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Are promotions for naturism failing to encourage families?

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  • 566 thanks 160 - 0 810 posts
    Anna ANW September 7, 2021 5:35 PM BST 0 likes
    We have three topics about children in naturism and being raised within naturism that may be of interest to this topic. 


    https://www.anaturistworld.com/forums/topic/60/raising-kids-with-nudity

     

    https://www.anaturistworld.com/forums/topic/19/how-did-your-parents-family-approach-nudity

     

    https://www.anaturistworld.com/forums/topic/23/naturism-and-children

     
    What I would like us to consider here is the question of whether naturist venues, blogs, articles, magazines, federations and clubs are failing to encourage young families into naturism due to a fear of showing families naked and not even being very comfortable about mentioning them. I have explored this issue as part of my latest article for H&E which will be printed later this month and I would love to hear some of your thoughts on it. 

    There is a genuine concern about child safety around the world but is naturism so concerned by acknowledging the idea that children are naked in naturism that they leave families uncertain as to whether or not naturism is going to welcome them. On top of this more and more venues and events seem to be aimed at adults (thankfully many remain non-sexual in behaviour), sometimes this has happened because of outside pressure from the venue owners and protests. 

    Steve and I make our stance perfectly clear. For naturism to ever become better accepted and appreciated - naturism has to be family friendly in nature even if no families are there. Naturism is a social lifestyle and should be just as suitable for all as a trip to an average park, restaurant, campsite, beach, pub or cinema - our nudity or our clothes in these situations should make no difference to our behaviour - whether children are there or not.

    So why do federations, venues and clubs not push this harder. Some do state "family campsite" or show families in their logo and that is great but others seem fearful of mentioning families at all - though if you search you may find a mention of children in their pricelist or buried in their T&Cs. 

    What do you think? If a website showed loads of naked children running around it may encourage the wrong sort of attention - but by ignoring families is naturism not in danger of losing whole generations getting involved in the lifestyle and leaving it just for those without children and those whose children have long left home? 

    There has been much talk recently about female body positivity and confidence but surely to encourage more women we need to recognise that many are mothers and state that their children will be welcome and safe too and not just that but it will be great for their body confidence and awareness as well. What traditional has camping, days at the beach, visiting a waterpark etc been aimed at in the clothed world - is it not families? So then why should naturism be any different?

    Steve and I would have a great laugh going up and down water slides all day but would we really wish to do that without our 9 and 12 year old sons having the fun and experience too? Naturism is suggesting more and more that we should and leaves people our age (and younger) confused as to the nature of the lifestyle and out in the cold.

    What do you think are federations brushing families under the carpet and therefore discouraging new blood into the lifestyle? Do bloggers and luxury venues so naturism as an lifestyle populated by couples and single adults only? Are we in danger of making the bulk of society believe naturism is not suitable for them and their 2.4 offspring?

    I would love to hear your thoughts - and please feel free to revisit the topics mentioned above.
  • 27 thanks 132 - 0 307 posts
    Robin and Rin RnR September 7, 2021 9:06 PM BST 0 likes

    I feel there is a very real point here, and it is one Rin and myself are starting to notice. As parents who encourage none sexual nudity for all, we could not visit any venue that excluded our children. Our whole life is based around our family unit, and yet as we look to next year, we are finding it harder and harder to get more information on whether or not our children will be welcome.

    BN has safety officers for child protection issues, and we are led to believe that venues are vetted, and yet we find it harder and harder to get good information on who allows what. It really does feel like a lot of places are running scared of bad media for their business brewed up by those in the uneducated know.

    The issue around female protection is something we had not considered, we have seen all the press lately done through BN and applauded it, as more women should try naturism, especially considering the body confidence benefits, something I have a lot of knowledge of after 25 years as a counsellor. Yet until Anna mentioned it, I have never considered that yes this is wonderful news for women, but when you consider the point, a lot of the women are mothers. I would surmise that if they tried and enjoyed Naturism, it would be natural for them to encourage their children to try it, but considering the huge amount of PR currently being done by BN of the behalf of women, is it strange that they are not also putting as much PR into family friendly naturism.

