Nude Indoor Olympics

AN exciting opportunity exists to hold an indoor Nude Olympics in Brisbane. We are seeking expressions of interest from nudists in Queensland and Northern New South Wales to attend this event. Widespread promotion is our best hope of achieving good results. If you are interested in attending this event, which may well become annual, please register your interest at Nude Olympics. Stay tuned to this spot for more information.

R.U.Nude

Gender Balance

Story by R.U Nude

16th October 2009

The notion of "gender balance" or "sex balance" in naturism is commonly accepted by various quarters in our lifestyle. The women who have spoken on this matter have cited feelings of being 'comfortable' in a gender balanced mix. This thus indicates that they feel uncomfortable in an environment with an unbalanced mixture of sex (ie: more males than females). More directly, and taken literally, many women are saying that they feel uncomfortable around single males. Understandably this leaves single males feeling isolated and ostracised by the general nudist community, being clubs, retreats and resorts. Many of these establishments still defend their policy of "gender balance" today despite common knowledge that any form of artificial segregation is immoral, unethical and illegal.

What is more surprising, perhaps, is the fact that most of these people who defend segregation see nothing wrong with it. Now I might be drawing a long bow here, but there have been many instances throughout history where the idea of "feeling uncomfortable" around certain types of people have led to some of the most barbaric human behaviours. Feelings of discomfort around blacks has led to apartheid, segregation and slavery, feelings of discomfort around homosexuals has led to gay bashings and murders, and feelings of discomfort around Jews led directly to the Holocaust and anti-Semitic feelings are still rife today. I have lifted some quotes from the net to elucidate members on those issues:

Anti-Black

• "Someone I considered a long time friend just told me that she's tried hard, but she feels uncomfortable around black people and we can't be friends at all. But she insists she's not a racist because it has nothing to do with feeling superior, it's just discomfort. I don't know what to think."

• "I feel uncomfortable around blacks. I really do, I feel like they wanna rape me or something. I know they won't but, still."

• "Many white prisoners told Human Rights Watch that they were uncomfortable with blacks and would prefer to live in a racially segregated environment. t is hardly astonishing that white prisoners should be 'uncomfortable' around blacks. Nor is it surprising that they want to get away from them, whereas blacks are less inclined to be separated from people they can rape, buy and sell, pimp out, and humiliate with impunity."

Homophobic

"Lesbian teen Constance McMillen won her day in court last month, but was still robbed of her chance to dance with her girlfriend at her high school prom."

"The girls were misdirected by parents, other teens and school administrators to a fake prom at a local country club while her classmates partied at a secret prom organized by parents. After a court told her high school they could not refuse to allow Constance to bring a female date to the prom, the district responded in a grounded, mature fashion by simply canceling the entire event."

"They encouraged parents and community members to host a privately sponsored prom, with the idea that a private event would be allowed to discriminate against gay teens. Only seven students attended the “fake prom”. Two of them are students with learning disabilities. Constance, who seems to actually be a pretty classy person, said the best thing about the devious prom shenanigans was that those kids didn’t have to worry about being made fun of at their prom."

Anti-Semitism

• "This, however, should not be so shocking, because in all honesty, pretty much everyone on Earth dislikes or feels uncomfortable around Jews, including a lot of Jews."

• "If you feel uncomfortable around Jews, no one is forcing you to go there."

• "She made a point of mentioning the Hebrew lessons a few times so I would know they’re Jews. I thought she thinks I may be uncomfortable around Jews so I pressed on but she was amazingly rude after she realised I was a Muslim."

• "I don't hate Jews, but I felt very uncomfortable and prejudiced around them or a long time. "

Disabled

• "I feel uncomfortable around disabled people... it's getting to a point where I find myself laughing nervously when I'm around them and i can't stop myself!"

• "I know it's wrong, but I feel very uncomfortable around disabled people. I do feel for them, but I don't pity them. However, I do try to avoid them as much as possible..."

• "I wasn't aware of this at all - I knew a lot of people can be very uncomfortable around disabled people, but I was really surprised to find all these cases of people being beaten up or pushed around."

