Let It Be (Naked)

If casual, social nudity were truly mainstream, I think something important would be lost from nudism. There would be advantages and disadvantages - the comfort and convenience, but also issues with hygiene, etc. But some fundamental part of the thrill of being naked would be gone.

The taboo adds a little spice to it, I can't deny. But, that said, I still don't think "getting your kit off" should constitute a crime. An eccentricity, perhaps. But not a severe breach of social etiquette, or a violation of our ethical code.

It should be playful. It can be naughty, but in a toothless kind of way. It needn't be altogether widespread, but you should be able to come across, on occasion, a nude person on the basketball court on a hot summer day. At the pool or beach. In a laundromat or locker room. Without any fanfare. Just a "hmm, would you look at that!" No need for police, or any kind of confrontation.

The world doesn't have to join me. And it can have common sense regulations ("responsible nudity in reasonable contexts"), like in stores and restaurants. I just want it to let me be my weird, wonderful self, in a way that harms nobody (not really), without hassle. What's the big deal, anyway? Life's too short to live in fear, hiding who we truly are.

Looking vs. Feeling Naked

To be a nudist, I have an advantage, in that I'm at least moderately attractive (depending on who you ask). I like the way I look. I enjoy admiring my reflection in the mirror, or my likeness in a photograph. Sometimes, even just glancing down at my body makes me happy. But I understand that even I am not always the most pleasant thing to look at. It must be hard for people who don't actually like the way they look. People who, when they get a glimpse of their body, it reinforces their own negative self-image. There are a lot of people out there - most of them, I would wager - whose bodies I don't need, or have any special desire, to see more of.

But one of the things nudists like to say - that nudism is about being naked, not about seeing people naked - there's some truth to that. Yes, the human body can be a beautiful thing, and it's nice to be able to admire that, in a way that textile culture doesn't so readily permit us to do. But that's the exception to the rule. I was sitting out on the porch naked, hunched over, thinking that I'm gonna have to cover up when guests arrive. And I was thinking that, well, okay, they don't want to see me naked, and I can actually understand and empathize with the custom of covering our bodies up, given that (especially in this age of rampant obesity) in many cases that's a not entirely pleasant view that we could do without.

But then I thought about how, even if I were wearing, say, a loose dress over my body, I'd still have to wear underwear to keep me contained (otherwise I could not be considered "decent" despite being technically covered) - and that restrictive feeling on my anatomy is exactly what I hate most about clothing, and why I prefer to be unencumbered by textiles. And if I were being active, the looser, more flowy clothing would have a tendency to get in the way. There's really no good solution. Even if I wanted to cover up to preserve other people's sensibilities, I'm gonna have to sacrifice comfort, and the euphoric feeling of freedom that nudity gives you - that I like to call "gymnophoria".

So it's a tradeoff. With attractive people, there's little to be lost from letting them go naked (although beauty is a highly subjective quality). But for the rest of us (which is most of us), we have to choose: dignity, or freedom. I actually respect nudists for keeping things in perspective and allowing themselves to be comfortable regardless of the aesthetics. But it's a hard sell to get the rest of our textile culture on board with that philosophy. Oh, if only someone could invent some kind of workaround, where people could feel naked, while appearing dressed. Ideally, with an option for those of us free spirits to enable those who consent to bypass the "appearing dressed" part. Hasn't our technology caught up to this possibility yet? Some kind of "augmented reality" version of the Emperor's new clothes? Let's get on this, already.

It Ain't Me

Whether they're total fabrications spun from whole cloth, or legitimate issues with isolated segments of a vast and commercialized industry (I've heard both), 0% of the justified concerns lobbied against the sex trade apply to the work I do (as, some would say, "a purveyor of smut").

And yet, my livelihood and my freedom of expression is hamstrung by indiscriminate measures taken to curb the allegedly rampant excesses of the sex trade, because opponents care not to distinguish ethical sex work from abuse and exploitation.

Even if this were an unintended casualty of the war on sex, it would be unforgivable in a country that abhors injustice, and that has enacted failsafes to prevent miscarriages in the legal system to mistakenly harm the innocent.

But I profess that this is not merely a casualty - it is the primary goal of the religious zealots who head these awareness campaigns, to stain all sex work with the taint of immorality, and to recruit secular humanitarians with insidious lies about the evil crimes they claim that unscrupulous perverts are committing against innocent populations.

