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Absolute Naturists Why do people wear clothes?
| I realize that not everybody is comfortable with the lifestyle, but I think that damn near everyone would love being nude if they just tried it. Clothing is like any other man-made tool. It has a function. We cover up because we are cold. Outside of that what is the purpose of clothing other than not offending people. How did the human body get so offensive? That's just my opinion. | |||
| One of the reasons to wear clothing is protection against the effects of some chore, like welding (although there are some who have welded in the nude). Some times, there are those who wear clothes who are sensitive to the sun and CAN'T be naked outside for very long. There ARE good reasons to sometimes wear clothes. However, I still prefer to be naked. John | |||
| I love being naked. I prefer being naked and I am naked every second I can be...but... There are times when we HAVE to wear clothes. I don't mind getting dressed for various occasions. I wear the minimum when I can and won't offend anyone. I don't even mind getting all dressed up for special occasions. I'm not going to throw a fit because I have to wear clothes but...I also don't go out and buy clothes all the time...much to my immediate family's and my wife's displeasure. They want me to wear in style clothing and much of what I have is the same ol' stuff so...they are always on my case about buying new stuff. I don't see the need cuz I rarely wear clothes unless I've got to. I don't weld and much of what I do in the way of projecting, repairing or decorating...I do nude. Haven't injured myself yet and if I did...and it was serious...I doubt that a pair of pants or shorts would protect me that well anyway. I seem to injure my feet more times than I do any other portion of my body....and I'm usually in flip flops or barefoot! I should probably wear shoes more often! LOL | |||
| Hi everyone...and to sort of respond to Eric. Last weekend I drove about 75 miles one-way to attend the only local (Maine) nudist group gathering for their last meeting until next Fall. Never having been to one before, I didn't quite know what to expect. There were about 40 of us crowded into a small indoor swimming pool area at a hotel/resort along the coast. The management put large white sheets up over all the windows so nobody could look in, but of course, neither could we look out or even see the sunshine outside. It was a friendly and fun time, but it got me thinking about us nudists and our "situation" regarding privacy vis a vis our rights versus those of the clothed. Backyard naturism is great. I do it all the time, temps and weather permitting. And, I've managed to find a few local friends who will join me. But, as I read all the posts here on this thread, I'm reminded how we all are forced to act as though we've done something wrong. We hide. We don't tell co-workers or friends. We build fences to keep ourselves from the view of others. We plant bushes and put up curtains. We pile loads of stuff on our bodies anytime anybody might see us. We all, basically, are made to live our lives as though something was wrong with us...as though we were a real menace to society. This has GOT to change! Don't you think? America is supposed to be the freedom country of the world. Yet, nudity is tolerated in so many other places but not here. When are we all going to band together and stand up and fight for the right simply to live in the skin nature gave us. To me it seems a denial of the basic human right to live in your own skin as you wish, as long as you are not harming others. To be forced to wear clothing every single time another human being might see you is, in my opinion, a real violation of our human rights. Moreover, it's perfectly ridiculous!! We've done nothing wrong. We just want to live as nature made us. And, I think we need to find a way to really, really get it together and work to change or make legislation that would ensure this for us and for everyone! What do you all think about this? What can we do? And, by the way, you're all welcome to come hang out on my 13 private acres in Maine anytime. | |||
| Just got through talking with my new neighbors about this same subject. Letting them know that we are just normal, but we do live outdoors without clothes. Funny that I was reading the post before the conversation started. I agree that we are not a menace, but that those not so precious few who can't maintain, decorum and good taste make it difficult for the rest of us. We shouldn't have to defend our ideas nor our state of dress, after all it is the most natural state to be in. We are normal and all is well. | |||
