Saturday, March 26, 2011

Nudism in Paris


You would think Paris of all places would have a flourishing nudist community, according to this article it is actually quite rare there.

“It's difficult to practice nudism in Paris."

...

A confusion that has still a great resonance in the way Parisians considers nudism as is confirmed by another follower. 50 years old Simone Hennache. She practiced naturism since she was 6 years old, she converted her daughter and her son to do so. But she explains that it is still very complicated for her children to talk about it. “ My daughter is 17, and she still does not want to talk about it with her friends. Most of them do not know she practices naturism. She says that there are still a lot of clichés surrounding this way of life, even for people who practice it. It is sometimes difficult to talk about it” she adds.

Read more

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Are you a Naked Person?

I think your view of nakedness says more about you than how conventionally beautiful you are. It’s not about how many packs you’ve got in your stomach, or how much bounce you’ve got in your boobs. It’s about how you approach life. People who feel comfortable naked are apt to give bear hugs. They relish food and will share theirs with you, and will also spear some off of your plate. They like to make new friends, and don’t judge others based on what they are wearing. If they fart in public, they just laugh and say, “Whoops.” Naked people don’t mind what other people think of them, and will take risks in the pursuit of fun. I’m not saying naked people are better; they just approach life differently.

Read more

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The human body as art history

Nude! Five Thousand Years of Art and the Human Body is an introduction to art history that will touch on the idea of the human body as a vehicle through which Western art has developed, and how it has been developed and represented in art over the years.

read more

The Fantastic "Great Wall Of Vagina" Exhibit

The issues surrounding a male artist whose work focuses on vulvas was already explored in that episode of Sex and the City in which Charlotte poses for a painting of her lady bits, but McCartney insists his goal is purely to educate women about what normal genitals look like in a non-porn setting.

Read more

Brit TV show wants eight housemates to live without clothes for 30 days

"We plan to take eight Brits and literally strip them naked. We want some seriously interesting Brits to make the line-up," the Daily Star quoted programme creator Harris Salomon as saying.

"The plan is to roll the show out across the world. Clothing is such an integral part of who we are and we don't understand how it affects us until we no longer have it on," he stated.

Read more

Friday, March 11, 2011

Nude Recreation From A Woman's Perspective

Do you remember skinny dipping when you were young - the luxurious feeling of freedom and innocent fun that you felt then? You owe it to yourself to rediscover the child in you, to recapture that innocence no matter what your age, your occupation, or your physical appearance. Self acceptance and total relaxation are two of nude recreation's greatest contribution to today's woman.

Here is what one of our members had to say about her experience,"One of the healthiest things I did for myself was to try nude recreation. I quickly learned that being nude is actually quite natural, what you might call a life enhancing experience. Why? Because having gone nude in a social setting, I now accept who I am and feel comfortable with my own body. Experiencing who I am on the inside has become more important to me than what I look like on the outside. Sure, I still enjoy being well groomed, but I no longer feel the stress associated with trying to wear trendy clothes or that I'm not living up to fashion magazine images of what my body is supposed to look like.

Read more

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Ordinary Women Shown in Photography Book




“Your beauty does not belong to you,” Scipio said. “It is a gift that should be shared.”

The 77 women who are depicted are seen in their homes, at their dining room tables, even in their laundry rooms. They pose outdoors on the beaches in Oregon, in the forest and in the snow of a Calgary winter. Twelve of them are from the Sunshine Coast. They have large breasts or small, they have rolls of fat or skinny ribs, they are pixies and amazons, they have tattoos and piercings or are photographed with their pets. One woman poses beside her wheelchair. In another photo, a burn victim is revealed as transcending her disfigurement.

Read more

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Why Are Americans Afraid of Being Naked?

[excerpt]

“A lot people from the church have sent me letters about God and stuff like that. But I tell them God was the first man of naturism. He and Adam and Eve were all naked on Earth,” says de Man, taking the criticism rather pragmatically. True — at least until the couple donned their first fig leaves, provoking centuries of subsequent debate.

“Nudity is definitely not shocking or even arousing,” says Mandy Servais, a customer at Amsterdam’s Sauna Deco, in a robe wrapped loosely around her body, which for all intents and purposes, was naked, as Dutch saunas are visited in the buff. Says Servais, who has frequented saunas since she was a teen, “I think as a society we’re very simple and take a practical approach to sex and nudity. We think that everything that exists is normal so there’s no need to make a fuss. We’re not really occupied with what others think.”

Verwer mirrors Servais’ response. “I think the Dutch believe let everyone have their dignity and do what they enjoy most. This isn’t just how we think about naked recreation, the same goes for gays –everyone’s accepted,” she says.

While the Dutch seem to accept that underneath their clothing everyone’s naked, the same laissez-faire attitude doesn’t apply in the States, where the public has been schooled in the cultural ideology that “nude is naughty,” and nudity is regarded as sexual.

Perhaps much of this attitude can be chalked down to America’s cultural forefathers, the Puritans, whose deeply religious moral zeal made them fear nudity so much they refused to bathe, ensuring a future of national prudishness.

Read more

Adventures in nakedness: An Englishwoman's introduction to Japanese hot springs

And so I folded my clothes, laid them in a basket, picked up my teeny tiny little white towel and followed the other women to the low taps for a wash -- before lowering myself into a series of deliciously warming hot baths in the pretty autumnal garden.

I absolutely loved it. Since then, I have become a self-proclaimed onsen addict and happily take all my clothes off in public on every possible occasion across the country -- from Hokkaido's snowy peaks to southern Kyushu mountainsides (and many places in between).

Full piece