Mixed Messaging

As a creative-minded photographic artist interested in online activism, I appreciate seeing the advocacy images people come up with and share on social media. I even like to join in with my own on occasion. But sometimes, I have to shake my head at what I find online. Take the image below, which suffers from a disjointed tone. Ostensibly promoting topfreedom, it talks of equality, but seems to lack self-awareness. The fine print at bottom (a pretentious six lines of copyright for what effectively boils down to a composite of two stolen images) suggests a nudist or body-positive interpretation, but the choice of two impossibly beautiful models undermines its overall message (tip: it's possible to pick attractive models who are nevertheless not quite so out of the ordinary).

At a glance, one would be forgiven for mistaking this image to be a simple piece of eye candy. And don't get me wrong, these two people look incredible (this would not be a bad advertisement for bisexuality, if not also for crippling self-consciousness and body image disorders). There's nothing wrong with admiring their chiseled physiques. Except that, again, the fine print employs typical nudist jargon to cast aspersions on those who would share the image for more superficial purposes. It's softcore porn masquerading as nudist advocacy, that tries to grasp legitimacy by condemning pornography. Amazingly, the post manages to alienate both of its potential audiences. Nudists will be annoyed by the amplification of unrealistic beauty standards, while porn hunters will be put off by the admonishment of their "sexualized" motives (although let's be honest - they don't give a shit). The only cause this banner flies for is skin-thirsty hypocrites hiding behind the purifying sheen of nudism.

The final squirt of whipped cream on top of this debacle of a wannabe topfreedom meme is the fact that the two photos are specifically pointed out to be of unknown origin, while the person who edited the piece together spends three lines advertising their name and social media links. I respect the creativity involved with pairing text and images together to get across an idea (in another life, I might have been a clever ad-man), but it's ironic in this case, not only in that the result is so lackluster as to cast shade on the author's desire to take credit for it, but that the meat of the post - the two photographs - remain uncredited. Granted, these sorts of images tend to get passed around a lot, and it can be difficult to find their source. Then again, an inquiry on Reddit could potentially yield an unexpectedly fruitful result. But I'd be surprised if the author went to any trouble at all to track them down. Despite the fact that a journey of this kind can be a lot of fun. (It's not much, but a literal 30 second search on Google turned up the name of actor Kellan Lutz - and that's a start).

Can we agree to try just a little bit harder next time?

Belonging

What I find most interesting about this article (in which nudist travel bloggers Naked Wanderings reviews Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park) is that the author(s) haven't just reviewed the facilities they visited, but were actually able to record a demo video on the grounds. I'm sure they got special permissions, and they certainly have the reputation - and the proven skill - to do it justice. There can be no doubt that I am not the only one who envies their lifestyle, touring the world and producing quality content in support of the naturist lifestyle.

But I'm also caught thinking that they are so lucky to have found the lifestyle they love, that they have an opportunity to work passionately to support. I support nudism, and am invested in advocating for it, but even if I had the people skills to do something like this, I worry that I have too much of a preoccupation with beauty and sex-positivity to be viewed as "pure" enough of a nudist. And the reality is, I love nudism, but the lifestyle is still not a 100% perfect fit for me. And I fear that that perfect fit doesn't exist.

I'm just too much of a unique individual. I would love to meet a community that had all the same core beliefs that I have, with which I could share a mutual and unshaking respect. To which I could give my talents and my passions fully and wholeheartedly, to represent and advocate on behalf of. Instead, I feel lost and alone, drifting in a sea of people I can only ever relate to to a point. I like the idea behind the concept of "finding your tribe", but my search has been in vain all my life. I don't think I have one. And that makes me sad. Because I could be so much more than I am. If I could only find somewhere I belong.

Freedom Versus Beauty

In a comment on a recent post on this blog, I wrote "freedom is high up on the shelf, but I live and die for beauty." And I was thinking about that. The reason I place beauty above freedom is because, to me, beauty is happiness. And the way I see it, the purpose of freedom is to give us the ability to pursue happiness (since happiness is so mercurial that it can't simply be prescribed). Perhaps freedom has an intrinsic value apart from its utility in steering us toward happiness, but I can say that if I had the ability to be happy at the cost of my freedom, I'm not sure how valuable freedom would be anymore. Isn't that why all these conservatives who are perfectly content with the way things are (or used to be) are trying to take away our freedoms?

