Let me be clear - I have no problem with whatever sexual activity
occurs between consenting adults. Sex is adult play and is perfectly
normal. What I take issue with is selling adult lifestyle recreation
as nudism ...
So far, so good.
... or calling the people at Hedonism nudists.
Many of them are. I'm a nudist. I don't stop being a nudist when I
have clothes on. I'm just a nudist who happens to be wearing
clothes. My mom was a teacher. She didn't stop being a teacher when
she went grocery shopping. She was a teacher who was shopping for
groceries.
Nudism is an activity. A nudist is one who frequently practices
nudism. But no nudist is _always_ practicing nudism, just as no
teacher is always teaching.
It's as possible for nudists to practice swinging (or knitting) when
they aren't practicing nudism as it is for teachers to practice
swinging (or knitting) when they aren't teaching.
There are lots of perfectly respectable nudists who are also swingers,
just as there are teachers who are nudists or swingers or both.
One does not preclude the other.
AANR and TNS work very hard to
convince the public that nude recreation as defined by traditional
philosophies is non-sexual and is appropriate for all ages.
The combined membership of AANR and TNS is, at most, 5% of nudists/
naturists. AANR/TNS combined actually represent only about half that
many nudists/naturists. They're loud, but they're also routinely
ignored. They remind me of some tiny sect loudly proclaiming that
they and only they practice the true Christianity.
Nudism/naturism has evolved, and will continue to do so. Even if the
'traditional philosophies' you speak of were ever accepted by most
nudists/naturists, that doesn't mean they still are or still should
be.
And, you imply that 'appropriate for all ages' requires that nudism/
naturism be non-sexual. You'll have a very hard time making a factual/
logical argument in support of that.
What
Hedonism, Caliente, Paradise Lakes and other adult clothing-optional
resorts are selling is not nudism ...
It's not the so-called 'traditional' nudism you spoke of, the so-
called 'traditional nudism' that never seems to have taken hold.
... it's the further sexualization of
the human body, a product of our porn-infested society.
Oh, my. You're ranting.
I also have no particular problem with pornography - whatever floats
your boat.
Now you de-rant a little. Good for you.
But nudism is supposed to be the antithesis of pornography,
a celebration of the human body ...
No. Nudism _is_ whatever it has evolved to be. _You_ may have a
personal opinion as to what _you_ think it ought to be, but an opinion
is all that you have.
... instead of exploitation.
Now you're ranting again.
:-)
Jenny
(who has carefully expressed no opinions of my own)
Jenny,
Of course "nudists" and "naturists" are free to engage in other
activities, such as going to adult lifestyle resorts, or playing golf.
You are arguing a point which nobody disputes.
No one except you. You said people who go to Hedonism shouldn't be
called nudists. Yet many of them are. ["What I take issue with
is ... calling the people at Hedonism nudists."] They may or may not
be practicing nudism while at Hedonism, but if they're nudists
elsewhere they're also nudists while at Hedonism. They're nudists who
are at a swingers resort.
Unless the social activity or venue is appropriate for all ages, it's
not nudist or naturist.
Agreed. But what does "appropriate" mean?
Without a shred of evidence, you pronounced places where sexual
activity occurs to NOT be appropriate for all ages. That may well be
your opinion, but it's not a fact. Focus on your own damn family, and
leave others to theirs!
The basic philosophies have not evolved except
to become more clearly defined over the past century.
That's evolution. And those philosophies are the philosophies of a
tiny minority.
Actually, nudism now is far prudish than in the past, a major change.
We used to have King and Queen contests, you know. Some with wet T-
shirts, some without. I'll send you pics if you like.
Incidentally, AANR claims nudism entered the United States in 1929.
That's not a century yet.
Definitions are important, they matter.
We're not talking about the meaning of words here. We're talking of a
"definition" of what is "appropriate" deportment. That latter kind of
definition matters only to those who accept it.
Among nudists, there are more such "definitions" than a cat has hairs
-- all of them vague.
The core issue here concerns Laura Leyrer, who calls herself a 'nudist
adventures examiner", who has outright recommended the Hedonism
resorts and urged her readers to "book quickly". By mixing in adult
lifestyle or swinger resorts with her other recommendations for
tradional nudist venues such as Turtle Lake, she is mixing apples and
oranges together, and doing a disservice to her readers.
Yup.
Laura astoundlingly admits in one column that she is new to nudism and
knows little about the differences between all these resorts. She
needs to get up to speed, otherwise she has no business writing under
the auspices of nudism.
Yup.
As for your claim that AANR and TNS represent about only 5% of all
nudists and naturists, please show me the study which produced that
figure, unless you simply pulled it from where the sun don't shine.
N Magazine published an article quite a while back in which the author
estimated that the membership of organized nudism was 0.5% of American
nudists. My estimate is ten times the one Baxandall published, which
makes mine very conservative. Lee not only published it, but offered
no rebuttal then or (that I know of) since.
Go to the beaches: the big ones, little ones, legal ones, traditional
ones, illegal ones, etc. On a given day, there are at least 20 times
the number of bare bodies as at all the AANR clubs combined. Then add
in all the bare bodies on boats, in the boondocks, at vacation cabins,
at back yard pool parties, etc.
