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Nudism: A Healthier Lifestyle or a Bunch of Hype?

By Nicole McClelland, AlterNet. Posted January 25, 2008.


Two travelers bare it all in Australia but fall short of finding naked bliss.

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Several days into our time in Australia, I convinced my intended that we should work at a nudist resort.

We had eight weeks and little money to spend on our trip, and so decided to join an organization called WWOOF, or Willing Workers on Organic Farms, whose $50 membership came with a book of names and phone numbers of Australians who would trade us food and lodging for about four hours of work a day. The day we got the book, I read it in our hostel as I would an enthralling novel, turning the pages until well after my eyes grew tired, fascinated by each subsequent sentence. There aren't really any rules for who can and cannot run a listing in WWOOF; anyone with 45 bucks can get his contact information and a description of what he's looking for printed. The upshot is that there are opportunities far beyond organic farming for a WWOOFer. We could do anything. We could shear sheep, or build tables, or baby-sit someone's ailing mother, or groom alpacas, whatever those were, or keep a lonely couple company. I wasn't far in when I encountered the first entry by nudists, and, excited for a salacious break in otherwise tame reports of cow-milking and hay-making, I read their requests and warnings aloud to Dan.

"This one says, 'Nudists only, please,'" I told him, and he laughed. Half an hour later, I interrupted his journal-writing again. "Look at this: 'Please be advised that we are naturists.'" It hadn't taken me long to figure out that "naturist" was a euphemism for "naked all the time." But though Dan smiled, or shook his head -- or ignored me, after awhile -- I was picturing us running nude through a vast vegetable garden, stopping here and there to scoop up weeds while exotic birds called overhead. I imagined wind caressing my evenly tanned skin and warm afternoon sun on my buns, even as we drove to Peter's (non-nude) Organic Farm, where we had made contact and agreed to work.

Once I decide that something is a good idea -- going to Australia, baking a chocolate cake, trying nudism -- I work blindly, diligently, toward setting it into motion. As I continued flipping through the 1,500 entries in the WWOOF book in search of our next destination after we finished our daily duties to Peter's chickens and banana trees, I marked the nudist positions along with those that offered interesting activities like composting and making cheese. And I kept pestering Dan.

"What if we were naked right now?" I asked him while lobbing a machete at a banana branch our first morning in the sweltering field. He said something pragmatic, like, "We'd be getting badly burned," or, "We'd have a hell of a time getting this banana sap off later."

Both of our fathers had consistently walked around naked or in their underpants in our youths, but our mothers and culture had nevertheless managed to instill conventional embarrassment for our nude bodies in us as children. I'd had my first taste of the thrill of bucking it on European beaches years prior, but Dan didn't believe my assertion that casually baring his genitals to a crowd would be empowering. He wasn't annoyed, as I was, at the shock our hosts exhibited when I got ready to go swimming in the creek by stripping down to a bikini. (I realized a minute too late that the four other girls joining us, their grandchildren, swam in long shorts and tee shirts.) But Peter and his wife were teetotalers, Baptists and septuagenarians, and after three days in which we hadn't been able to curse, get wasted, or rag on Jesus, I knew the time was right. I announced to Dan my intention to call Taylorwood, a 30-acre nudist resort in the Whitsundays, a gorgeous piece of the continent's east coast that we had to drive through on our way south anyway. Dan simply shrugged and said, "Fine."

We arrived at the low, long sign with yellow wooden letters announcing the resort five hours after leaving Peter's early one morning. We turned off the empty, jungle-lined highway and pulled into the drive, stopping at a short, swinging fence that was held fast by a padlock and a thick metal chain. Dan got out of our tiny, imported rental and inspected the lock before doing something I couldn't see and throwing open the gate. "It's a trick chain," he said, getting back in the passenger seat and handing me an envelope with our names on it. "There's a break in one of the links." After he replaced the chain, we drove on along the bumpy dirt path, looking at the surrounding palm trees and fields. The envelope contained, in addition to plenty of spelling and grammatical errors, the information that the first little green caravan -- caravan is Australian for trailer -- on our right was our new home. There were also instructions to throw off the shackles of the clothed world immediately.

"We are a NUDIST resort, NOT a clothes optional resort, and this applies to our staff and WOOFERS as well. (This naturally will depend on the type of work, the weather and naturally, health, then we wear clothes.) Can you imagine wipper snipping in the buff? OUCH!" Wipper snipping is Australian for weed whacking, and Dan and I suspected this had been typed without a hint of irony. We had also received a page of frequently asked questions reiterating that it was best to assume "the nudist uniform (nude)" as soon as possible, pointing out that we needed to carry a "personal towel" at all times so that our bare bottoms didn't make contact with couches and chairs in common spaces (which, though we had never considered it before, greatly relieved us), and assuring us that there was no reason to be embarrassed by our nudity because every nudist has had to take "that first step of being nude amongst strangers," which I guessed implied that they were a sympathetic people.


