What Heaven Can Be

Distinguished members of the board, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen:

There are NOT NEARLY ENOUGH nude images out there.

And I don't mean just on the Internet. I mean there aren't enough non-sexual nude images out there in the greater world:  in textbooks, in galleries, on TV, on Facebook, in general-interest magazines, on posters, at hospitals.

Why aren't there enough images? Because too many mechanisms exist to constrain us from taking them and distributing them. Too many forms of censorship, of which self-censorship is often the strongest.

Fact is, nude photography should be taught more often in schools. Why stop there? We need more nude schools, which would mean that having to specify "nude" photography would be redundant, just like the "nude" in nude geography, nude math, nude Chinese, nude literature, and for-crying-out-loud nude health and nude phys. ed. and nude art would be redundant. Not just schools and universities, but so many other places--parks, churches, malls, offices, clinics--should be nude or at least nude-friendly.

Horrors! But wouldn't that be like giving too much power to nudity? Yep! The healthy, life-affirming, pervasive power that it's supposed to have--that humanity needs it to have--and not the sinful bogey-man cameo it's always cast by religion and government. SO MUCH would change for the better if we gave nudity more of this everyday power.

Thirsty prurience drinks furtive sips, 

but a strong wash quells the curse and quenches the curious.

Too many of us live wrapped up in our customs/costumes when we need to be open to the common gifts of humanity. Too many of us live wrapped up like entourage mummies in someone else's idea of heaven. Too many of us live and die without the fun of nude photos of ourselves doing regular, everyday things.

Honorable members of the committee, it's time to change that. We need to ENCOURAGE people to take their own nude photographs or videos, the way we encourage people to vote, to donate to charity, to get an annual medical exam, to get some exercise, to eat healthy food. The way we encourage people to have a good day, doing everyday things in the nude: activities like cooking, walking down the street, playing ball, enjoying a moment in the sun, sharing a moment with friends and family. (OK, it's great if sex is a regular everyday thing, but I'm not talking about nude sexual photos, which are already overabundant for distribution.)

Nude photography provides a kind of knowledge about humanity sorely lacking in our society: knowledge about human variety and commonality, human vulnerability and strength. Not photoshopped nude photography--which is all too abundant and gets fetishized and elevated to billboards and to the tops of the magazine racks--but untouched, natural nude photography, when consenting, and willing to share openly. This kind of imagery, whether produced by the highly-skilled or the barely-skilled, can be just as creative as an expensive ad campaign, as fresh as the images below.

Self-knowledge and self-affirmation and body acceptance. For you, for me, for everybody - all ages and colors and genders and sizes.

You know what? It is said that ignorance is bliss, but I say that being naked outdoors--in the city or in the countryside, alone or with others--can be heaven. And sometimes we need help visualizing ourselves, visualizing just what heaven can be.

 


The Way to Walk in the World

A promo for my work in progress:

In the middle of the jungle lies a pristine lake disputed by nations, narcos, and one massive energy project.

An industrialist above the law steals ancient testimonies long hidden by kings and popes.

An inexperienced translator, hired to fail, uncovers truths so unsettling they redefine the rights of properties and persons.

Oh yeah: And hundreds of people get naked. 

AGLOW
(coming soon)

A selection from AGLOW:

 

The prince walks in the world the way he came into it, for this is the way to walk in the world.

If necessary, he dons a loose cloak with a shoulder clasp, a cloak that is a quilt of colors and cultures.

Though he has no other possession, he gives freely of his self, his sweat, his song,
for this is the way to give in the world.

 

Nobody knew for certain where this man, Pilli, had come from. The people saw that he moved often from town to town and from valley to valley, with an eagle that followed him everywhere. They saw that he always picked up the local language, and learned the steps to the local dances, very easily.

“How is it that you can learn our customs so quickly?” they asked him.

He replied,“I learn with my whole body. It is unburdened. Do you not see this? Why do you persist in covering your skin, which must needs feel the fire of the sun, the air of the wind, the water of the stream, and the soil of the ground?”

“But what does this have to do with learning a tongue?” they asked. “To speak you need only your mouth.”

And Pilli said, “Say as well that to dance you need only your feet. Do not burden your body with clothes, nor close it off one part from another. Treat it as one thing, the home of you in the world, the temple of your spirit in the world.”

Still there was one who insisted, saying, “Do you mean that we should not know what thing is a mouth, what thing is a foot? They are not the same thing. Their purposes are not the same.”