    Next year we want to head out on the road as a family, of which we intend to blog about our adventures for the RnR blog, but currently I think we will have to really think hard about our destinations in the UK because it is not clear who offers what to whom. Thanks Anna, for raising this issue to our attention, it is something we had overlooked as we just naturally assumed all naturist locations were the same.

  • 1 thanks 7 - 0 47 posts
    steve Kelly September 13, 2021 8:55 PM BST 0 likes
     

    i thnik we're stuck between a rock and a hard place as when we dare mention child involvement the ignorant ones make a lot of negative noise about pedos and such and demanding the practice is stopped. ignoring the fact that dressed children sadly get harmed by dressed people in dressed places and nobody demands they shut down.

    also a weird legal system that says images of a child not fully clothed is indecent and only of interest to abusers, incriminating parents and sublinially sexualising kids in the name of child protection. This includes naturism.

     

    so we really are stuck in a rut at the moment

     
  • 566 thanks 160 - 0 810 posts
    Anna ANW September 14, 2021 2:36 PM BST 0 likes
    Yes we are dealing with a rut - but hopefully at some time comon sense will prevail. 

    It is commonly understood that there is a huge difference between innocent, artistic and beautiful imagery for art and photography for naked adults and sexualised, exhibitionist and tasteless imagery. Ironic that the same innocence, aristry and beauty is not currently popular in modern society in relationship to children - their innocence is so much more obvious as is an imagery that fails to capture that innocense. 

    The reluctance on behalf of naturism to openly embrace families and children due to modern concerns only helps feed paranoia and suggest that naturism isn't an innocent pasttime and should be considered "adult" in nature.

    Personally I believe that in an example where a venue pressurises a club or federation to change an event or meeting to adult only then they should stand by their guns and say "No if it cannot be family friendly then we will not go ahead with the booking at all." 
  • 566 thanks 160 - 0 810 posts
    Anna ANW September 23, 2022 9:33 AM BST 0 likes
    Good morning all. Over the summer our thoughts have been very much about families and naturism. Meeting up with R and R, helping our teenager reclaim his naturist confidence, going to the family and youth orientated event NKD. Both ourselves and RnR have written blogs about our family times on ANW and my latest H&E articles have been about such thoughts too. 

    Where does the future of naturism lie if there are no families? Yet what is being done to encourage families. Most blogs and websites seem to shy away from mentioning families and there is a constant fear that any image of a child could encourage the wrong viewer. 

    TAN magazine has a no children policy in it pages - and broke its rule for our first article a couple of years back - but other than that maintains it religiously. H&E is not so defined but you will not see many images that involve families or articles for that matter. Our articles and images probably represent 90% of the family articles involved in the magazine. 

    National bodies are not exactly shouting out "Roll up families" and even events like NKD are kept relatively quiet before the event. Not wanting to attract negative attention but at the same time not attracting positive attention either. There is an understandable fear about getting the interest of protestors and the event is held at a secret location. 

    BN for example has a minorities representative and a woman representative but currently no family representative, Steve and I have considered offering to stretch our lives even thinner and fill the role for them. If we did this and we were accepted this may in fact but good for ANW as well and hopefully good for naturism.  

    We will be working on a Family based public article in the next week or two with the hope of raising the profile of naturism being suitable for families a little more. As too often we have read messages away from ANW that basically say "I do not have a problem with naturism, but do see how it is suitable for children." This point of view leads me to think that many people just don't understand naturism properly and there is too much fear around how children should be safeguarded. This is not just a naturist thing - I truly believe that children are being safeguarded out of having a life in general. And if the internet had its way children would simply not exist in any image at all - ironic really considering an awful lot of images, videos, influencing, ideas are aimed at children - who become easily addicted by the often inane information on offer. 

    So let us share some thoughts about positive ways of moving the idea of encouraging and promoting families into naturism and let me know if you think your national body or local club are doing a good or bad job at promoting family friendly naturism to the wider society we live in. We can not assume Field of Dreams aspirations building the club or event is not simply enough - we have to spread the word to get them to come.
    This post was edited by Anna ANW at September 23, 2022 2:57 PM BST