If you can't handle me in the nude...

(Fans of my photography may be surprised to learn that there are people who don't appreciate the view of my naked body, but I remind them that there is a lot of diversity among the human race). :-p

[description: clone portrait of a nude man and a clothed woman conversing over a table]
"If you can't handle me in the nude,
then you don't deserve me when I'm dressed."

As a somewhat militant nudist, I really do feel this way at times. In all fairness, I'm not generally in the habit of springing my nudity on unsuspecting individuals like the Naked Rambler does, for example. Not that I don't support his activism - I think it takes all kinds for a revolution to occur, and not just the comfortable, well-adjusted kind - but I guess I feel like I have more to lose, and so I actually spend a large percentage of my life making myself uncomfortable and hiding my nudity in order to suit the whims of a majority whose beliefs I don't agree with (now if only they would show me the same consideration...).

But I do kinda feel like - nudism being as significant a part of my life as it currently is - that if you can't handle my casual approach to nudity even in the presence of others, then I'm not sure I want to waste my time dealing with you, regardless of whether it's in a clothing optional environment or a textile one. If that's something you just absolutely refuse to accept, then yeah, I kinda take that personally, and you may as well just keep moving along.

You don't have to necessarily like it, and you certainly don't have to participate in it yourself, in order to earn my respect. You just have to be okay with it being an important part of my life, and be capable of not making a big stink about it if I don't adhere to a completely textile mindset every time and in every context you happen to drop by. I can get along with people who are not themselves nudists, but I have increasingly less patience for people afflicted by a toxic and unreasonable taboo surrounding nudity.

And if I can tolerate the existence of textiles without insisting they all get undressed, then textiles should be able to tolerate the existence of nudists without insisting that they all get dressed. I'm not asking textiles to change their lifestyle (I may recommend it, but I don't demand it), I'm just asking them to let me live my life the way I want to - even where that life crosses paths with others. They're the ones insisting that I change my lifestyle to suit their values. In what's supposed to be a free country! And yet, textiles still have the nerve to tell me that I'm the one being unreasonable! If I'm a little bit bitter, I hope you can see why.