Wholesome

It's hard to promote an activity or lifestyle - especially when you're promoting it as wholesome (which then tends to come off as suspiciously insincere) - when society doesn't allow you to do it in front of children. Like, consider this. Children aren't allowed to drink alcohol. But you're allowed to drink alcohol around children. You don't have to hide it. You don't have to pretend you don't do it, or pretend you don't like it. You can do it right in front of them! You can even make it an integral part of your family get-togethers. Children aren't allowed to smoke, either. But you're allowed to smoke around them - even though this is demonstrably harmful to their health. They can't drive, but it'd be ridiculous to suggest that you should never drive in their presence.

But just because - what? children aren't allowed to have sex? - not only is that a taboo subject of conversation in the presence of children (hampering any effort to educate and promote good health practices), but you can't even be naked in front of them, despite the fact that nudity isn't automatically related to sex. Everyone has a naked body of their own, that they can look at as much as they want to - exactly what are we hiding them from? Yet, if you like to lounge around naked at home, you're expected to scramble for clothes (while feeling like a fugitive) whenever there comes a knock on the door. Even at a backyard barbecue on a hot summer day, when everybody else is in the pool, you can't swim comfortably the way you like to. You have to pretend you're one of those loopy textiles who swims with their clothes on, no matter how much you hate wearing wet clothes, or how much you enjoy the feeling of drying out naturally in the fresh air and sunshine. And you'd better think twice before making a joke about skinny dipping, because if there are any kids within earshot, somebody might think you're being inappropriate!

It's (obviously) a harder pill to swallow being an experienced nudist. What makes it weird is that I've been naked in the company of children who were complete strangers. Because we're all nudists, there's an understanding between us, and it's fine. But I can't reveal this aspect of my life to some of my closest friends and family? Even though they might be curious - if they're still minors, and their parents are too jaded to ever conceive of a context in which social nudism could be a wholesome and nonsexual activity - you have to button your lip and sweep it under the rug, and go on feeling like an outcast with a shameful secret you can't divulge. Even though, in reality, it's something you're proud of.

I don't want to put innocents in peril, and it bothers me that we live in a world filled with dangerous people, so that we can't have nice things. But sometimes we expose children to things that can harm them - like secondhand smoke (we're getting better at this), or a culture of alcoholism (why is getting shit-faced drunk a teenage rite of passage?), not to mention the violence in our entertainment (Deadpool might be rated R, but nobody's being put on a registry for taking their kids to see it). All the while other things that are wholly positive and life-affirming take on a disparate tone of foreboding, just because society has deemed them "harmful to minors" - whether or not (as in the case of wholesome nudism) that is factually true.

It's the same with dancing and modeling and fashion - things that, left to their own devices, kids love to play with (you'd think that, judging from some of the repressive messaging out there, kids naturally want to play with dolls and fire trucks until the night before their 18th birthday - and that's just not reflective of reality). These things aren't vices. They can be empowering, and a source of self-confidence. A medium for expression, and just plain fun! It's not indecent to admire both the human body's form and function. But because some people would prefer to interpret it in a sinister way, it's imbued with a veil of seediness. Like an art nude being slapped with a censor bar, giving it the impression of illicit pornography. It poisons the well, because now you can't defend any of these things without sounding like a sicko...

Small

If I've learned one thing about sexual fetishism from browsing DeviantArt over the years (and I've learned several things about sexual fetishism from browsing DeviantArt over the years), it's that a subset of the population gets their rocks off from the humiliation inflicted (whether giving or receiving) on men with small dicks.

Rest assured, I'm not here to kink shame. I can understand the sexual potential of humiliation. I don't want to take that away from anyone. But outside of the isolated context of sexual fantasy and roleplay, I think it's pretty dumb (not just mean, but dumb) to judge a guy for the size of his penis.

In the first place, you don't know what it looks like when it gets hard. What you see isn't always what you get. Sometimes that unexpected growth can itself be very exciting. And I get it, a big dick can make for a very impressive visual. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way.

[description: photo comparison of the same man with a small dick and a huge erection]

But also, it's not like you get to choose your anatomy. So how can that determine your worth as a human being? And, contrary to what penis pump companies would like you to believe, your size doesn't reflect the organ's ability to function, or how much work you put it to. It's a factor that's entirely outside of your control.