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Nicole McClelland is an editor at Mother Jones and the founding editor of The Extrovert.

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I didn't know we had such a work program here....
Posted by: Smiggsy on Jan 25, 2008 12:43 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Funniest & one of the better articles ever on Alternet. I also wasn't aware there was such a work program here in Australia. But we don't have an illegal immigrant & cheap labor problem here either so it figures we may as well use the tourists instead.

Last time I visited the Whitsundays I also got an unhealthy dose of Ross River Fever from the mozzies. How people live in these jungles (& nude) is beyond me.

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I used to go to nude beaches a lot in California
Posted by: UnEasyOne on Jan 25, 2008 1:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Really liked it. There were definitely some creeps, kooks and wierdoes there - also some really cool people. There were beutiful girls - and lots of creeps with cameras. Did not like the cameras.

Loved the freedom tho - surfin in the nude is a GAS!

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a nice change of pace
Posted by: wildeyes on Jan 25, 2008 1:03 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
this article is a nice change of pace from the usual alternet dribble. i mean, i read this site daily, so i'm not raggin' too much, but i get tired of the constant analysis of war and torture and bush which seem to repeat the same things over and over and over again. this isn't that i want to escape these issues... quite the contrary, i'd like to see some more radical analysis that puts all of these in context.

hrm, i wandered, but so i go.

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Finally...
Posted by: pcushniesr on Jan 25, 2008 3:14 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... an article in which "bush" is discussed without reference to the verminous dubya. Great fun.

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» RE: Finally... Posted by: xvictor
» RE: Finally... Posted by: MobileSucks
...a good story was better than a good time...
Posted by: Steve Adair on Jan 25, 2008 4:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Life is all about the story, and this one was great. Thanks

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Fantasy Vs Reality
Posted by: blondesprite on Jan 25, 2008 4:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The fantasy is, in my experience, usually better than the reality...lol thanks for this article, a good laugh.

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PUT IT ON!
Posted by: bomec on Jan 25, 2008 5:16 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Every time I have visited a nude or clothing optional beach or resort, it has brought home to me the universal truth that 99.99999999% of humanity looks better clothed! The sagging breasts and drooping weenies are simply disgusting to behold. There is nothing "titillating"--you'll pardon the expression--about it. PUT IT ON!

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» RE: PUT IT ON! Posted by: donnee
» Aww...c'mon Posted by: data23
» RE: Aww...c'mon Posted by: MobileSucks
» RE: Aww...c'mon Posted by: data23
TCHAH! Softy Aussies
Posted by: zipper696 on Jan 25, 2008 5:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In Europe the naturalist movement goes naked in all weathers, which in the Northern Hemisphere often means chill winds and rain.
At least the mosquito problem is absent, so, unfortunately is the sun, mostly.
Which could explain why Greece, Spain and Italy are preferred!

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What? No photos?
Posted by: PJAW on Jan 25, 2008 5:39 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Why run an article about nudism without photographs fer cryin' out loud?

Just kidding. I used to live in St. Louis and had good friends who owned a 160 acre farm at the end of the end of the road. It wasn't an active farm, more of a recreational retreat and clothing was optional whenever the climate agreed. It was never a big deal, just a comfortable way to hang out (no pun intended). I think it always makes more sense to swim unclothed, but many other activities, as the author discovered, are more comfortably accomplished with clothing on. At least on some occasions. "Clothing optional" is the best of both worlds. Enforcing nudity is just as lame as enforcing clothing and it should be each individual's choice to dress or undress as the mood and activity require.

One of our favorite activities on the "farm" was nude golf. We had a one hole, par 7 "course" laid out, which was really just about whacking the ball from the front yard, across the pasture to the entry gate and back again. "Holing out" was a bit different than on a normal course, mostly because there was no hole. And no green either. You were done when you managed to hit the front side of the garage, above the doors and beneath the peak of the roof. I think someone did get par once (might have been me, I can't remember). It got more interesting once the pasture was leased out to a local farmer, who grazed cattle on it. We had to incorporate a new rule that if you hit a cow, you didn't count that stroke. This, of course, meant the cows were targeted for the sake of scoring better, but no one ever actually hit one. It's not that easy to hit a cow with a golf ball from a hundred yards away, using a thrift shop 7 iron, out of fescue, buck naked. But I can't recall too many other things I've done that were more ridiculously entertaining.

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Nudes suitable in some places at some times
Posted by: xvictor on Jan 25, 2008 6:18 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And yeah, the mosquitoes and horseflies prefer nudes. I live in New York state and those pests seem to start rampaging in the early evening. Best times to go nude is during the morning and afternoons and during windy/breezy days. While that's OK, unfortunately, the best times to socialize is in the evenings, however.

