Freedom of Arousal

Scene: I'm lounging around the house in the evening. Of course, I'm nude. I decide to check the trail cam that we put up to see the animals that visit our back yard. I bring in the memory card and transfer the videos to the computer, then go back out to replace the memory card.

I'm three steps across the porch before I notice there are two wild rabbits not ten feet in front of me, and I stop dead in my tracks. I'm surprised that they haven't darted away. So I stand still and watch them for a while, and they continue to graze in the grass, not overly concerned by my presence. I even manage to take a few steps closer.

Since they seem pretty comfortable, I figure I can go in and grab my camera, hopefully without scaring them away. So I do, and I start snapping photos of these rabbits up close and personal.

At this point, the idea pops into my head that I can record a video of me watching and photographing these rabbits - both to document this rare occurrence, and because, as a content creator, I am always thinking about what kind of new and interesting content I can create (that involves me being naked on camera).

So I go back in and grab my phone (which I use to record videos) and a tripod, come back out, set it up, and begin recording. I'm thrilled by the opportunity to get this close to these wild rabbits; I'm tickled by the notion of photographing wildlife while in the natural state of being nude; and above all, as an exhibitionist, being naked on camera triggers certain synapses in my brain. So I start to develop a semi-erection.

I'm conscious of this fact. I don't want it to happen - it's turning this innocent and beautiful naturist moment into something slightly lurid. I'm not into bestiality. I don't find anything sexual about wildlife photography. But I am naked on camera. I can avoid doing anything to encourage further arousal, but I can't stop the tumescence completely.

So, I guess it is what it is. It's not a big deal. It's not even rigid. I'm not brandishing it or playing with it. I just happen to have an enthusiastic appreciation for the sensual experience of being nude in nature. I don't want to be judged for it. And I don't want to believe that that alone, all by itself, makes me a bad nudist.

People should be judged by their behaviors, not the state of their genitals. You cannot control what causes arousal. It's common, even natural, to be turned on by nudity (even a primitive culture without clothes can have an erotic appreciation for the human body; after all, animals frequently use visual cues for mating).

Being able to appreciate the non-sexual value of nudity - which is the goal of nudism - is not exclusive of that. You can be turned on by nudity sometimes, and not other times. And even when you are turned on by nudity, you can still understand when sexual behavior is not appropriate, and restrain yourself from engaging in it. A man cannot control his erections. But that does not mean he is controlled by them.

You can hold a man accountable for his behaviors without condemning the feelings he can't control. Sexual misconduct is not caused by an involuntary physiological response, it is caused by the voluntary decisions that some people make. Don't blame sex for causing some people to act out - blame the people who act out for choosing to act out. The rest of us can handle our sexual feelings just fine. Don't condemn us for simply having them.

Simple Sexuality

Nudism brings a certain innocence to nudity - an innocence that is defined in stark contrast to any conception of our fundamental sexual natures. Indeed, one often gets the impression, browsing nudist communities online, that a certain subset of the nudist population would rejoice if mankind became completely asexual overnight (although, I suspect that they would soon grow bored, no longer having a preponderance of perverts and pornographers to criticize and campaign against day in and day out). But something that I enjoy is bringing a certain innocence to sexuality itself (which is not to be confused with ignorance or naïveté).

I dislike the categorization of sex as a vice - a mature discipline, like drinking and smoking and gambling and piercing and tattoos, practiced mainly by the rougher edges of society (or so the stereotype goes). Everybody has a sexuality, and sexuality in the human animal extends far beyond the narrow confines of mating and procreation. But neither is it only about going at it like dogs in a back alley with a different stranger each night.

It's about the tingling sensations of our physical bodies, and how they trigger the erotic potential of our imaginations. It's about taking sensual delight in being a product (and interconnected part) of the natural world. It's about self-pleasure in masturbation, but also in sharing these feelings (voyeuristically and exhibitionistically) with other like-minded humans, without necessarily requiring a gross exchange of bodily fluids.

It's about dancing in the spring rain with an erection, unselfconsciously, not thinking about the magnetism of relationships and the process of making babies, but just the sheer electricity of a material existence. It's about pleasure, and joy, and satisfaction, and happiness, and all the positive emotions that make life beautiful. I resent the way that our culture insists on casting a looming shadow over all these things, and coding "physical pleasure" as "potential predation" (like living in a society with a cannibal problem, where suspicions arise every time the topic of eating is brought up, and people harbor shame about their own appetites). My sexuality is an innocent sexuality, free from the corruption of a jaded society.