Another way to approach it is to recognize that AANR has an annual non-
renewal rate of about 30%: about three out of ten members drop out
every year. Over say 20 years, that's a very large number of ex-AANR
members -- something around 270,000. Sure, some of them died and some
of them stopped being bare, but most continue being nudists who just
don't belong to AANR. Just with that alone, you get at least four
times as many non-AANR nudists as there are current AANR nudists.
Then add in all the nudists who never dropped out of AANR solely
because they never joined.
Then, of course, we'd have to decide what qualifies one as a nudist.
If solo nudists are included, and home-only nudists, and family
nudists, the count goes way up.
The N Mag number of 0.5% is still probably quite close. I just
multiply by ten to save arguments.
Every single member of every AANR affiliated nudist venue in the
United States is also a member of the American Association of Nude
Recreation, and many of them also belong to TNS.
That's not true. Not all AANR-affiliated clubs require members to
join AANR. Some clubs, and _many_ nudists thoroughly resent AANR's
forced membership policy. AANR under the current crew is just like
the Teamsters under Jimmy Hoffa or the dock workers under Dave Beck.
In any event, the combined AANR/TNS membership adds up to about 55,000
people, 60,000 at most. And the views of roughly half of them are not
_represented_ by either organization. They joined because they were
forced to join, or because they like the magazine, and roundly ignore
the moralistic bleatings of both AANR and TNS.
I was at Sandpipers one winter. The place was packed with snowbirds.
Sandpipers had a mail room with a trash can outside. On the day The
Bulletin arrived, more than half of those coming out of the mail room
dumped their copy in the trash can unopened and thus unread. They'd
been forced to join to get a RV site in the park. To them, AANR
membership was just another loathsome tax. Their interest in AANR was
ZERO!
Sure, there are lots of people who go once or twice to Haulover Beach,
or try skinny-dipping, or go nude in a hot tub, but while these folks
are dabbling in nude recreation, it's doubtful that any of them would
call themselves nudists or naturists. Again, definitions matter.
What they call themselves is irrelevant. What they are by their
actions is what counts.
You're funny. An occasional visitor to Haulover isn't a nudist to
you, even though he may spend most of his free time nude on his boat
or running an unaffiliated non-landed club of neighbors and friends
out of his home, but you think that someone who is forced to join
AANR, and then ignores the fact that AANR exists, is really an AANR-
supporting nudist. ROTFLMAO.
I am a vocal critic against both AANR and TNS for some of the dumb
things they do, but I am also a supporter and member of both.
I'm a member of both. Of AANR because I'm forced to be. Of TNS
because Lee did some very good work, although he didn't pick his
successors well. I guess he didn't have a lot of choice,
You can try and marginalize their work, but the administrators of these groups are dedicated, intelligent, and hard-working individuals ...
So are the administrators of the many organizations you despise. It's
what they do that matters, not how dedicated, intelligent, and hard-
working they may be.
... who are doing
work that truly matters to naturists and nudists. Without their
efforts, and the many local groups such as South Florida Free Beaches
Naturist Association and Friends of San Onofre, there would only be
commercial venues available for nude recreation.
AANR routinely sells out c-o beaches and their "Friends of"
organizations, or tries to. That's lessened in recent years, but it
hasn't stopped. NAC has done some good work, but also some very dirty
work.
The definition of nudism and naturism is more than a mere "personal
opinion", it's a consensus.
It's not a consensus, it's a unanimous view -- a unanimous view of
those few who hold it. As I said above, there are lots of those quite
different unanimous views.
This is precisely why it's critically
important for nudism to separate itself from swingers' groups, because
the definition is under grave threat. AANR has lost two clubs in
Florida just in the last year because these venues made the decision
to sex-up their activities.
And a couple more in Texas in the last few years. Riverside Ranch,
and another one whose name doesn't come to mind. The number of AANR-
affiliated landed clubs is going down. AANR membership is going
down. Those are a couple of the great "successes" of those dedicated,
intelligent, and hard-working administrators you speak of.
Do an easy bit of research. Look up the USA population in 1990 and in
2009. AANR had 39,000 members in 1990, and had about 45,000 _before_
Caliente and PL dropped out. Compute the percent of nudists in the
overall population in 1990 and 2009. You'll find that the USA
population has gone up far faster than has AANR membership. Put
another way, AANR is steadily losing ground. That's another one of
the great "successes" of those dedicated, intelligent, and hard-
working administrators you speak of.
For the record, I do agree that Prudist Nudist activities should
differentiate themselves from Swinger Nudist activities. I haven't
argued otherwise.
AANR could have PN clubs and SN clubs. Better yet, AANR could just
have nudist clubs as it does now, but with PN days and SN days. Or
clubs could have PN sections and SN sections, kind of like the prude
and nude sections at some Caribbean resorts. Of course, the prudes
who run AANR and ones who egg them on wouldn't go for that. They'd
rather have organized nudism fail.
:-)
Jenny
(who hasn't given an inch)
now) think of anything to add.