| Here in our United Stated, our minds are trained from the time we are born that being naked is wrong. As kids, we get away with a lot of being naked and it gets played off as us just being kids. We spend nine months in the womb, naked.. Why would we want clothes on after we are born? Our parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and everyone start teaching us that this is not proper and we have to cover up what our god gave us.. Somewhere along in life someone had to have a really good reason for us to have to do this.... I understand safety issues with working and such. Clothing does help protect us at certain times, but I would love to know where the big change hit and where we HAD to start wearing clothes by law! Everyone of us as nudest, takes a little time to convince ourselves that how we feel about clothes (or lack of) isn't just something stupid in our heads.. Once we realize that so many other people feel the same way we do, it gets a lot easier, doesn't it? Then, the first time you get to be nude with other people that feel the same way, you just happen to forget you are nude and go about doing things just like you would if you had clothes on, but, you don't... It is a major release of stress and a feeling of freedom! It is a very natural feeling and you feel like a kid again! You have energy to do things you my not normally do, because you are free of clothes and the feeling is extraordinary!! You experience the sixth sense, my vision of the sixth sense, the feeling of air, wind, sun, freedom, sand, dirt, life, all on the body that we cover up with clothes because our society is immature.. They (most of they) think that nudity means sex! That is also a trained thing that someone brought people up believing.. These are all trained thoughts! I have talked to most of my friends about being a nudist and a lot of them have interest in it. The biggest problem most of them have is body acceptance.. I told them that that is not a worry and showed and told them about aanr and tns and the web sites, but they have that barrier that life has built for them keeping them from taking that one step to realizing that it is just something that they were raised to believe and they don't want to even try it! One of my friends and his wife, for example, said that if I got nude then and their, she would think that we were gonna have sex..... I asked her that when she got in the shower did she think she was gonna have sex? She said no, she always showers nude! I told her that if she wasn't raised in clothes and everything she did was in the nude, would she still think she was ready to have sex with me sitting there nude? She said yes because her mind was just set... She only understands what she knows and is close minded on our lifestyle. She still never saw my point even after talking for hours, but she was still interested in hearing about it.. I think her husband was a little more open to it, but then again, most guys are more open to it.. Our freedom to take chances being nude, driving, on a river, on the beach, in our own privately owned backyards, is always a risk with the laws we have here.. It sucks, but if more of us could take the chance or try to talk more about what we all believe, maybe something could change.. I could go on and on, lol, but I'm gonna stop here for tonight. I look forward to seeing more posts and replying to more myself. | |||
| Here's an interesting perspective on nudity. I received an email from a woman who was a nude model in the 1960's. I told her that I'm a nudist and that I was wondering if it was awkward being seen naked by so many people, when you were just there as a model. This is her reply from yesterday. To answer your question -- I never felt naked. I wonder how I would have felt if I had modeled a few years later when the pubic area was on display. But frankly, showing my breasts never felt naked to me. I also visited a nudist beach in California, and after 15 minutes, it just felt natural. | |||
| I think the key work in Walt's interesting post is, "immature." Yup, that pretty much sums up American's attitudes and norms in a lot of areas. Freedom for our bodies is just one of them. I think one of the things that is most frustrating for me is the thought that the day will very likely come when our foolish, outdated ideas about the body will pass and everyone will be free to choose for themselves when and how to be clothed or not. But.......this will not happen in my lifetime! What a shame! What a foolish, ridiculous restriction that someday will probably seem like an absurd relic from our unenlightened past. I just won't ever get to live it!! And, if you don't think we'll ever get there, just remember what everyone's "bathing costumes" looked like say 60 or 70 years ago. They covered almost the whole body and many were made of wool. Even the prudes today who think nudity is a sin will look at those old beach and pool photographs and laugh at how silly we were to think we needed all that clothing to go swimming. So....the day will come. But most of us will never see it! This is why I think we need to work, lobby, write, speak, whatever it takes to help changes laws and minds. If we don't, who will? | |||
| To discover when this fear of nudity actually began would not be an easy question to answer. It probably didn't happen all at once but in stages. For instance I can remember reading some of the laws left behind from times in the past that were perhaps some of the first anti-nudity statutes. One that comes to mind was from 18th century New England banning people from coming out on their front porch nude. Makes you wonder what was happening that prompted such a local ordinance! Obviously we weren't the first to object to clothes! In more modern times Queen Victoria and her husband Albert were horrified by any kind of nudity in England and outlawed its practice, hence the term victorian! This of course far from accomplishing its goal did nothing but encourage hypocrisy and sexual and moral deviance. Much of what we see today is nothing but a newer more improved model of victorianism. There is also the matter of those who have the most to gain by maintaining the current laws and beliefs of far too many, such as the clothing, cosmetic and an insatiable porn industry. Imagine how much in yearly profits it would cost them if we as a