And Pilli said, “It is only right that we name different parts of our home: the roof, the hearth, the door, the window. Our bodies are our homes and also worlds unto themselves: of course they are made up of many different parts. But a home without a roof, or a world without a sun, is not my body. Whatever it is that you are to do, whatever it is that you are going about doing: engage in it with your whole body uncovered.”

The insistent one asked Pilli, “Then why do you carry around that ragged cloak?”

Pilli smiled. “This cloak were like many tools, for it has many uses: it is my bag for carrying things, my blanket for sitting on, my hammock for resting. I can wrap it around me if I am cold, or wear it like a belt if I do not want it over my shoulders. But look also that in each of the swaths that give it shape, I recall a place I have visited, a person I have met. A few of the swaths hold pockets for what small things I may need to conceal. But most of all I carry the cloak because it is all I need.”

“Have you not sandals? Weapons? Food?”

“Of these first things you mention I have no need. Food, I find where I look and share where I may. Picture-prints of learning—of these I have great need, but they are best shared by those who collect them.”

A man stepped forward. “I collect such things, in my home. Have you no home, then?”

“My home is my body, as it is in the world. Where is your home?”

“In this village, on the next road.”

“What, then, is that which you use to walk in the world?”

That man,whose name was Chimallamatli, Bark Shield, had no response. So he smiled and sat to speak at length with Pilli. Eventually he invited Pilli to the place he called his home,where he shared food and picture-prints for several days.

Naturist Support in Children's Media

If you're a naturist parent or educator, you're probably as sick as I am of skinny-dip slasher flicks or penis-for-laughs "bromance" films and their reinforcement of the "either-sin-or-comedy" definition of nudity. Awful message for the kiddos, right? Well, here are two (at least) examples of mainstream media with strong positive naturist content, not only for children but for adults as well.

Kirikou and the Sorceress is a 1998 animated film by French director Michel Ocelot. (I found out about the film years ago from a naturist-friendly film list at clothesfree.com - thanks, Clothesfree!) The film treats the legend of a West African boy, Kirikou, who is "small in size, but he is wise." We see this extraordinary boy crawl right out of his mother's womb, talking already, and immediately proceed on a quest to avenge his male relatives. Almost all of the men in the village have disappeared, and Kirikou must battle the sorceress Karaba and her army of fetishes to reunite the families of his village.

What does this have to do with naturism? Almost all the characters go about their lives "clothesfree" or "topfree," and not only that but in their culture they probably wouldn't have the need for such terms. How much more naturist can you get?

The children of the village dance for joy in Kirikou and the Sorceress

Some folks level the following critiques at the film: (1) The "National Geographic" critique: that if the film were exactly the same except with "white" unclothed characters, it wouldn't have been made; and (2) the feminist critique: the depiction of the villain may hone a bit too closely to stereotypes of the "evil woman." But I think these Eurocentric critiques do little to move beyond face value. The film was made in France by a European and African team, including Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, intending to stick to the original West African stories and incorporate the music and art of that region. The film proved so successful that a sequel, Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages (Kirikou and the Wild Beasts), came out in 2005 (though not available in English, purportedly because of American outrage over the nudity in the first film). Also, the live musical Kirikou et Karaba was produced by some of the same creative team members and first performed in Paris in 2007. There is apparently a third film in production, Kirikou et les hommes et les femmes (Kirikou and the Men and the Women), due out late this year.

A scene from Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages

The takeaway? The beautiful art and music of the Kirikou films will beguile you, and their depiction of nonchalant, normal nudity is a powerful message for young and old alike. One of the catchiest songs from the soundtrack, "L'enfant nu," celebrates Kirikou's nudity as an essential part of his heroic, clever character. Kirikou has become a favorite in my household. See for yourself!

The Battle of the Books by David Michael Slater and illustrator Jeff Ebbeler is a 2009 children's story based on the moral, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Paige the romance novel and Mark the history book are new to the library. They are very quickly and superficially judged by the other books.

Segregated by their covers, Mark and Paige are pulled into opposing cliques, but they escape by letting their dust jackets slip off in the struggle. This incites the battle of the books, in which the volumes literally rip the covers off each other. Only then do the book characters finally open up and "read" each other and thus get to know each other beyond appearances. The parallel between the anthropomorphized books' covers and human clothing is very easy to catch, and it makes this not only a powerful message for all, but also an inherently naturist message. This is a good example of "covert"-yet-overt support for naturism, hidden in plain sight but open for all to see and understand!

Customs & Costumes

Bathing costume: there's a phrase hardly anyone uses anymore. Yet the different textile objects to which the phrase can refer are still so widely used that the costume has become a custom.

