Yes, I am naked and proud! As I should be. As should we all. Nothing is more natural than the human body. It is the vessel we are born into and the thing we leave this planet wearing. Our bodies connect us to the surrounding environment and our shared humanity. Feelings of shame are merely illusions, propagated by industries that would have us believe we are not attractive enough to exist as we come into this world. Laws regarding the sight of genitalia exist only to profit from our sex-driven economy. Our greatest thinkers, poets, and artists understood this. American legend, inventor, and guy on the $100 bill, Benjamin Franklin, advocated baring it all in what he called “air baths.” In Poem of the Propositions of Nakedness, Walt Whitman writes, Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! Centuries earlier, Michelangelo wrote, What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?
Unless I have to go for groceries, get the kids from school, or travel to work, my wardrobe remains in the closet where it can do no harm. I’ve hated the touch of fabric since I was a wee child, the irritating brush of cotton, the constant constraint of a belt or a shoe or, worst of all, the muggy, crotch-suffocating sensation of briefs. On a hot, sunny day, confining yourself in jeans can be agonizing, which is why, when the family was away from home, I made certain to strip down to my birthday suit, only grabbing my pajama bottoms when my dad’s Mercedes rolled into our driveway. Nowadays, of course, I am free to live as I was born.
But what does it mean to be a nudist or a naturist (the terms really don’t matter)? Is it really about sex? Gawking at privates? Shocking strangers with your dangly bits? Quite the opposite, actually. To sum up our beliefs in five simple words, those words would be: the human body is innocent. That’s it. We believe men and women can respect one another, with or without clothing, without succumbing to animal instinct. We believe there is no shame in being seen naked or in seeing others naked. Your nipples, penis, vagina—whatever it is you got down there—is no more indecent than your ears and elbows. Baring yourself to the world isn’t harmful, and in fact, quite the opposite is true. We become obsessed with genitalia the more we keep it a mystery. Nudists see a naked body as a person, not a thing to lust after.
Human beings were never meant to wear clothes. Our skin evolved to absorb sunlight, take in oxygen, and to sense the surrounding elements. We experience the world far more intimately in nothing but our bare bodies. But this philosophy is nothing new. In Ancient Greece, Rome, Celtic Europe, and among most native cultures, clothing was only customary, dependent more on the weather than notions of decency. For more than a hundred thousand years, public nakedness was the norm. At around the time of the Ice Age, we adopted textiles to retain body heat, but what was once deemed a necessity became a societal taboo. Conversely, we fetishize the 1% who fit our very narrow definition of beauty, using skin to sell sex and beauty products.
Growing up, I never understood our obsession with sex and, paradoxically, our Puritanical attitude toward the human body. The United States of America is an insane place, where you can legally carry and conceal a gun but risk imprisonment should anyone see your genitals. We live in a world where, under the banner of free speech, YouTube permits videos calling for racism, sexism, and homophobia, but Facebook censors a mother breastfeeding; we live in a world where “Mature” video games entertain children with fantasies of murdering innocents, while a game showing a nipple earns a much stricter “Adult” rating; we live in a world where the Westboro Baptist Church can rally at a gay soldier’s funeral with signs that read “God Hates Fags” as police stand idly by, but should a man or woman show up in nothing but the body we are all born into, they would promptly get arrested for indecency.
But we are becoming a far more accepting society. No longer do we demonize people based on race, religion, or sexual orientation (not most of us, anyway) while the practice of objectifying women is steadily declining. More and more, humanity is seeing itself less apart from nature and more as part of nature. These ideals align perfectly with naturism, which is why athletes, actors, and singers pose shamelessly for magazines, TV shows, and on social media without the career-ending outrage of bygone eras.
I am not suggesting that going naked can solve society’s ills, and I am certainly not advocating for the banning of clothing. There is a time and place for everything. More than anything, nudism is about freedom, the freedom to wear what we want or nothing at all if we so choose. Without outdated taboos, we are free to live as we are. Without shame, we are free to be ourselves.
With so many negative stereotypes, misconceptions, and outright hostility directed at people like me, I am passionate about letting the world know who I am and what this lifestyle is all about, which is why I created Being and Nakedness!
If you’re new to clothes-free living or just curious about it, I hope you’ll check out some of the pieces I’ve written over the years, which includes my personal journey into self-acceptance. Welcome.
Being and Nakedness 