You just can't have it all!!!

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NUDISM-ONE GREAT BENEFIT!
Posted by: drricklippin on Jan 25, 2008 6:19 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Great story!

To me nudism has at least one excellent benefit. In a heterogenous population of all sizes, shapes and ages of human bodies it actually serves to de-emphasize the sick idealized "beauty" obsession of US culture.

Forget the other so-called health claims.

On the downside what would be the $ impact on the fashion industry if we all went nude? :)

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

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NAKED IBIZA
Posted by: gellero on Jan 25, 2008 6:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I lived naked on the beaches of Ibiza/Formentera and Ios for months when I was young.

Always thought older folks shouldn't be naked.

Over 50 now, wouldn't dream of doing it again. Not sure it is healthy & pure......but it sure is fun for a while if you've got the bod .......and who doesn't at 22???

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THIS IS TOO FUNNY......
Posted by: gellero on Jan 25, 2008 6:23 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The famous Dr. Rick and I simultaneously post opposite takes on the subject.



Ommmmmmmmmm.

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WWOOFing recommended
Posted by: zeofredo on Jan 25, 2008 9:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Fun article. Aside from the nudist colony, it can be a real adventure to go WWOOFing. It's not so much a backpacking thing as a commitment to unfamiliar and challenging new surroundings. I tried it for one summer in eastern Canada, and I really enjoyed it for the most part. As long as you can 'read' people and make informed decisions, you shouldn't have anyone to blame but yourself if sometimes things go a little awry. It is actually exhilarating to put trust in strangers and accept the unforeseen.

What I most recommend is that such experiences push us out of our 'individual' funk and compel us to accept others, come what may. A couple of my hosts were kind of strange, but so am I in the eyes of some folks, so you just have to deal with it. In the best cases I was treated as family by people who only days ago were total strangers to me.

I hope such ideas as this become more popular in future... forget 'eco-travel' and youth-only backpacking excursions... this is a real way to experience cultures and peoples. And the food is usually quite decent, too!

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unblocktheplanet
Posted by: unblocktheplanet on Jan 25, 2008 9:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wonderful article, though with Australians as Americans, it's no wonder they don't get it. Careful observation will show that even these folks were just clothing-optional. (After all, by now humans have invented clothing!)

I have always had a tendency to clothing-optional naturism since early childhood. I just never outgrew adapting to the weather. C'mon--wet bathing suits!!! For what?

I now live in Thailand. Evidently, there is thicker ozone in the tropics but I don't worry about burning. I spend lots of time at home doing life...in the buff.

Although my wife is 'normal' and "modest", our nine-year old daughter is just as inclined to sleeping nude or doing her usual stuff naked. It simply never raises any questions.

We have never considered diplatories!

They use real models for porno anime?!?!?!?!

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WOOfing sounds good
Posted by: agathena on Jan 25, 2008 9:38 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
but not those RV's. They are definitely not green. Try doing on a bike with a backpack. The idea of tourists working their way around the world though not new, is great. Let them get involved.

There are certain occasions for nudity like swimming. We should not be ashamed of naked bodies. Also, we shouldn't think nudity is always sexual. But day to day living in the nude, it just isn't practical. I let my kids run around without clothes when they were little at our country place. My son tripped on wooden steps and hurt his penis, so that was the end of that.

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» Hmmmmm....... Posted by: morticia
Scha(a)m
Posted by: str88f on Jan 25, 2008 10:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I noticed your reference to the German Schamhaar. In Dutch it's much the same (add an 'a' and you get schaamhaar) but it doesn't end there: the whole area involved is (also) known as schaamstreek, which translates as 'shame area'. The Dutch weren't always so 'out in the open'... Also, if I understand the relevant wikipedia-page correctly, in German, the same goes more or less, with scham standing for 'crotch'... of a woman. So in German it's only the woman who should be ashamed! Ah, the beauty of Freudian linguistics...

In a remark more relevant to the whole of the article: I sometimes like to be nude on the local nudist beach, but like Nicole McClelland, I sometimes wonder where the joy of being nude ends and the thrill of being watched (as long as I don't meet anyone I know, of course) begins.

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"Naturism!"
Posted by: morticia on Jan 25, 2008 11:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have some old "Naturist" magazines from the 50s and 60s that I found at a garage sale, with names like "Sun and Health" and such. They're packed with photos and are great fun--a rare combination of earnestness and prurience, with everything from nekkid nymphs frolicking with beach balls to utterly ordinary-looking, dumpy middle-aged folks with surgical scars sitting around in deck chairs playing cards, wearing shoes and socks and sun hats and nothing else. The stories and articles are fabulously earnest, and reveal various schisms within the movement. And they definitely doth protest too much--the emphasis in the articles is always on the "wholesome" effects of nudity, that only the terminally filthy-minded could even THINK of anything sexual in such an environment. Hilarious!

