” Studies on Naturism “

The biggest hurdle for people to over come with regards to nudity and naturism really is it seems,in their own heads and hidden under their own insecurities.In life there are many ways of insulating and shutting down the process of a natural normal human life. One is money,but another prominent method is to shut down through the need for clothing. It isn’t the actual wearing of clothing that is the problem, it is the need for the clothing as in they cannot do without clothing because they need it as a mask.

People say, “it doesn’t worry me if I have my clothes on or off.” That is great if it is really true. How would it feel going naked to work or naked in public? What impact would that have on you? How worried would you be about the way people would judge you? People need to look very closely as to whether or not our clothing is a way of masking and emotionally protecting ourselves.If you went to a naturist beach,naturist club or resort you’ll see people of all ages, shapes and sizes and you wouldn’t feel out of place.To those people who say they have issues with their bodies and couldn’t possibly do it, turn it around.

How good would it feel if you took all your clothes off in public and nobody pointed, laughed, made rude comments or vocally abused you? That is what happens at a naturist venue. It is life affirming and does wonders for self esteem and confidence.95% of the population doesn’t have a supermodel body but those are the only real naked images in the public domain. Be happy with who you are.As for the “visible arousal” question for men, well it just doesn’t happen. Social nudity is completely non-sexual and the site of naked women in that context is just not exciting.

Another well known phrase is “Think of the effect on the Children too” but studies researched over many years shed a different light on the subject.Nearly every mother will remember her toddler’s readiness to scamper about the house and back garden naked. Children feel at ease in the nude until parents teach them that it’s “wrong,” “indecent,” or “shameful.” Children are also be taught in schools and in the media that it is somehow inappropriate to see their family nude. One of the greatest concerns for opponents of childhood nakedness is child molestation. Yet, could it be possible that preventing children from being exposed to nakedness actually contributes to that problem?

Legislators have taken the claims at face value, and, without checking to see what experts and scholars have actually said, they then pressure parents to blinker children from ever viewing the human form. Public opinion, points to a worrying trend especially in North America for proposing legislation banning family social nudity on the basis that the “offending” adult may be “grooming” the child to be more receptive to sexual abuse in the home. The fear that seeing naked people in some way harms children is not supported, however, by academic researchers.The small handful of studies on this topic in psychology and sociology have shown, instead, that children reared in an atmosphere containing family social nudity may benefit from the practice. If this is true, then proposed laws outlawing either social nudity in the home or children’s participation at naturist (or nudist) settings are unjustified.

Naturist parents have long expressed the value of raising their children in a home environment in which optional non- sexualized nudity is casual, informal, and nonthreatening. Dennis Craig Smith and William Sparks studied the effects of social nudity on children. Their book, The Naked Child: Growing Up Without Shame, written in part from their personal experience with naturism, and remains a solid piece of descriptive self-reporting on the effects of social nudity on children. They conclude that “the viewing of the unclothed body, far from being destructive to the psyche, seems to be either benign and totally harmless or to actually provide positive benefits to the individuals involved”.Other scholars publishing in academic journals have come to the same conclusion. In 1995, psychology professor Paul Okami published a review of existing clinical studies of childhood exposure to parental nudity. In his review, Okami expresses concern over an increasing number of behaviours being redefined in terms of childhood sexual abuse. More and more social scientists,are referring to parental nudity in front of children, for instance, as a form of “subtle sexual abuse”. The problem is that there is simply no clinical or other evidence to support this concern and the attendant desire to turn naked parents into outlaws. Marilyn Story’s research addressing the consequences of childhood exposure to parental nudity,hypothesized that early exposure to parental nudity would improve the bodyselfconcept of preschool children.

She examined 264 children and their parents or guardians, noting that some families were nudists while others were not. She found that the children from nudist households had a more positive body self-concept than the non-nudist children. She determined from her findings that coming from a nudist family played a more significant role in the children’s positive self body-image than their race, gender, or area of the country in which they lived. Moreover, she found that those children whose families practiced social nudity at home and at naturist camps scored higher in terms of self body-image than those who practiced social nudity only at home.The causal relationship between family social nudity and high body self image was thus also supported by concomitant variation. Robin Lewis and Louis Janda surveyed many male and female undergraduate college students to determine, in part, what effect childhood exposure to parental nudity had on them as young adults.

The results of the study suggested that “childhood experiences with exposure to nudity are not adversely related to adult sexual functioning either. In fact, there is modest support that these childhood experiences are positively related”.ln their discussion, they conclude that “for boys, exposure to nudity in early childhood appears to be modestly related to greater comfort levels with regard to physical contact/affection”. Okami believes that clinicians, legislators, and social workers who automatically assume that parental nudity per se is harmful to children have little or no reason for their stand. In 1998, Okami published the results of his own study on early childhood exposure to parental nudity. Working with Richard Olmstead, Paul Abramson, and Laura Pendleton, Okami’s 18-year longitudinal study followed 200 male and female children from birth to age 17-18. Okami’s study was the first to use the longitudinal design in examining the long-term effects of parental nudity on children. The research team hypothesized that given the paucity of evidence, children would experience no “deleterious main effects of early childhood exposure to either nudity or primal scenes”. For the younger children, naturism chiefly meant nude swimming, having fun without getting one’s clothes dirty, being with friends, etc. For the older children, naturism seemed also to have a more serious meaning. These adolescent boys and girls seemed unusually alert and aware of the impact naturism had on their lives. With only one exception, they stated that they would like to be naturists even if their parents were not.

In addition to the usual ‘fun’ reasons, many of the teen-agers referred to the benefits in mental health and emotional stability. Many of them recognized that nudism was giving them a more ‘realistic’ outlook toward sex than their non-nudists friends possessed. When with these friends, or out on dates, they could only feel sorry for people whose attitude toward the human body was not as healthy as their own. Unlike the responses of some adult members, these seemed completely genuine and spontaneous. Furthermore, the impression was inescapable that these children, taken as a group, were extraordinarily well-adjusted, happy, and thoughtful” . What Laurence Casler wrote about childhood experience with naturism in 1964 applies just as well to children a mere forty years later. There is nothing harmful with either being human or appearing fully human.

Children’s welfare must be safeguarded, but so too must they be given the chance to learn to respect their own bodies and those of others. There is no evidence that children are harmed by non-sexualized social nudity, and there is good reason to believe they are benefited by it. Proposals for laws depriving children the innocent experience of being human, appearing human, as such are unwarranted, unfounded, and have no expert basis. Of course these days we have to deal with the evil obstacle of peadophilia,however naturist organisations go to great lengths (as do all other organisations) to protect the young from these evil people,making naturist venues safe and secure.The results of the research presented would seem to speak clearly and with force: children’s exposure to nudity is not only not harmful, it appears to be beneficial. Children who are thus raised grow up to be adults who are comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality.

Anyone can be a naturist !

Background, age, shape, race, creed and colour are irrelevant and it attracts people from all walks of life. At naturist places you will see babes in arms, children and teenagers right up to the elderly. There are thousands of naturist families – some into many generations – who find that they get on better with each other as they can all enjoy something together and children brought up in naturism say how they grew up without the usual hang-ups about their bodies.

Anyone can be a naturist !

Ah yes forgot to mention…..Merry Christmas to everyone !!!!

(Written study information resource : Children, Social Nudity, and Scholarly Study By Mark Storey (Professor, Bellevue Community College, Bellevue, Washington) © 2005.