According to my trusty old American Heritage Dictionary, costume and custom have a common etymological root, "seu," meaning "of oneself." Think of old British travelogues describing the customs and manners of the Chinese, or the costumes and habits of sub-Saharan Africa: these are the characteristics that were thought to distinguish one group from another anthropologically.

The word habit comes from a root meaning "to give" or "to exhibit." The habits of one person make her distinct from another. A nun literally hangs her habit over her body.

English words like habit, custom, and the related accustomed, habitual and customary are similar in Spanish and Portuguese. But costume is not. The Portuguese fantasia (costume) shares obvious origins with fantasy and fantastic, implying an act of the imagination, like playing dress-up or once-upon-a-time. The Spanish disfraz (costume) shares an origin with the English disguise, meaning to literally undo, and thus change, the appearance of something. In these languages, donning a costume is more obviously linked to doing something that is not customary.

Also telling among the three languages are the differences from the English use of customs to mean the clearance process for entering another country. The Spanish aduana and Portuguese alfândega share Arabic origins, but in any instance in any language, the process of "going through customs" is usually invasive. In previous centuries it involved undergoing a personal registry of one's pockets and saddlebags, etc. and the confiscation of illegal or censored items, along with extensive questioning about one's family, education, and abilities, and maybe even receiving a vaccination or two. Today these aspects of migration between countries are more spread out over several processes, but the degree of invasiveness of one's person and belongings has migrated to "going through security"!

It's easier to take on new situations with an open mind. It would be easier to go through security naked, wouldn't it? Today, nudity at security or at customs is not customary (or rather, it is, except that it's "nudity" through those scatterscan images or whatever they're called). It's also a lot easier to swim naked. Before the invention and marketing of the bathing costume, people simply disrobed to bathe and/or swim. Bathing and swimming were often the same thing. You think a bathing costume sounds ridiculous? As if you were soaping up last Halloween's superman duds? Well the bathing costume became the bathing suit or swimsuit and it's still just as ridiculous.

What is unfortunate, unless you're a textile magnate, is that the original, capacious bathing costume has proved highly adaptable, morphing over time into everything from the almost-just-as-capacious bermudas with t-shirts, to skimpy bikinis. But customs change, habits change, and what is "of oneself" or what one can "give or exhibit" depends not only on societal customs but also on one's own attitude and informed opinion.

Why wear any kind of costume or suit to swim and sun? Your engagement with this question determines what is customary for you, while revealing a customs profile of your attitudes toward mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.

Cheek

Definitions of "cheek":

(1) the fleshy part of the face on either side of the mouth

(2) a buttock

(3) a frank, daring attitude

(4) the way some people pronounce that French word for "cool"

All of these definitions apply to one of naturism's newest, cheekiest, and most dynamic web presences. Nurba: Urban Naturism and Body Freedom began as a website organization in late 2011 and has expanded to include Twitter and Tumblr feeds and a Facebook page.

I love nurba for encouraging people to engage with innovative contexts for nudity by pushing past boundaries--not just traditional boundaries like religious and governmental strictures, but even the boundaries of what we mean when we talk about naturism or social nudism. I think this is a highly commendable mission.

"There’s no use in dividing us all into separate groups with different names. We stand behind social and non-social nudity, body freedom, acceptance and free-thinking. Put your skin to the wind and feel for yourself: it doesn’t matter whether you call it naturism or nudism, it’s the same naked."

Nurba aims to shake things up by focusing on (1) urban nudity, (2) nude art and design, and (3) sex-positive nudity (affirmative attitudes toward sexual practices and orientations). Here's nurba speaking for itself:

(1) Urban Nudity

The folks at nurba posted the following text as one of the first items on their tumblr, and it was widely reblogged:

“It’s funny, isn’t it? Funny that we can promote the right to be naked, to enjoy our body, to feel freedom, all from the comfort of our own home. And we can pretend to disregard the idea of shame, all the while we tuck ourselves away into the remotest corners, into the forest, into the desert, in our own home, where nobody will find us. We haven’t fought for our rights, we have simply found places where they aren’t challenged. We haven’t proven that we feel no shame, in fact we have proven the exact opposite, that we don’t have the courage to be outspoken, that we are complacent living secretly amongst everyone else: we have proven that there is shame where there should be none. People fear what they do not know, and we have almost deliberately denied them the understanding of nudity that we have always known.”

