While I live well back from my street and have evergreens planted as a screen at the road, someone walking on the road can see me if I am nude around my home. A neighbor from down the street told me he had seen me one time when he was walking his dog. I wasn't upset but I did ask him if it upset or offended him. He said no but thanked me for asking.
My take on the subject is that most people will not be concerned if it's not in their face. Now, if someone comes onto my property and catches me I don't consider that "in their face". They had to choose to come in so far.
It would be great if attitudes would change here in the US but I'm not holding my breath.
It is amazing how the concept of 'morality' has turned so upside down. That which common human sense has historically viewed as perverted and heinous is now widely accepted and, in some cases, even applauded; while that which should be seen as innocent and normal is demonized and given little or no defense. Where is this going?
Such a cool run of chats on this thread. Sam, Steve and I are constantly bewildered by the topsy turvy views in society at the moment, and as we take the journey of teens through our children's experience it is nuttier than I think we can contemplate as adults. Honestly we could easily list 100 ways in which children are growing up in a world that shows complete double standards and yet they are expected to make sense of it. A very simple example- they think nothing of nudity being shared on the internet, and this has actually been discussed in school as a successful way of making money in Personal and Social Education lessons, and yet they idea of getting changed and showered in a sports centre (not even an option at schools now) is seen as weird and perverse. What lesson can they take from this? Thankfully our son's discuss all this stuff with us.
I love the talk about casually walking around naked, and no one really caring. This is how it should be, but we do worry about what people think and as we don't know what people think we are often guilty of imagining the worse, and therefore playing it safe. No one really wants to offend anyone.
Grahame saying "I know in reality most kiwis won't care if a naked person appears in the background" is a beautiful reminder that the average person won't care but some cultures are definitely more easy going than other's. It is all about trust. Some cultures simply trust others more, because the percentage of those that break that trust are less. Sadly we are finding less and less trust in others and we are encouraged to feel that way. In short the more people that we are told are perverse and dangerous the more we start to worry about others being perverse and dangerous. We lose the ability to see things at face value. Instead of seeing someone as simply naked, we start to worry about their motives. Reality is thrown out the window as we imagine a whole host of reasons why they shouldn't be. Innocent individuals then start feeling they need to be covered to ensure those reasons are imagined of them, and so it becomes harder and harder to be naked and to accept others as naked, and the less it is done the harder it becomes.
It appears to us, that the word innocence, has become redundant today. There appears to be a trend to corrupt everything into some sort of sexualised way, and then depending on its extremity, either support it, or attack it. We feel, we have seen things within modern society that we would deem unacceptable, become tolerated and mainstream, such as the current rise in the exploitation of children, only today we came across a site highlighted on twitter that allows parents to post images of their children on an x rated site for the benefit of other adults to view in a lascivious way. This for us is unacceptable, and yet it is happily embraced by the populous, then when you compare the hysteria over the last years over something so insignificant as a female nipple, it throws completely the concept of where the moral compass is supposed to be pointing.
One cannot fully comprehend why classic artworks that feature nudity are revered by the public, and yet a living naked person is attacked and seen as divisive and lewd. It is fine for women to march through France topless to make political statements, and yet females topless in a swimming pool attracts massive amounts of public condemnation driven by media hype. To a degree it is easy to see how certain parties within naturism have to a degree used this perceived fear of the public to drive naturism back behind the net curtains and tall hedges, as a culture of staying hidden has grown fast within naturism over the last ten years.
It is understandable how children have become so confused, in truth adults currently are equally as confused as to what is and is not acceptable, woke ideology, gender politics, religious intolerance, and an expansion big brother state are now creating so many divisions in society that what was considered normal or acceptable is so lost in the pile that normal and acceptable no longer have meaning, as we live in a world of do as we say but not as we do views and opinions from the ruling classes of society, no wonder simple naturists are confused.
Naturism has become an err on the side of caution lifestyle, driven by what we see as the new wave of hysteria driven naturism, which for all of us naturists is very confusing, because it clashes directly with our ethos of what naturism should be. We have spoken to too many people who identify as naturists who fear to tell others they are naturists, Sam makes a valid point on how he considers his wife’s situation when doing simple things any dressed person would do without fear, because even though he is a very open minded naturist, he cannot predict how others will perceive him due to the masses of confusing messages we all read about in the media.
We have no issues with others being naked, and no issues with others seeing us naked, we see it as an innocent act. Our first ever public nudity was a WNBR in front of thousands of dressed people, and to be honest, it was so natural, we were completely unconcerned as we rode along being cheered by all of the so called dressed people we had been taught to fear, and yet, when it comes to school, even we are cautious, and advised our children not to talk about it. The problem is, currently nothing makes sense, because so much offends people we really can no longer predict who will and who will not attempt to shame us. Our only defence has been to arm ourselves with scientific facts about the human body and the benefits of naturism, and then state our case rationally with such conviction, that simply by making a stand for our beliefs, no one has challenged us.
The simple truth is, as naturists, we all need to find a way in order to feel completely at ease with others. We would say that naturists should challenge themselves in order to attain that comfort level, so that as naturists, all of us can speak with confidence about the simple innocence of being naked. No one is going to stand up for us, and support our right to be naked if we do not lead the conversation through experience.
at March 18, 2025 10:55 AM GMT 
"The simple truth is, as naturists, we all need to find a way in order to feel completely at ease with others. We would say that naturists should challenge themselves in order to attain that comfort level, so that as naturists, all of us can speak with confidence about the simple innocence of being naked. No one is going to stand up for us, and support our right to be naked if we do not lead the conversation through experience."
Profound truth! Finding the courage may be hard at first, but necessary for naturism to be accepted (I'm not event thinking about being understood, but at least accepted).