Anyway, it led me to an interesting thought experiment. If you had to choose between two alternatives, which would you prefer? A world in which all are free to go nude, at the cost of everybody being ugly...or a world in which everyone is beautiful, but nobody is permitted to go nude? Of course, it begs the question of whether there is any value in beauty if it's covered up. What if I said you could be surrounded by beautiful naked people, but you couldn't take your own clothes off?

I can say I would be hard-pressed to choose between those two alternatives, but neither one would be totally satisfactory. The ideal, of course, is to have both - freedom and beauty. But I do feel as though I'm often made to choose between the two. To spend a day alone and naked in the woods, or clothed with friends? To visit a nudist resort filled with old and sagging bodies, or put on a swimsuit and surround myself with bodies that are less ravaged by age? My solution is to alternate between the two, as opportunities arise. But I still dream of a world in which we can have both, simultaneously...

Public Showers

I've been sorta preoccupied with showering in public this summer (since even before that stimulating experience showering with nudist strangers), at campground bath houses and pool locker rooms and the like, sometimes even pushing the boundaries of where I remain uncovered. I figure, I don't wrap up in my bathroom at home, going from the tub to the sink; if it's understood that these are shower facilities, there should be implied acceptance of incidental nudity. The lengths to which textiles will sometimes go in order to avoid exposure is absolutely mental in my opinion, and I refuse to engage in it beyond reason.

Sometimes nudity is the most sensible state of dress.

It's not that I'm unconcerned about the ethics of appearing naked in front of "nonconsenting" strangers. After all, in this gymnophobic culture, I am made to feel like a monster for even thinking about enjoying the sensation of being undressed in public. But I feel very differently about the human body than most (it would seem), and while we're forced to cover up anywhere and everywhere, there are certain places where I think nonconfrontational, nonsexual nudity simply belongs.

How do I wrap my hair if the towel's around my waist?

It's not that I actually want to expose myself to unsuspecting strangers - something that hasn't happened all summer long in the relatively uncrowded restrooms I've visited (the risks I take are always carefully calculated), it's just that there is a remarkable dearth of opportunities in this culture to simply engage in and be surrounded by adherents of the sort of "free body culture" that I enjoy and crave to experience on a far more regular basis than it is convenient to do in this society.

Individual stalls offer privacy, but the open format is more fun.

I accept that I have minority views, and perhaps I deserve to live shut up in an isolated community with other eccentrics like myself. But until I'm forced to do that, I'm a part of this society, and I believe in the freedom to pursue a lifestyle that makes me happy. And I believe there is a meaningful difference between the casual nudity I want to engage in (no matter if it might make some people uncomfortable sometimes) and the antisocial sort that's predicated on being a nuisance and a threat to the happiness and wellbeing of others. It's really quite simple: it's the difference between a naked person minding their own business, and a naked person minding your business. Once you start minding the naked person's business, you've become the nuisance.

When your body looks this good, it's a shame to cover it up.

I just hope it never comes down to being a matter of letting the courts decide. In my defense, I bend over backwards (in spite of how it may seem to those who have never experienced the daily drive that I feel to be naked as much as possible) to try to avoid the possibility of that ever happening. Yet of all the vices I could have, the tendency to want to strip naked isn't the worst one by far. And though saying this might make me sound insensitive to the concerns of others: really, the harm of seeing a naked person has been entirely overblown. In 99% of cases, it is minimal to non-existent - many reports even include positive reactions. If encountering a naked person makes you feel uncomfortable, the best thing you can do is strip down and join them - you'd be surprised at how good it feels!

Proof of Concept

As a nudist I believe in body acceptance. Appearance is only one part of a person's value, and it doesn't matter what you look like for you to enjoy the freedom of social nude recreation.

As an artist, my nude photography isn't strictly informed by my beliefs in nudism, although my experience with nudism harmonizes well with my artistic approach toward exhibiting the human body.