I read this less as a rejection of traditional nudist enclaves and more as the need to add to them--to create a wider range of options--by coming up with other ideas that specifically engage urban youth. That view is supported in subsequent nurba tumblr posts:

“As a society, we have moved away from the farms, away from fields and rolling countryside, in favor of brick walls and starless skies. Rather than consent to believing that our urban life should be spent in a protective state, under wraps, hidden behind walls and clothing, I embrace my mortality and my vulnerability. I embrace my skin, and I am not ashamed of it.”

“It has become altogether too convenient for us to imagine ourselves as something innately more than human, more than animal. In the name of fabricated morality and decency, we have institutionalized an incredible dissonance towards one of the few links that ties us to our natural roots: our bodies and our skin. The most sensuous, raw, uninhibited sensations that we will ever feel as human beings have essentially been banned for the sake of an ideology that both overly sexualizes and wrongly demonizes.”

(2) Nude Art and Design

The nurba designers set up a tumblr feed that offers something other than candid beach photos by showing contexts for urban nudity, indoors as well as outside. This makes it a unique gallery. (The Vita Nuda folks deserve a shout-out here for their attractive and innovative Nudazine, which also has to do with nude art and design). Also, the nurba news feed has featured articles or reviews about design innovations of interest to naturists, such as grass carpeting and second-skin type footwear.

(3) Sex-Positive Nudity

Sex will always be controversial, right? (I mean, for some people, just the idea--just the word--sex is controversial.) But I think the tenor of Nothing to Dread's support of YNA's sponsorship of a booth at a Guilty Pleasures Party (earlier this year, in New York's Museum of Sex), with which I agree, can apply to the nurba mission as well. Nothing to Dread wrote:

I believe that nudists are generally open-minded sexually. I honestly can’t see someone who isn’t comfortable with their own sexuality being comfortable while nude among strangers. I believe that the state of mind that results in our being comfortable in our own skins extends to most areas of our lives. That includes sex and sensuality.

The people at YNA understand that you must reach out if you expect to reach new people. At the Museum of Sex, they met people whose minds were already open to ideas outside the confines of America-Puritanica.

"I believe that nudists are generally open-minded sexually. I honestly can't see someone who isn't comfortable with their own sexuality being comfortable while nude among strangers. I believe that the state of mind that results in our being comfortable in our skins extends to most areas of our lives. That includes sex and sensuality.

The people at YNA understand that you must reach out if you expect to reach new people. At the Museum of Sex, they met people whose minds were already open to ideas outside the confines of America-Puritanica."

nudists are generally open-minded sexually. I honestly can’t see someone who isn’t comfortable with their own sexuality being comfortable while nude among strangers. I believe that the state of mind that results in our being comfortable in our own skins extends to most areas of our lives. That includes sex and sensuality.

The people at YNA understand that you must reach out if you expect to reach new people. At the Museum of Sex, they met people whose minds were already open to ideas outside the confines of America-Puritanica

I believe that nudists are generally open-minded sexually. I honestly can’t see someone who isn’t comfortable with their own sexuality being comfortable while nude among strangers. I believe that the state of mind that results in our being comfortable in our own skins extends to most areas of our lives. That includes sex and sensuality.

The people at YNA understand that you must reach out if you expect to reach new people. At the Museum of Sex, they met people whose minds were already open to ideas outside the confines of America-Puritanica.

The Sex & Love feed at the nurba site shows agreement:

"We cannot very well promote human nature and human nakedness without promoting an open view of sex and sexuality: sex may not define us, but it is integral to human life and, despite society’s attempt to dirty it up, it makes us happy and it helps us build connections with fellow humans."

And finally I love nurba for their clever tweets. Here is a selection of some of my favorites that you may have missed (and if you missed them why aren't you following already?):

Unnakedness is a serious issue in society today. Friends don't let friends suffer from unnakedness.

Naturism isn't a choice: it's how we were born. It is instinct. Denying naturism is the choice, and it is one that is made by far too many.

¡Ponte de pie y desnúdate!

I think your clothes have been seeing someone else. I didn't want you to find out this way, but it might be time to break things off.

The ones telling you to chop off your foreskin for hygiene are the same ones telling you to stuff your penis in a dark, humid pouch all day.

It's this tweet-cheekiness of nurba that makes me want to support the cause! It's this cheekiness that makes me want to promote adding to what organized naturism has built over the past eight decades by widening the range of ways to think about and express nudity. Fun, whimsical, youthful, refreshing, chic, cheeky, nurba! All cheeks to the breeze bringing fresh and clever contexts for nudity.