What's more, satisfying a woman (or, let's be fair, a man) can be accomplished regardless of one's size, or even which tools are at one's disposal. So, if you get a glimpse of a guy's cock, and your instinct is to laugh because it looks tiny, you'd do well to keep these things in mind.

Old Glory

[description: a man in a star-studded bikini brief holds up a volleyball on a sand court]

Given my feelings on toxic patriotism and the people who are most likely to fly the American flag, I'm beginning to wonder if I can even continue to wear this swimsuit proudly, without being a hypocrite, given what I feel the stars and stripes stand for these days (it's not liberty or justice, that's for sure). But it's so hard for me to find a swimsuit I genuinely like, that fits me comfortably, and in such a way that I can wear it to a crowded public pool (not the one I usually complain about) without fearing that I'll look like a pervert. And the fact that it's a bikini bottom marketed to girls, and not a swim brief designed for men - more than just freedom from dysphoria, it gives me a feeling of gender euphoria!

If I could find an equivalent substitute in a different pattern, I'd be ecstatic. I actually had my eye on one this year - a pretty mermaid bikini with shimmering pink and teal (my favorite color combination!) scales. I bought it twice, in two different sizes, and they were both too small. I haven't had any luck finding one in a larger size. I'm gonna make a point to look more closely at the selection earlier in the season next year, but in the meantime...

[description: a figure in a shimmering mermaid bikini reclines on a rock surrounded by wilderness]

Maybe this is just rationalization, but I do feel differently when it's me donning the stars and stripes. What I hate about seeing the American flag is the hypocrisy of what it's supposed to stand for, compared to what the people who fly it actually support in practice. They're more likely to be conservative and religious, which necessarily means that they oppose liberty and equality. When I walk into the pool dressed in a red, white, and blue bikini bottom, not only am I genuinely expressing the principles those colors stand for - i.e., the liberty to wear what I like, and the equality of the sexes to be judged by the same rules - but I'm also likely to upset and aggravate those "patriots" who think our flag stands for homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny (among other forms of bigotry).

And that's a win for me. I'd still like to have something different (I don't even feel comfortable wearing red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July anymore - I prefer wearing black lately), but in the meantime (as I said), I think I can live with that. Call it reclaiming the flag for the progressive, queer-friendly community. :-p

Modesty's Arrow

Outside of gravity's influence, we can move freely through space - in any direction we like. But time moves only forward, and never backward. In physics, this is referred to as "time's arrow". It's related to the concept of entropy, which you can think of - although scientists will tell you this is an oversimplification - as disorder. Closed systems (even the universe as a whole), if left to their own devices, have a tendency to fall into disarray.

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
- Percy Shelley

It's the reason why, unless you put deliberate energy into cleaning, a room will trend, over time, toward disorganization. To keep things in order, you must exercise - as Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody would say - constant vigilance. The orientation of time's arrow may be demonstrated by the fact that an egg dropped from a countertop will shatter into many pieces and scatter across the floor, but it will never gather itself back together and reform its original shape.

The explanation involves probability states and redistribution of the elements within a system. Consider the fact that if you were to mess up one shirt in a pile of folded laundry, it would stick out like a sore thumb; but throw another sock onto a disheveled pile of clothes and you'd hardly be able to tell the difference. It's all quite fascinating, but far beyond the scope of this discussion. I merely want to introduce the concept of time's arrow - and the unanswered question of why it should flow in one particular direction, but never the other - in order to draw an analogy to modesty (with relation to clothing), and its implied moral imperative.

"Decency is a pattern of behavior, not a style of dress."

It seems to me that the question of how much or how little to wear always carries with it some moral baggage, rather than simply being a matter of personal choice. The edict to "cover up" is always interpreted as a moral imperative, while any suggestion to "take it off" is viewed disdainfully as an indecent request. There may be localized exceptions - even whole communities (such as nudism) that create contexts in which this rule is flipped - but they are the exception that proves the rule. Over a broad consensus, the moral evaluation I have described tends to hold. It's what we teach our children, and it's what they mainly continue to believe throughout their lives.

My experience witnessing people telling others to "cover up" is that they always do it in a moralizing, preachy kind of way. It touches on the deep roots of sex negativity and gymnophobia (fear of the human body) and the underlying current of self-loathing that stains our culture. It's as if they're on a holy crusade to "clean up the streets" (does the world really need more Travis Bickles?), and fix other people's "sinful" behaviors, presumably in an effort - no doubt goaded on by faith handlers of various stripes - to guide them towards what they conceive to be a more saintly existence.