Imagine, for a moment, if the shoe was on the other foot. If you were in the unfortunate position of being a single male and you were excluded from joining a club or attending an event, how would you feel? If you were a genuine nudist and had been for all your life, your nudist wife had died and you were now in the position of being a 'single male', how would you feel to suddenly be a stranger among your own people? Many of our senior nudists are in this position. Now imagine you are a married male nudist, love nudism and long for acceptance among your fellows, yet your wife looks sideways at you and says, "Put some clothes on! You look disgusting!" The imaging you are a newcomer to naturism, you have the misfortune of being single and male at the same time, want to get involved but no-one will let you. Then you search the net for clubs you might join and find:

1. "Something" caters for genuine nudist couples & families;

2. "Something" Nudist Club for families and couples;

3. "Something" Network is a family orientated networking website, designed to allow, couples and families to find other genuine nudist couples with whom to attend outings;

4. "Something" is a family oriented naturist club for all ages;

5. "Something" is a family nudist club that has been operating since... ;

6. "Something" is Australia’s oldest Nudist Club (est ... ) catering for families & couples;

7. The "Something" Nudist Club is a family orientated club with strong family values;

8. Membership to "Something" is available to families, couples, single parent families and some singles for the same price.

Why do we ban single people for the simple fact that they are single? If you look at the above statements, it would seem that single males do not represent 'family values'. Therefore they are implying that single people are immoral, trouble-makers, not to be trusted and unworthy of membership. And all of this is decided BEFORE meeting the individual or considering their circumstances. Purely and simply, it is discrimination of the highest order, perpetuated by many women, and supported by their spouses. And yet we completely ignore the two main reasons why we have come to this generally accepted state of affairs:

1. Past transgressions by single men at nudist venues have not been followed up and dealt with on an individual level. There is no facility within the Australian Nudist Movement for the reporting of offensive behaviour at nudist facilities. Reasons for this extend largely to peoples perception of an individuals rights. However, I believe that if a person breaks the law they forego certain rights of protection that the rest of us enjoy. I see no problem with banning, punishing, prosecuting or imprisoning people who do such things, as they invade our rights to exist in a decent and moral manner. The nudist movement's only response to this issue is to presume all single nudists guilty, and NOT give them the opportunity to prove otherwise.

2. In most cases women's insecurities have been sited for reasons of enforcing and maintaining 'gender" or "sex" ratios at venues. This, in and of itself, condones all the tragic events in history where people have felt 'uncomfortable' in the presence of others. But it is not a good enough reason! What we should be focussing on is WHY DO WOMEN FEEL INSECURE? We cannot hope to change the world for women by removing the source of their insecurity, any more than we can stop the fashion industry for printing air-brushed images of ideal women. What we need to do is remove the reason for women's insecurity itself - and only women can do that. In a previous discussion a member stated something along the lines that "To say that body image is all in the mind is ludicrous". Well, if it is not in the mind, where is it? 'Body Image' is an 'imagined' image of the body, and in being imagined, it occurs ONLY IN THE MIND.

Definition: Body image is a term which may refer to a person's perception of his or her own physical appearance, or the interpretation of the body by the brain.

Many would argue that a person cannot change their mind, but I will argue emphatically that a person is totally in control of their own mind, and there are two reasons why they cannot change it: a) They did not realise they needed to; b) They refuse to. This again harkens back to the reasons for Apartheid and the Holocaust. People were educated to believe Blacks and Jews were inferior, and had no reason to question this. Others just likes being superior. Propaganda (or in our day, the media) lay as the root cause for these pandemics. So ask yourself, do I buy the magazines that promote figmentary bogy images? Do I purchase the cosmetics aimed at reducing or removing the blemishes and imperfections which are perfectly normal on a human body? Do I alter my appearance regularly by colouring my hair, doing my nails, or whatever means possible? And when all else fails, do I consume comfort food to make me feel
better about myself?

Why do you think that 95% of all Television commercials are aimed at women? Why are 99% of all shops in shopping centres specifically for women? Why do we have a new shampoo and/or conditioner, cosmetic, mascara, lipstick or foundation every single week of every single month, of every single year? It is quite simple really! The manufacturers know that the product doesn't work, so they have to make another one to continue to make money. And they know they YOU will keep bying it based solely on the false promises made in advertising. Deep down in every woman's heart, they know this. But by continually buying these expensive and useless products you feed the monster. Or you could simply say "Enough!" and stop. You could do what I did many years ago and force yourself to look at yourself in the mirror. You could change your life and like what you see. You could stop walking down the street and looking at other women, judging them for what they are wearing, or wishing you looked like that. You could stop dressing to impress - since women have admitted that they don't dress to impress
men, they dress to impress other women.

Let us first stop treating single men like lepers and ostracising them from the nudist lifestyle. Let us accept and embrace them, and learn from their courage to be nudists despite adversity. And let us realise that, if they look at our naked bodies for perhaps a moment longer than they should that they are paying us a compliment AND following a natural human instinct.

If you would like to add your views to our in depth discussions, please come and join us: 

Nudist Classifieds

Hey all!

Been quiet of late, but haven't been resting on my laurels. We have been busy changing the format of many of our pages to bring them up to scratch. This includes our Australian Nude Beaches and Aussie Nudist Resorts. These have been completely overhauled to give them a new look and better functionality.