It's just that, while every body belongs in nudism, I wouldn't necessarily be enthusiastic to photograph just anybody nude. Maybe that sounds exclusive. I'm sorry if it does. But that's the nature of the work.

If I still looked like I did around the time I started seriously taking pictures of myself, I would probably agree that I don't deserve to be in pictures. But I work hard to groom myself so I look better in pictures, and it has a real tangible effect when I look at pictures of myself and like what I see.

That's what I'm trying to capture in my photography. That beauty that makes people smile. Maybe a better artist could find that beauty in anyone. I myself would argue that more people out there are beautiful than know it. I support body acceptance and the normalization of nudity because those people need it, too.

Whether they're afraid of judgment, or have been taught to fear being the target of sexual desire, too many people are wasting their beauty, covering it up and hiding it away, saving it for precious few eyeballs, instead of bestowing it upon the world.

I would love to uncover that beauty in others, and immortalize it in my photography. Although I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity I've had to discover that beauty within myself, in my mind, self-portraiture has really only ever been a proof of concept.

Condemning Male Sexuality

I feel that, in our society, men are frequently discriminated against due to the fear that they may be sexual predators. It's unfortunate, the extent to which this stereotype may be warranted (thanks to the behavior of a subset of the population); but it is similarly unfortunate when innocent individuals have to endure this discrimination.

Although my experience isn't gender-normative, and I might pass as female in some instances (I would hope), even being gendered as a non-normative male means I am often subject to a lot of the stereotypes we have in our culture about men. Maybe even more so, falling under the transgender umbrella, as I worry about those simple-minded individuals who think men "dress up" in (as opposed to simply wearing?) women's clothing primarily for perverted sexual reasons.

As if no woman has ever sexted from the fitting room...

I hate to contribute to sexist stereotypes - and it may ultimately prove to be largely due to socialization - but it does seem to me that, generally, men and women behave a little bit differently about sex. Consider the cliché that men think about sex more often, and have more varied sexual appetites, than women on average. But the way I see it, what's unfortunate about how men are treated isn't simply the fact that they're more likely to be assumed to have a sexual motive (e.g., when presenting as female, or hiking nude in the woods), but that, even if the man does have some level of a sexual motive (in whole or in part), it's negatively assumed to take on an antisocial - or, worse, predatory - aspect (exacerbated by the insidious notion that a man aroused becomes an uncivilized animal who can think of nothing beyond attaining satisfaction), instead of it being positively interpreted as him simply experiencing the world from a more erotic perspective, in a way that does not intrinsically make him a menace to society. I do occasionally find a thrill in sexualizing things (especially situations and activities) that maybe aren't normally considered erotic - because adding a sexual context gives you one more aspect through which to enjoy it (and why should we be uptight and suffer a prudish outlook on life?).

It is as if the very fact of a man's sexuality (how dare it exhibit itself outside the bounds of an intimate bedroom encounter!) colors the experience in some negative way. That every sexual thought, feeling, or behavior "unwrapped" by the cover of intimacy (but sometimes even then, too) is inherently threatening (must all of society cater to the fragile psyche of the sexual abuse victim?). That the only acceptable way for a man to handle his dick (even metaphorically speaking) is never to take it out, except within the confines of the secularized version of the marital bed (i.e., a private, committed relationship). Well, I say this attitude is neither humane, nor practical. And it is, to me, the very basis of sex-negativity. Unfortunately, it's also a sensibility I encounter frequently among nudist discussion groups, as well as within feminism - both causes I support, but communities that have too easy a tendency to be antagonistic toward sexuality in general, and the male sex drive in particular.

Once again, I am saddened by the extent to which these feelings may be justified by the behavior of unscrupulous individuals. But I am also saddened not only by the fact that we condemn innocents based on stereotypes and generalizations, but that we condemn the very concept of eroticism, and strip it of its potential to be a healthy and positive force in our lives, on a more widespread level. Because the more we understand and accept our fundamental sexual nature, and develop satisfactory methods of catering to it on a regular basis, the less antisocial dysfunction will be incubated in lieu of a more proper release.