Anti-naturism

Naturism is one of the last bastions of humanity. It is one of the few links we have left with our species being and with the rest of actual reality. Yet there are opponents of it everywhere – skeptics, cynics, abusers – without as well as within. Of even greater concern is, very few people seem to know what it is.

So let's have a look. Naturism is an attraction to nature. Naturists – true naturists – treat this as the primary draw, and react accordingly. Everything else is secondary. Naturist venues are for those who like to be close to nature, to provide a refuge from the invented reality of their normal daily live. It is an expression of spirituality.

Anyone who is sane and not psychopathic is a naturist, whether they know if or not. If you actually enjoy living an entire life working in a job that is meaningless to the improvement of humanity, living in a box made of bricks, living in an overpopulated city consisting of wasteful technologies and laws that benefit those who don't deserve those benefits, where the food is increasingly fake and the products you buy (and the accompanying adverts) are designed to have you believe they have your best interests in mind, and you never want anything else, seek urgent psychiatric help before it's too late: You've become a fake, soulless, zombified slab of cells who has forgotten what it is to be human (assuming that you knew in the first place). Living in an artificially-constructed world might seem convenient, but in the long-run, anything that distracts us from our true nature, from our identity with our genetics and natural surroundings, can only be damaging, to the individual as well as to humankind as a whole.

Before reading this article, what you were probably thinking of when you saw the word "naturism" was nudism. Nudists are people who like to be naked for its own sake, whose specific attraction is to be naked, without any other reason. If you associated nudism with seediness and perversion, then you might be right. That is something else entirely. 

You do see naturists who choose not to wear clothes, but that is a consequence of being closer to nature, which is part of something greater. If you were to visit a naturist camp – one that really is a naturist camp (as opposed merely to one that calls itself one), filled with people who are naturists (as opposed merely to people who call themselves naturists), you will find that some will be wearing clothes, and some not. On a cold day, common sense would kick in and everyone would be clothed appropriately. In fact, it is a bit perverse that we have the terms "naturist beach" or "naturist camp": In an enlightened society, these places should just be called beaches and camps, and the minority that are not would be "non-naturist beach" and "non-naturist camp". But as usual, the fake world that we inhabit is reinvented in yet another way to suit a minority at the huge expense of the majority.

It is unfortunate that I have had to concentrate on the clothing aspect of all this, because that really is an insignificant side-issue for naturists. In fact, when compared to the idea of naturism as a whole, it is almost irrelevant. It is like saying that the Earth consists of fig trees. Of course it does, but what sort comment is that? What the hell have fig trees got to do with what Earth is, if you're talking about Earth as a whole? If fig trees didn't exist, the Earth would still go on being the Earth. The specific (and sometimes sole) association with nudism is an unfortunate consequence of ignorance and misinformation, quite obviously perpetuated by a carefully-biased educational system (see later) and the media.

All of this in turn is, no doubt, a consequence of a deliberate, coordinated attempt to lure people into a world where they are less naturally comfortable. People who are out of their comfort zone - which we all are - are more vulnerable. Faced with an unfamiliar, unnatural, materialistic world that goes against our evolutionary instinct and perceptions, vulnerable people are more likely to take refuge in fake substitutes for what they have lost. And that makes a small amount of people lots of money, which is what matters more than anything else, more so even than the well-being of humanity. And so, instead of taking a walk in the woods, they buy a computer game that immerses them in a fake world, or pay for the gym and use a treadmill. Instead of growing vegetables in the garden, or in pots – say, potatoes and spinach, which are extremely easy and low-maintenance – they go to the supermarket and buy it.

The beauty (or rather, the ugliness) of it is that people have been educated in such a way that they are not even aware of their discomfort or vulnerability. If you have never truly experienced naturism – a close, spiritual bond with nature – how would you know otherwise? Just to be doubly-sure that we don't smell a rat, we're given "urban spaces," greens and parks. "If you want nature, we've given it to you, it's right there in the middle of the city!" A seemingly-perfect response. But this is merely pseudo-nature, an unconvincing replica on a smaller scale. What is a piece of grass, or a square of trees in the middle of a morass of concrete structures, compared to a forest in its natural setting and views of rolling hills going off into the distance?

Unfortunately, naturism has been hijacked so much that it is not a good idea to go to a naturist club or camp in the UK. They are infested with fakers who call themselves naturists, but who are just nudists, mainly dirty old men who are there for the cheap thrill of being naked and seeing others naked. Other, more enlightened countries, such as Germany, are going the same way.

So next time you consider naturism, consider it in the manner in which it is truly intended, rather than how you have been indoctrinated to see it. The truth is obvious: Like anything else, all you have to do is to forget what you have been told, think about it, consider the evidence - say what you see - and work out what makes most sense. If nudism is naturism, why are there two terms? What should the word "naturism" mean, given that it has the word "nature" hard-coded into it? Why isn't spirituality on the curriculum alongside science and religion?

And, why has naturism taken such a nose-dive into the seedy, shallow waters inhabited by the sexually-repressed? Are there any true naturists left, apart from campers, ramblers, back-packers and hikers?

With special thanks to K. Robert Lomas for his thoughts and comparisons between naturism in the UK and Germany over the last decade.