society stopped listening to the endless diatribe of advertising and started adopting healthy attitudes towards our own bodies. I don't presume to have the answer but I find more and more that I am not a prophet and I neither have the will, the patience or the time to convert an unsympathetic world about my nude life choice. Rather at this point I would be satisfied with equality and the right to be nude when I want to be without fear of harrassment, arrest or prosecution. The basic right to relax in my favorite state of undress without having to deal with alot of silly immature people. I believe that action committee's, lobbying and pressure on polical's is the way to go. I think this is the only way that things will ever change, and I don't know about you but I resent the possibility ofbeing thought of as a pervert just because I prefer being nude! Naturism is not and never will be sexual just NATURAL! | |||
| Well said, Uriel. The only exception I would take to your post is that with the cosmetics industry. I think the ladies would/do still use makeup; maybe even more. The porn industry would definitely be hurt by acceotance of nudism. John | |||
| thanks for the insight about cosmetic's. Perhaps a little is alright but I think for myself I still prefer the natural look. So many young girl's particularly way overdo it and much of the time they don't really need the help and yet I understand the wish for self improvement. I live in a little town in southern Illinois, locally they have some gals doing the news on tv that I affectionately refer to as "The Vampires"! They all seem to be pale to the point of almost looking white, usually it is accompanied by bright red lipstick to finish the effect, God its almost scary! Heaven's to Elvira! lol | |||
| Uriel, again I agree with you. Makeup is NOT needed as much as it is used. However, there are ladies that just don't see that. John | |||
| You are so right John. I think most women look better in their natural state, without all of the makeup. When magazines have "Stars Without Makeup" photos, I think they look great. | |||
| Generally, across time and culture, peoples wear clothes as a way to display status. Even where they don't wear anything that we in America would call clothes, they adorn themselves with some kind of jewelry or decoration. Even among the Amish, you can read a man's rank and status in the kind of hat he wears. There is grammar in every fashion statement that people read, usually unconsciously. That was the foundation of Malloy's "Dress for Success." When you're not dressed, there is nothing to read. Also, across time and culture, the less class conscious a society, the grubbier men dress. More importantly, the more free a society, the less women wear. I believe that nudism is more important than we realize. It promotes freedom and equality in practical ways, not just abstractly. | |||
| It's blazing hot here in OR, I wonder how many people would realize how great they would feel by not having to deal with clothes, even in the privacy of their own homes with the AC on. And swimming with soggy/cold trunks/bikinis? | |||
| I think that nudism isn't for everyone, but I also think that most people would love it if they just tried it. When you grow up in a culture that says that nudity is just for sex and bathing, it's a psychological hurdle to remove your clothing just because you enjoy it. | |||
| I wear clothes because cooking bacon hurts when I don't. Also, roommate does not appreciate the lifestyle. | |||
| A client of mine told me she admires my ability to be free (naked)as she can not. Her reason is childhood conditioning. She was teased for having visible veins on her legs. As a result she can not wear shorts or skirts even. I believe besides for protection from weather or injury (welding for example) we have in various ways been conditioned in childhood to be ashamed and overly protective of ourselves. We sometimes spend our whole lives trying to unravel childhood conditioning (body shame, eating patterns, racism, xenophobia & so many more). | |||
| Nudism...MMM..I think the height of nudism was during the Golden Age of Greece when they held the Olympics nude...its been down hill every since...and unfortunately with the herd mentality of American society nudism is not likely to make any head way soon..I mean come on...you have one single man in Manhattan decide for 4 million people living there that transfats are bad for them and the entire population never says anything rather simply trundles along like good little sheep...and now he wants salt shakers taken off retaurant tables...he is joined by the hyphenation lobby...only in the U.S. do I ever see people refer to themselves with hyphenation..."Why yes I'm a ________ (fill in the blank) American...almost everywhere else people refer to themselves as Italian or Swedish or French no hyphenation needed...American society sooo pigeon holes people that they can be nothing else... Well you know he/she are ______(chose your title)" as if that person can be nothing else except that one perspective...I mean look at how finely we split hairs...a woman walks out on the beach in a micro bikini...no problem..but the same woman walks out on the same beach topless...folks go bananas...OMG!!! hide the children or at best cover their eyes...and would you look at that hussy...how dare she walk around topless...nope...OOO and speaking of the Olympics...anyone remember the last summer Olympics and the uproar that occurred when the swimmers turned out in "second skin" bathing suits??? Ahhhh but lets tune in the womens gymnatics...gheeezzzz have we a long way to go before nudism becomes acceptable.."and Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness and were ashamed...." clothes will reign for a long time to come because people are not confident and comfortable with their own bodies and clothes hide their uneasiness... | |||