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While at a church retreat at a beach house
Posted by: Ellie1 on Jan 25, 2008 12:37 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I was invited to visit a nearby nude beach with a group from the retreat. All I could think was, "I know I would always picture these people nude when I saw them at the church." Also there was not one of them I could pleasantly picture nude. I passed on the little side trip. So glad I did.

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When We Got Married We Really Splashed Out
Posted by: opmoc on Jan 25, 2008 1:25 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And we went on our honeymoon to a little Greek Island called Paros

And we hired bikes and cycled to this completely stunningly beautiful beach...

We parked our bikes

And walked to the beach

And were just laughing and joking with each other

And we put our beach towels down on the sand

And suddenly realised that no one had any clothes on

So we did it for the first time

Tony

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Yawn
Posted by: Natcamper on Jan 25, 2008 2:09 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Articles like this usually give me a rash.

She wrote,"Nudism doesn't make every moment of life more fantastic, as I had imagined it would."

Hey, it's not like its a panacea or something...

For anyone who enjoys and understands the naturist lifestyle, the "reward" (if you will) is the total sense of freedom and camaraderie you get from being able to shed your clothes in a natural (outdoor) venue. I suppose in some sense, it's like caviar or shushi for some folks. You either get it...or you don't.

But there's no need to be pejorative about the lifestyle itself...

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Hawaii
Posted by: Crazy H on Jan 25, 2008 4:23 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hawaiians didn't have athlete's foot, jock itch, or any other of those dark/damp loving fungii until the Europeans showed up and gave 'em all "morals."

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Turtle Creek Woman
Posted by: Zipadeduda on Jan 25, 2008 4:25 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have gone to a Nudist Resort in SW Michigan by myself and with platonic dates who were "curious". If you're going to view people for your own prurient interests you're in the wrong place; and don't assume that all people in their 30's look great or that people in their 70's look nauseatingly flabby. In between the swimming, biking, jogging, walking, soaking in the hot tub or just sitting on the deck conversing with new friends theres a lot to be said for the total freedom and acceptance of the nudist lifestyle. I never really totally relaxed among others until I discovered nudism.

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Healthy enough. Lifestyle? Perhaps.
Posted by: Ozcloggie on Jan 27, 2008 1:11 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Gosh! What a pity you didn't come to River Island Nature Retreat. You would have relaxed. Soon you would not have worried about what people looked like and either joined them in conversation or you would have gone off and explored the valley and the Wollondilly River.
Looking for places to socialise should not depend, I believe, on whether people are wearing clothes or not.
Go to places where people are likely to have your interests in common.
Have an open mind regarding the other people's way of doing things.
Don't take along a lifetime's worth of feelings and beliefs that are contrary to what is going on there.
I am surprised that a simple visit to a nudist / naturist location brought on such an out-pouring of text.
Relax!
Seems to me that if people go to the opera with reservations about that style of entertainment or to the bull-fights with reservations about that type of sport, they may not immediately be entranced.
Next time: Cobblers Beach, on Middle Harbour, Sydney, or, as I wrote above, River Island will help you relax about what people's bodies look like.

Jo

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Naturism
Posted by: John P on Jan 28, 2008 7:43 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Feminists talk about "the mainstreaming of pornography", and stuff like sexualized computer animation sounds exactly like it! But a person involved in that might well be quite cynical about it, and might hope to find a way to enjoy being naked without putting on a show for anyone. That's how I interpreted it. But if Nicole McClelland is a philosopher, I wonder how she'd react to the suggestion that by placing pornographic images everywhere, we've created a situation where we respond to a simply naked person (especially if that person is female and somewhat young) as though it were automatically pornographic--and if the person doesn't meet our criteria for being erotic, we tend to laugh. In other words, she was indirectly partly responsible for the situation she encountered.

Not much room left for innocence, if that's the environment.

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To me, being nude is being the same person but in a sensually charged ambience that is very pleasura
Posted by: sarababe on Jan 29, 2008 7:06 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good story!

At your first naturist experience, you may feel apprehensive and worried that people will be staring at you. But a visit to nudist club is much different than you would experience anywhere else. At there, you will not find people trying to undress you with their eyes, from afar or near, because there is nothing left for the imagination to remove. You will not find people throwing outdated, lewd or offensive pickup lines at you.

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Just go to Walmart in the summer
Posted by: rjs on Jan 30, 2008 8:51 PM   
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I just don't think I could do it. I get the wheezies just going to the stores in the summer when everyone believes they just have to wear shorts. That alone is enough to make people want stay home. We may not have been born with clothes, but I would go blind if I seen anymore than I do at Walmart.

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