When I was about 11, my father used to collect pocket calendars and had a few albums. One was completely out of reach, which was where he put calendars of naked women. Of course, when left to my own devices, I'd go and take a look at them. I wasn't brought up in a naturist environment and it was only later that I've seen someone of the opposite sex completely naked.

Nowadays, the innocence is gone. I mean, maybe I'm excusing myself, but I don't think I made anything too censorable by looking at those calendars. Yet, today the first thing a kid sees is hardcore and degrading stuff. 

It is a  statistical fact, that by age 11, most boys today have encountered a porn site online. The top of each of these sites, shows the most aggressive and degrading sex acts. If you want to watch soft porn, you have to really search hard for it. Honestly, how many eleven year olds will?

I have worked with young tennagers who have been affected by the issues this raises, and it is frightening how often it comes up in conversation, even with 20 to 40 yr old women. Sex education is failing children in the most terrible of ways, as porn is where children now learn.

These sites do not teach about body positivity, they teach nudity equals violent sex, and that women are there to be used. It is a cold emotionless message, that is really having a negative impact on our young. Every year new generations are learning the messages of the likes of porn hub etc.. Only fans reinforces the message that woman are there to be used as a sex outlet, and it is doing a massive amount of damage to young people on a pyschological level.

Naturisum, and respect for the human form, is the solution, but let us be honest, it is one hell of an up hill struggle to get the message across. 

Concerning movies, I'm always appaled by certifications concerning nudity. Have you seen Paolo Sorrentino's latest movie, The Hand of God? Despite the sexual content (no nudity) necessary for a coming of age story and nudity from a female with mental problems, there's a scene at a nude beach which I found necessary to represent the mid-80s. I don't know how it was in Italy, where the movie takes place, but in Portugal it was quite usual to be topless at the beach. Sometime after the mid-90s, topless disappeared from our beaches. I loved how they used it in the movie to display what was more of an 80s attitude - he could have easily used a textile beach, but I feel the nude beach was much more approriate era-wise.  

This is a really interesting discussion, and many valid points and intriguing thoughts have been expressed here. It’s quite a powerful topic.

 

In the first instance, as a society, how did we find ourselves in this place? To me, this toxicity we’re talking about is a reflection of the society that we all find ourselves in. Even those of us who don’t adhere to or wish to be plagued by this prevalent sickness of the mind. This is indeed a form of mental illness that has developed in humanity. Sadly as others have pointed out, it’s being handed down from one generation to the next.

 

I really like the notion of “get back to nature”, because looking at what we’ve done to the natural environment over the last century or two is nothing short of appalling. In so many ways we’ve lost touch with the natural world. Gotten out of sync with the natural rhythms, and maybe all gone crazy in the process.

 

The challenge is how to heal. How to ensure our next generation who aren’t already infected, don’t become so.

 

Having worked in IT support, the number one problem with many computers is virus infection most typically picked up via porn sites. Parents bring their PCs in, pay hundreds of dollars to have them repaired. They find it incredibly difficult to comprehend that their tween/teen has been browsing sites they absolutely forbid.

The browser history is right there. Even erased histories leave tell tale signs.

 

Two weeks later the same computer comes in. Exactly the same problem for the same reason. “Can’t we put some kind of lock or control on?” they’d ask. Kids are technical geniuses these days. They know how to get around whatever you install, and I’ve indeed had this very conversation with my wife. Our kids are 15 & 17.

 

In my mind, the best we can do is set better standards. I didn’t have great parents but the two things I think they somehow got right was 1) instilling a sense of respect and values in us and 2) allowing us enough freedom to develop as human beings.

 

No parental control in the world other than love, demonstrating respect and having open dialogue is going to be effective. Kids are naturally curious, just as we were as kids. I can’t stop my son looking at what he’s going to look at. If he has a strong role model, and sees first hand on a daily basis what healthy respect looks like, I genuinely don’t worry about what he’s going to see. I trust that he’ll be disgusted by things he should find disgusting.

 

My daughter is perhaps an even better example. She’s the one telling me what I shouldn’t be saying. Especially when it comes to gender diversity, anything to do with the rainbow community, racism, inequality etc. I’m old school, not always PC, but not around her. She’ll pull me up every time. “Dad, you can’t say things like that!”

She’s my role model! :)

 

My other predominent thought on this subject is the ill effects of prohibition which has proven time and again to make things worse. One of the funnier recent examples of this in NZ was during a recent lock down in Auckland when the rest of the country was operating normally. One of those normal things was take aways.

Some genius crossed the border to buy KFC. A boot full of KFC. It was one of the those “only in NZ” things.

Point is, after 8 weeks or so without their favourite take away, they had withdrawal.

 

Going out on a limb here, and treading into controversial territory, we’ve all been made aware how much horrific sexual abuse has occurred within the catholic church and other institutions. Whenever you try to artificially deny nature by prohibiting the most basic of natural functions, like sex. There’s no way that’s ever going to end well.

 

I suspect that people who are obsessed with tantalising nudity because they are so tortured by fashions that teasingly reveal a certain amount of flesh, but conceal what people can’t quite see. They in turn go mad for it, but lets face it, this is arguably a gender inequality issue of epic proportions.