Naked Mexico: Landless and Landed

♪ ♪ "México, lindo y desnudo" ♪ ♪

I wrote a post last month on traditional aspects of nudity in ancient and modern Mexico. This post continues the Mexican theme with a focus on one of my favorite areas of that country: the lush and diverse Gulf Coast state of Veracruz. Veracruz figures prominently in recent stories relating to nudity as protest of the landless, and to nudity as incentive for a landed resort.

A group of indigenous peoples from Veracruz state has been making headlines over the past decade or so due to their nude and semi-nude protests in the state capital, Xalapa, as well as in Mexico City. The group is known as the "400 pueblos" and is protesting the loss of their land that they allege happened at the end of the governorship of Dante Delgado (1988-1992), whose face graces the signs that the protestors sometimes wear as loincloths. Some observers accuse the protestors of being paid by political parties to protest other politicians as well.

So the political motives behind the group's twenty-year-old protests aren't always easy to follow. And they may have switched allegiances - partly it was their frustration with being ignored for the first decade or so that led them to begin protesting nude in 2002. But their passion and dedication have been portrayed in at least one documentary and a photo gallery, and analyzed in a book in English published in 2009. The oft-quoted gist of their decision to protest naked is that they do so from the desperation of having nothing left, that the governor may as well have stolen the shirts off their backs. The communal lands they had used were known as ejidos, an ancient Mexican concept from before the time of the Aztecs. The Aztecs maintained a strict dress code, and only certain barbarous peoples would appear nude in public in their capital city of Tenochtitlan (now buried under Mexico City). Curiously, the best known of these "barbarous" peoples were the Huastecs, who hailed from the same region as the 400 pueblos today.

Further south in the luscious curve of Veracruz's tropical topography, along a difficult-to-access and difficult-to-traverse road in the heart of the Los Tuxtlas biosphere, there is a new naturist ecotourism resort called Selva Desnuda (Nude Forest). Owner Miguel Vicente works with his family and seven other local families to provide the maintenance and service for the year-old site. It is designed as a more rustic and economical alternative to the well-known nudist sites along the Maya Riviera, which are luxurious in comparison. Selva Desnuda can host up to twelve people in the main cabin (three bedrooms, two bathrooms) with additional space for camping (tenting) on grounds, or lodging in the nearby community. Miguel and his staff offer packages including services such as the Olmec Bath, a photo safari, hikes to nearby caverns and waterfalls, and a workshop on the ancient and sacred practices of cornmeal preparation and tortilla-making. Instead of pools on site, there are two crystalline freshwater streams. Optional tours are available to nearby beaches, hot springs, and the mystical town of Catemaco with its lake of monkey-reserve islands.

En la Selva Desnuda

Miguel studied in France and was inspired to develop a naturist area in his home state. The sign in the photo above reads, "Come whenever you wish, just come with your soul unclothed"! A visit to Selva Desnuda would be a great addition to an itinerary including stops at the fabled port of Veracruz, the colonial colonnades of Tlacotalpan, the cultural capital of Xalapa with its outstanding Museum of Anthropology, the verdant beaches along the Costa Esmeralda, and the beautiful ruins site of El Tajín near Papantla.

You can find more information about Selva Desnuda on its Facebook page.

 ¡Sólo Veracruz es bello!

The Body Poetic

The body poetic

                       is greater than the sum 

                                      of its infinite parts.

Have you felt?

The body_poetic palpitates and alliterates abundantly

           and shines,

                       when wet and lustrous,

                               naturally nonchalantly nakedly nude.

The body-poetic rhymes

                      sometimes

but its contours burst the bindings of

                                                       stanza                      and

mediated, stereotyped font terse verse.

                                                             One 

size does not fit all.

          What is the same is that each

                                               body PoetiC

                  is uniQue.

The BoDy POEtic is a series of articulations that are speech acts 

                     in a corporeal repertoire                   of the utmost utterance.

The body (poetic) dives

                             swims 

                                   and 

                                        twists

so its skin can skim and shimmer in a sunlit sunkissed skinny dip 

                                             of slippery linguistic interminglings.

The body* poetic has but one tongue but speaks many 

                                                      and its voices sing and shout 

but also hum and throb and slap and sneeze 

and cough and sigh and sob and wheeze.

The BODY POETIC nakedly and brazenly avoids the editor and the photoshop

but keeps up with hygiene

                     and healthy diet

                         and exercise

                            and sex

                               and recycling

                                  and life-long learning

because health and wit make lust for life.

The bodi poetik is so HIGH and so low and so W  I  D  E and so nude:

Have you felt?

                                  It is

a probe more intimate than the deepest penetration, 

         a projection  more   far - - - - - flung    than     the      wildest          ejaculation       .