable with nudity and her family all have an "easy going" attitude to it.

She told Tatler magazine: "My parents are still naked. I mean, it's not like we're hippies and we run around naked, but if they happened to be in their room changing or something or someone comes out of the shower, they're not, like, 'Oh my God. No. Close the door'."

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Great moments in pop nudity: Erykah Badu, John & Yoko, Tori Amos and more

Erykah Badu did a brave thing/made a shrewd marketing decision when she stripped down to her pixillated altogether for her new "Window Seat" video. However, as the artiste would certainly freely admit, her self-exposure is hardly unprecedented. Badu herself credits Brooklyn indie sweethearts Matt & Kim for inspiring her video. She could have rolled a longer list at the beginning of her clip.


What are your favorite moments in provocative pop flesh-baring? I'm not talking about simple titillation, but about nakedness risked to make a point. Here are some that spring to my mind. Yes, I left out Prince. Tell me what else I should have mentioned. (Warning: Some linked images below might be considered NSFW, but as with Badu, it's all in the name of art!)

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Women march topless in Portland without incident

PORTLAND – About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park this afternoon in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity.

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Victoria was not a typical Victorian

She is portrayed as a repressed and melancholy widow who spent much of her life clad in black.

But a new art exhibition will challenge this traditional view of Queen Victoria by revealing her as a passionate, open-minded woman.

Victoria & Albert: Art & Love is the first-ever show to focus on the enthusiasm for art shared by Britain's longest-reigning monarch and her husband, Prince Albert.

It reveals the couple's starkly-differing attitudes towards works of art, with the queen favouring titillating images featuring plenty of naked flesh, while her husband appears prudish by comparison.

...

Another example of Queen Victoria surprising society with her unconventional enthusiasm for nudity is given in the exhibition's catalogue, which features Life Study of a Male Nude by William Mulready, the Irish painter.

The queen bought the picture following a visit to an exhibition of contemporary art at Gore House, Kensington, in 1853 which included several drawings of nude men by the artist.

...

Lynda Nead, professor of History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London, and a specialist in Victorian visual culture, said: "There is a generalised assumption about Victorian prudery and the Victorians as a society who couldn't bear thinking or speaking about nudity.

"But this exhibition may prompt a rethink of that view, as it shows that the queen had a more varied attitude to sexual morality in art and culture."

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Nudes in Spring

Spring weather is good news for baseball players, hikers, cyclists, gardeners and barbecue fans.

Nudists, too.

Warmer temperatures bring everyone back to their favorite pastimes. Nudists have been waiting to take off their clothes and hang out in the sun since October, when they generally end their seasons outdoors and climb back into flannel, denim and cotton.

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