The Blog of Daniel

Just my place to write without any delusions of self-importance.

Comfort, modesty and purity.

Nude girl reading the book Travels with Lizbeth

What is was your first thought when you saw the picture here?  Mine was "What is she reading?"  What she's reading, as well as who took the photo, deserves a post all on its own, but for now I just want to talk about why I thought what I thought.

If I could choose a single photograph that exemplifies what family oriented nudism is about it would be this picture.  She appears to be an average person doing something she enjoys and she looks comfortable while doing it.  That's how your typical nudist lives.

As my good friend Cathy pointed out in a recent post here, nudism has nothing to do with swingers, swapping or sex.  Nudism is about comfort, modesty and purity.  What's interesting about that when I was talking to a female acquaintance who is Muslim, she agreed that the same words expressed why she wears her Hijab.  Comfort, modesty and purity.  I can't argue with that.  If one must wear clothes, a Hijab looks quite comfortable.

What got me to thinking about all this is recently observing the differences between two children.

A couple months ago I was visiting my family and I was sitting inside the camper doing some writing and one of my nephews ran up wanting to borrow some sunblock.  I got it and went to the door to hand it to him and at that point he produced a sound that you might hear if someone were to inhale a bunch of marbles.  It really shocked the shit out of me.  I'm not accustomed to being around people who have a problem with nudity and I'm definitely not used to seeing someone damn near have a convulsion because of it.  I have never seen a child so uptight in my life.  It was both scary and sad.

I compare that to a young girl who was at the resort a few weeks ago.  I'm not good with ages but I am guessing that she was about the same age as my nephew.  Like everyone else there, she was running around in the buff and was quite comfortable.  She swam, played pool and did all the other typical kid stuff but she did it without all the angst that clothes wearing children seem to endure.

The one thing I have noticed about kids raised as nudists (as compared to clothes wearing kids) is that you don't ever hear the nudist kids making crude sexual comments about others and they don't spend all their time comparing their bodies to someone else's in order to determine their own self-worth.  You don't hear about them ruining their lives by getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant.  They grow up very well adjusted.

As children, we don't care about nudity.  Only adults say they are "offended" by nudity, and it's not that they are truly offended, they say it to distract us and themselves from the real problem, which is that what they really have is contempt for their own bodies; or possibly the fact that they cannot look upon any other person and not have sexual or perverted thoughts.  Body shame is something taught to us by adults and the lesson is this: the only purpose for your body is to get someone else off.  If you're a female and someone sees you nude, you're a whore.  If you're male, you're a pervert.  On the other hand, for nudists, you're just another friend.

You can giggle and smirk till the cows come home about nudists but keep in mind that we have one thing that you don't have; we like ourselves as we are.  You should try it.

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