Although natural instinct pulls us in the opposite direction (and why shouldn't it?), you don't really see people going around telling others to "take it off" (or similar) - because most people know how such a suggestion would be received (skin exposure is viewed as indecent, and the desire to see more of it is therefore suspect), and have the social consciousness not to want to be perceived as a degenerate pervert. Unfortunately, the type of people who flout society's conventions and impulsively speak their mind anyway tend to be unscrupulous, instinct-driven animals (otherwise they would have put more stock in those conventions, regardless of whether they agree with them or not), and lo, the sordid reputation holds, because there's no polite way in this society to say "naked is more beautiful".

[description: a naked tourist stands in front of a raging waterfall]
A quick pose, before that Amish family glances up from their picnic.

I'd just like to ask, why should the moral value of modesty in dress necessarily have to flow in one direction and not the other? And why does it do so in practice? What religious mythology has been woven into the tapestry of our society, so firmly as to even influence secular culture, about the extent to which the devil reaches his hand into the "pleasures of the flesh"? And why should it have to be that way? We have the freedom to decide our own beliefs; I have the freedom to believe not only that the human body is not evil, but that it is divine, and that physical pleasure is a virtue and not a sin. I have the freedom to believe these things, but if I go around expressing these beliefs, I risk being cast as a villain, and eyed with suspicion.

One of the greatest scientific discoveries of the early twentieth century was Einstein's revelation that space and time are not absolute, but that our experience of them is relative, dependent on a frame of reference. From my perspective, these "modesty warriors" who go around spreading shame and judgment upon those who revel in the celebration of what little joy our mortal bodies can give us - to me, they are the ones who are evil. When there are two opposing vantage points, who gets the authority to decide which one is proper, and which is distorted? Should we simply adopt the one that is more common, or the one whose adherents are the most vocal? Remember, there was a time when most people believed the Sun revolved around the Earth and not vice-versa; a great scientist named Copernicus was vilified by the church for proposing an alternate theory that we now know absolutely to be true.

Without reason, can speech ever truly be free? I would love to be able to feel comfortable expressing my beliefs about the human body. To talk about its beauty and the pleasure it can bring. To encourage those people who I think deserve to be seen, to show off more of their bodies and flaunt what they've got. People can agree or disagree with my opinions on these matters. That's fine. What I can't stand is the thought of becoming a pariah for stating them. Of being looked at and treated like nothing more than a pervert. (Yes, I'm a pervert - aren't we all? - but I'm so much more than that). Or, worse yet, being considered a sick predator, diseased in the mind, dangerous and unholy. All because I bow to the temple of naked beauty, unbound by any arbitrarily constructed social laws of propriety.

And so I remain silent, more often than not. But it has a dispiriting, isolating effect on my psychology. It's not healthy. I want freedom of speech. I'm not asking for freedom from other people's reactions to my speech. That's a strawman concocted by people who claim to support liberty, while hypocritically attacking free speech defenders they accuse of the equally ridiculous notion of only wanting to spew hatred without repercussion. I just don't want to live in a society where people are habitually - to the level of making it a predictable outcome - predisposed toward exaggeration, and maliciously misrepresenting people's views and statements (exacerbated by a cancel culture - which goes by another name: "cyber-bullying").

I don't want people not to have the freedom to come to their own conclusions about the things I say. I just want to live in a culture where I feel safe enough to say those things, with good intentions, knowing that people will evaluate them fairly and without misrepresentation, with patience and rationality - not knee-jerk emotionalism fueled by memes and propaganda designed to manipulate the masses - and with reasonable allowance for thinking outside the box and considering unconventional viewpoints before rejecting them outright. Just like I strive to do.

Do I have over-inflated standards for Homo sapiens, or what? But why should I be forced to settle for less? I want so much more than that. And we're just talking about talking! Heaven forbid, I should try to actually pursue the things that make me happy, and attempt to make my vision of a naked paradise (similar to a nudist resort, but more like an artists' retreat than a retirement community) a reality. I have no desire to hurt anyone physically or psychologically, or compel them to do anything against their will. But some ideas are so dangerous... I fear that, to quote the bard (not Shakespeare, I mean Bob Dylan), "if my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine." And that's just for the fantasies alone!