Another Change in the Wind?

  Society is particularly sensitive to issues of trust nowadays, and getting more so.  We’ve seen our moral authority figures fail everywhere we turn.  Our clergy, legislators, doctors, police all have demonstrated a remarkably adept ability to preach morality while living an immoral life.

Combine this with a media that floods us with sexual images and behaviour, and is it so surprising that nudists are seen as just another bunch of hedonists claiming to behave morally?

  There’s a current trend towards ‘nakedness’ that is not really related to naturism.  Young folks do silly or fun things naked, there’s a lot of light-hearted nakedness in the younger generation’s goings-on in the press and on TV.  A more casual, ‘isn’t it funny?’ sort of attitude.  This could affect naturism/nudism in a positive way eventually but it may also change the face of it.

Mainstream nudists are a rather stodgy lot, even prudish.  The rise of gay and swinger activity has many livid with indignation but also indicates a broadening of the term ‘nudist’.  There is disagreement between nudists and naturists about who is really the ‘true’ one, but it’s mainly semantics and sub-groups split hairs even finer.  Now we face a generation that sees nudity differently than previous generations and may choose to enjoy it differently.  Their attitude is still textile but a bit more casual about nudity.

 It would not be a great stretch to find a future where social nudism is much more playful-sexy than generally accepted now.  Social customs about sexual relations are slowly changing and if it continues, acceptable behaviour may be much less formal than it is now.  Kissing in public used to be in very poor taste, now boys kiss boys and it hardly draws a reaction.  Well, maybe in Des Moines, Iowa.  You get the idea.  Things are relaxing at the same time a new prudery is being advanced by churches.

  Everyone in Hollywood talks about their sexual lives on daytime TV, gender-bending is old news, Ellen is on top, sex toys are demonstrated on The View, everywhere sex is seen as less awful than it used to be, and much more out in the open.  Since nudity is equated with sex, perhaps it will come to be as accepted, for all the wrong reasons.

  As these ‘kids’ carry their attitude of more casual nakedness with them to beaches, and as it is catered to more at resorts and other popular venues, they may not frequent the old-style nudist parks any more than they do now but instead carry the torch into the public arena, bypassing mainstream nudism entirely.

 Should this happen there may still be places for quieter folks to retreat to should they wish. Or maybe things will be accepted enough so that the back yard works just fine.  That could be the nail in the coffin of social nudism/naturism as we know it.  When nakedness becomes just a part of things people do, nude will simply be a condition of undress and ‘nudist’ will cease to have meaning.  There will no longer be a reason for groups of nudists to gather together in support or to seek refuge from a threatening society.  Nudists will just be naked people.

Far-fetched?  Probably.  But there is a change in the wind in public perception about a lot of formerly taboo subjects.  If that change swings our way, the effects just might not be what we expected!

Related:   A Change in the Wind

 Felicity’s Blog

Young Nudists & Naturists America

Young Nudists Show The AANR How Its Done