| Detach, I constantly cook bacon in the nude. Granted, most of the time, lately, it is in the microwave, but I am still naked cooking bacon in a frying pan on the stove. I NEVER get splattered or "spit" on. And, our bacon is as crisp or not as we want it. John | |||
| This topic is the subject of an entire book, "The importance of wearing clothes" by Lawrence Langner. In the book, Langner theorizes that the original reason humans wore clothes was to differentiate themselves from the rest of the animal kingdom, and thus feel superior. Thus, clothes=status. Over time, clothes were used for many other purposes. In the book "Body packaging: A guide to human sexual display", fashion designer Julian Robinson argues that people originally wore clothes to enhance their sexuality. Thus, clothes=sex, which turns the notion of nudity=sex on its head! Robinson believes that we will never return to an entirely nude society, because it would not be sexually stimulating enough, as people would desire the additional sexual stimulation that clothes provide. | |||
Samantha Lynn Gilmour is a lifelong family nudist who lives at home with her mother. She was born in 1994 and now goes to college as well as teaches ballet and piano. If that's not enough, Samantha also volunteers her time at the nudist resort in which she was raised. Earlier this month, she ’blogged her thoughts about nudists and clothes and it seemed to fit on this thread. NUDIST WOMEN OUT IN A CLOTHED WORLD
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| Ms Gilmour does make a very strong argument and explains quite well what/who a nudist really is. Though I argue I wish we could go nude anywhere/anytime I will admit I too would feel very uncomfortable doing so in the general population unless nudism were to become widespread and accepted as "normal", which of course I believe it is. Jim | |||
| Because of winter and as a means of expression/non-verbal communication. Plus, the greater society says, "you have to." It's funny how some like to praise how humans are "made in God's image"; yet, at the same time, are ashamed or repulsed by "God's image", which is a rejection of God to some extent. | |||
| I agree people tend to wear clothes because society says we/they have to. At least the majority of us were raised to believe clothes are normal and REQUIRED. Fortunately, at age 60 I learned the joy of going clothes-free but still must wear clthes to go away from the house or even in front of the house. Actually, I also have to wear some kind of cover indoors most of the time as well to maintain civility with my wife. Jim | |||
| I've found the "because you have to" textile public say so for two different reasons. First, is the group that can't get past the sexual/voyeur/exhibitionist angle of being nude. It seems that a logical "as we are" argument would work on these folks, but I have not been succeessful. They just can't see any other reason for it. Second, is the defensive wall group. Starting in about middle school people learn to define their self worth by diminishing others. This carry's over to adulthood and going without clothing is a vulnerability, which leaves a person open to attack. Fundimentally it is a low self-esteem issue. I think these people can get over that in time, but would take a lot of therapy in childhood trauma to do it. This is why I think nudism is dominated by 40+ year old people. There comes a point where people get past the middle school mentality and realize that there is nothing wrong with they way they are and learn to enjoy who they are. | |||
| Here is an excellent article: http://ow.ly/gCd6i It is long but well worth reading. Gives good information on the history of clothing and also relates clothing to reduction of holistic health. I came across the article from a post by the Naturist Society on Facebook. | |||
| Thank you for the recommendation of the article by Hubbard. It presents being naked in a clearest way that I've sen presented. | |||
| That is an excellent article and will further the cause if it is passed around to as many people as we can. I am printing it and giving it to my wife who does not understand why I go nude when I can. Just might get her to join me sometimes. Thanks for info. | |||
| Back to the original question posed: Why do people wear clothes? Nobody ever said people were smart or logical. Actually I think most folks are pretty dumb and only live in their itty bitty worlds. From my experiences, the majority of everyday type people I encounter have the heard mentality so they would not even think about not wearing clothes and forget about having the courage to not wear clothes. Thank goodness there are a few of us who can hear the different drum. I say Let them be offended! By the way, my experience has also shown me that many nudists also have the heard mentality and I totally agree with you on "I think that damn near everyone would love being nude if they just tried it". | |||
| Excellent article MichiganMe! Yes, long, but it does reflect many reasons people wear clothes and the mindset behind the practice. Thanks, Rick |
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