We have also made substantial changes to our Nudist Activities pages for Australian Nudists and are currently busy working on our Victorian Nude Ten-Pin Bowling Night set to occur in March/April 2010. Any interested Melbourne Nudists can apply for this event HERE. Out Nude Places map has also been very popular on Google Maps and has received several thousand hits since launching.

We are now very happy to announce the nude classifieds for Australian Nudists to buy and sell goods between themselves. This is one important development, as we work hard to ensure that Australian Nudists share a sense of community. So why not check them out today, and see if our Nudist Classifieds can help you. Currently guests cannot post classifieds, but that will change when all of the 'spam protection' procedures are set in place.

Keep your eyes peeled for Nude Art to be launched later in the year.

Cheers,

Aussie Naturist

Nudist Places in Australia

Many people have complained that there are not enough nudist facilities in Australia. This is probably the first occasion most have had to see what is available in one place, and when you take a close look it's quite staggering. There are likely to be many smaller nudist places not listed here, small clubs, secluded beaches and so on. If you know of a nudist venue not listed, please contact us . We hope our Nudist Places Map is helpful, and you will help us by linking to it on your site:

http://oznudism.blogspot.com/2009/12/nudist-places-in-australia.html

View Nudist Places in a larger map

Nudist Owned Businesses

Story by R.U Nude

16th October 2009

Nudists come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds. Many are gainfully employed, and some run their own businesses. Unfortunately not all naturists are willing or able to let their lifestyle choice be known, but some are. These naturists who run businesses would like to offer their services to you, and we as fellow naturists should do our best to support them. If you would like to use a naturist owned business, list yours, or just see who's out there: 

Aussie Nude Beaches

Story by R.U Nude

3rd October 2009

We have some great nude beaches in Australia, well worth a visit. Those in Queensland and Tasmania are not yet legal, and some in other states are 'traditional' nude beaches only. We encourage you to use caution when visiting such beaches, but do not be deterred. While we have images for most of our beaches, there are a few that we could use more, and some we have no photos of at all. If you have images available of these beaches, or find incorrect information listed, please contact us:

Check out our Australian Nude Beaches:

Victims of Discrimination – Naturists

R.U Nude

24th September 2009

A common thread among naturists is the question "What have we got to hide?" Many reply that their jobs, families, friends don't know about their naturist lifestyle, and they live in fear of being 'exposed'. It is ironic that we are not afraid to let ourselves be seen naked, but we have to be careful who we allow to see us naked. It has been the trend in naturist circles to always use only first names to maintain the anonymity among naturists. This practice, however, also maintains the veil of secrecy surrounding what naturists do and who they are, and probably goes some way to perpetuate the public's misconceptions about naturism.

So what do we have to hide? Many of us believe that we stand to be sacked from our jobs if our lifestyle preference became public knowledge. This is not really a realistic option given anti-discrimination laws, yet not all naturists would have the capacity financially to fight against such discrimination should it happen. We have seen it before in several instances where professional people have posed nude and been fired. A recent article in the UK Times gives us in Australia some hope. The Government Equalities Office, headed by Harriet Harman, is planning a review into discrimination laws following claims that “Naturists encounter prejudice in employment”. The Equalities Office is urging "the government and other authorities to make “affirmative statements” in favour of naturism and combat the financial penalties endured by those who pursue clothes-free leisure pursuits."

This positive news from the UK prompted me to recently write my own submission to our Federal Government's Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, seeking his support. Naturists in Australia also suffer discrimination (or at least fear of retribution) from employers, colleagues, friends and family, as well as the press and general public in many forms. The movement in Australia has been going for close to a century, and has a rich history which genuinely deserves cultural status. Since migration brought naturism into Australia following both World Wars, we have seen an increase in the number of naturists across the country.

Unfortunately naturism seems to be currently in decline, as those naturists get older and we struggle to find and encourage younger generations to join us. This is largely because naturism has changed little in all that time, and has not kept up with the times. Naturists have been happy to keep to themselves and remain behind closed doors for their own protection. Hence, younger generations don't really have a good understanding about what naturists do, nor do they feel inclined to mix with older generations. The stigma associated with being a naturist is enough to put the younger individual off, since Generation Y is all about being accepted and finding a place. They are unlikely to choose a lifestyle in which they will undoubtedly suffer prejudice and isolation.

The type of discrimination we suffer today has been likened to that suffered by gay people prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK in 1967. Naturists in Australia need to stand up and demand recognition, and I urge all of you to also write to Peter Garrett HERE and voice your opinion on the matter. Numbers speak louder than words, and currently nobody in Australia seems to know accurately how many naturists we have. Let's let them know how many there are.