QUOTES 3/9/2017

“With the digitization of American lives, people are taking pictures of themselves and are more comfortable displaying their own naked bodies.  It is not shameful to have a naked photo on Twitter. . . People are more comfortable with the naked body.  It is on their phones, in their computers.  It is on film.  The digital generation has been sexting since they were teenagers.  It is not this shameful thing.  The Free the Nipple campaign (which believes women should be allowed to roam around topless, just as men do) is becoming mainstream.  There are actresses and singers, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus, doing it.  The digital generation is comfortable about showing their bodies.” – Brian Hoffman, http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/11/17/the-waxing-and-waning-of-nudism-in-america.html

“Sun is calling - naked time is not far away!” - Angela Russel, President British Naturism, https://twitter.com/AngelaR93774163?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&sig=a07540b5c784a2ca8fba1a6d6a090a2c5aaad47f&al=1&refsrc=email&iid=33424e33626b4529b6b59badf9c7d6bf&autoactions=1447198887&uid=396523018&nid=244+404

“In 19th-century New England, the radical vegan transcendentalists of Fruitlands, an extreme and short-lived utopia, experimented with nakedness as the ultimate communion with nature and rejection of capitalism.  Clothes represented repression . . . In 1936, the Vana Vana society, a group of nudist colonists, set sail for the Virgin Islands to establish a ‘nudist-socialistic utopia’, but had to return to Tampa when their captain wouldn’t take his clothes off.  Down in Cape Cod, where I spend time, nakedness was a natural state for the likes of Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams.  Indeed, my 84-year-old friend there disdains the National Park Service edict that forbids sunbathing nude in the dunes.  When one ranger tried to give her a ticket, she scoffed: ‘I’ve been doing this for 70 years.  Do you think that’s going to make any difference?’  Meanwhile, up in somewhat chillier Canada, the pacifist, vegetarian sect of Doukhobors . . . refugees fleeing their Russian homeland, where they had been championed by Leo Tolstoy, who financed their flight to America – protested against the materialism of the 20th century with mass naked events.  The Canadian government responded by making public nudity a criminal act.  Up to 300 Doukhobors were arrested and given three-year prison sentences.  Their continuing protests in the 1960s inspired Pete Seeger to sing their praises.  They found further activist expression when John Lennon and Yoko Ono went naked on the cover of their Two Virgins album (1968).  The hippies’ disavowal of clothes at Woodstock and other festivals drew a direct, naked line back to the 19th-century utopians and beyond.  It was the ultimate expression against an age whose hardware was geared up towards apocalypse.  What better way to diffuse that corruption of power than by stripping it away, physically and spiritually, to the only thing we really own: our bodies.” – Philip Hoare, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/04/nudity-isnt-indecent-british-tradition-naked-rambler?CMP=share_btn_tw

“I was raised in Guadalajara, Mexico.  I was brought up Catholic and was taught that the body was supposed to be hidden, not to be displayed or looked upon for pleasure. . . the Catholic faith is excellent at installing a sense of guilt into anything that resembles pleasure.  [This] led to an extreme sense of low self-esteem in me.  I’m not what you consider beautiful by today’s ridiculous standards, and because of that I was always thought of as the least pretty one in my family.  I have three older sisters who are all endowed with larger breasts than I have.  I got the short end of the ‘titty’ stick, as they would say.  I continued to feel this way about myself growing up and into adulthood.  It wasn’t until I met my husband, a wonderful, patient, and understanding man who taught me the true meaning of beauty.  He tried to impart in me an understanding that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thought or felt, it’s how you feel about yourself that communicates to others how beautiful you are.” – Grisel Quezada, http://www.naktiv.net/blog/910/my-nudist-story/

“I started looking for more places to go naked outside, and that was how I got into hiking nude.  Started just by going out to the bush area near my house by myself.  At first I would get naked, and just sort of stand around in the trees, I guess terrified somebody would see me.  But not long before I was walking the trails short distances and exploring a bit.  But I guess that was pretty much the start for me of something I've been doing for a few decades now.  Of course as you get older and get a car, you can go farther from home, find better places, and explore farther afield.  Different places, more experiences, but the same ‘special’ feeling we all know.” – Life Long Nudist