 

Most naturists would probably agree that a non-sexualised representation of the body is pleasing to observe, but not in any way arousing. Realistically it is not that different to observing somebody clothed. In a sense, nakedness is merely another state of dress. In this case undress. On that basis, it indeed seems crazy to go to extraordinary lengths to observe nudity. Sexualised or not. If you’re in a healthy loving relationship, why is there any compulsion to seek out nudity on a voyeuristic basis? That would suggest that something else is amiss somewhere.

 

At the end of the day its how each and every one of us acts in our day to day lives that will determine the future. Not a one of us can change the world. We can however “be the change we want to see.”

It can be quite hard to do the right thing when nobody else is. That’s the burden of trailblazers though. They need to be the trend before the trend exists.

 

To that end I don’t expect my kids to be just like me. I have far higher aspirations. I want them to be inspired by the values I’ve demonstrated in my life, so they can do better.

 

We totally agree with a lot of these thoughts. 

Very interesting the KFC passion growing from it being banned. Steve and I have long believed that by making children such a taboo subject in recent years (certainly within the UK) it has actually driven up the thirst for child porn. Child abuse has always been there but in recent years it has become such a prolific fear that it is almost crippling society. The more we fight something the more the back lash. This to us is the extreme and dangerous example of the need to see people naked - with porn, sexual sharing on the internet, lap dancers/topless bars etc etc getting bigger and bigger - and the prohibitionist style reaction to this also more extreme. Naturism seems an ideal answer to this - if nudity was commonplace it wouldn't be hungered after - but at the same time wouldn't effect our natural and healthy attraction to each other. We do believe that as a huge part of society is encourage to feel perverse just by having a body, then that confusion can make people feel before they actually do anything to be guilty of. It is a common belief that if you tell children often enough that they are naughty they will become naughty. So surely if we tell people their body is naughty they will equally start doing naughty things with it. We think the huge amount of people who sexual share on places like Twitter are doing such things because they are growing up feeling naughty and ashamed about everything to do with the human body and so lose their ability to judge and self-censor. It is a common belief that if you tell children often enough that they are naughty they will become naughty. So surely if we tell people their body is naughty they will equally start doing naughty things with it. We think the huge amount of people who sexual share on places like Twitter are doing such things because they are growing up feeling naughty and ashamed about everything to do with the human body and so lose their ability to judge and self-censor. It is a common belief that if you tell children often enough that they are naughty they will become naughty. So surely if we tell people their body is naughty they will equally start doing naughty things with it. We think the huge amount of people who sexual share on places like Twitter are doing such things because they are growing up feeling naughty and ashamed about everything to do with the human body and so lose their ability to judge and self-censor. We think the huge amount of people who sexual share on places like Twitter are doing such things because they are growing up feeling naughty and ashamed about everything to do with the human body and so lose their ability to judge and self-censor. We think the huge amount of people who sexual share on places like Twitter are doing such things because they are growing up feeling naughty and ashamed about everything to do with the human body and so lose their ability to judge and self-censor. 

hen it On top of this we have an increasing amount of people protesting and creating attention in other directions. Things like "Me Too" should do some good, but instead they encourage a trend for people to make accusations and make claims. People are hung as guilt in societies eye just by having someone make an unfounded accusation. Suffering has become a trend and teenagers don't just for example self harm because of hurt, but also because wearing such cuts has become like wearing a charity band on your wrist. Of course all these teens who do this or state they are "bi-sexual" to appear more cool or make false accusations to get attention - don't just turn these things into fashion but also belittle those people who have been abused, are actually depressed, or are trying to come to terms with their sexuality. And when it comes to abuse they cloud the issues. We are failing to see the real problems of child or adult sexual abuse, failing to look at how we should protect, how we should punish, how we should react. We are failing to teach our children who to fear, by teaching then to fear everyone. They either cannot keep it up and end up not being able to judge the good from the bad, or end up being so scared they cannot function.  

Our twelve year old son recently went through a knock on of the Me Too obsession and the need for negative attention growing in modern society. It is a long story but basically he was tripped over by a boy in the playground and he touched a girls breasts. The next day he got attacked by about 15 lads stirred up by this girl who claimed he had groped her. The girl was brought to see the head of year and was shown the CCTV that showed the boy tripping him up. She was made to acknowledge this and she apologised and the boy who tripped our son up was punished as he did it on purpose. The next day however she continued stirring up these false claims and led a mob of around 100 children of different year groups who attacked our son in the playground while they stole his bag, broke his i-pad, left him with a few cuts and bruises and chanted paedo at him repeatedly while some of the children recorded it on their phones. Our son came home crying while the school dealt with the girl for doing such a cruel thing and explained to the "mob" that he was completely innocent and that the girl who had seen the CCTV footage knew this. The result was that the mob were disgusted with the girl, expressed guilt to the teachers for believing what she said and started sending texts and voice messages to our son telling him they were sorry, hoping he was alright and saying that the girls was...(a list of various mean words that teenagers use about girls). No harm was done at the end of the day, luckily (it could have been so much nastier if the physical abuse had got tougher -if one person had gone further others would have followed), but it is a very simple example of how easy it is to create public outcry and hate from a simple piece of cruel attention seeking. But also may teach how if another girl in the school was actually mistreated she may not be believed or even feel right about mentioning it. We live in a world where people will do absolutely anything to get noticed. The girl's boyfriend had been going around telling everyone that he was going to "get" our son, because she had also enjoyed pushing his buttons.
  

We think naturism cannot put the world to right by itself but it could certainly help, and maybe if the world did become open to it then it may also find that it automatically starts putting other things right with a change of attitude.