All About Naturists and Naturism

Naturism

Naturism, or nudism as many American naturists prefer to call it, is a cultural activity that can be loosely described as social nudity. Social nudity strongly implies that the presence of other naturists is essential to its appeal. Arguably therefore, someone who enjoys being nude in some lonely, isolated spot where they will not be likely to meet others is not practicing naturism. However, many people are drawn to naturism in the first place by their love of the natural beauty of isolated beaches and countryside, as indeed we were ourselves.

Naturism is seen by many as a lifestyle, and representative organisations such as the International Naturist Federation, agree. The official UK naturists association is British Naturism and as well as supporting the interests of around twelve thousand British naturists, it is a valuable resource of essential information and naturist lifestyle publications

Naturism or nudism?

You will find the words naturism and nudism being used synonymously throughout this website. Some people argue that the words have different innuendo and we would agree that the words nudism and nudist are more likely to imply a sexual association than the words naturism and naturist.

It was actually in order to emphasise naturism as a non-sexual activity that the euphemisms, naturism and naturist, were originally introduced. Although these days the media still links naturism with eroticism, public opinion is less concerned than it used to be. Naturists themselves are more likely to concede that outdoor nudity is an undeniably sensual experience and to divorce those feelings entirely from sexual ones is being overly defensive and self-deluding. However the debate still goes on and you will come across all shades of naturist opinion, ranging from those totally denying that any sexual element exists to those advocating naturism as a swinger-lifestyle activity.

The choice of which words to use is also influenced by language, with American English tending to favour the words nudism and nudist and British English more commonly using naturist and naturism.

In fact neither naturism nor nudism is the most commonly used term for referring to naturist activities if internet search engines are anything to go by. Outnumbering the words naturism, naturist and nudism  by more than 200,000 searches per month, the most popular search term used is in fact "FKK". The term is an acronym of the German word, "Freikörperkultur" meaning  "Free Body Culture" which has a fascinating history with roots that were instrumental  to the growth of naturism.

ABOUT NATURISTS

As naturists ourselves, we have many times pondered the question; what makes a naturist?

The hundreds of fellow naturists we have met over nearly thirty years of being naturists do not seem to have a lot in common other than their enjoyment of naturism. There have been those with whom we have identified in practically every way and others whose values were so alien to our own that it was difficult to engage with them in more than a brief, how-are-you-today conversation.  It would be easy to list wide ranging differences of lifestyle, culture, age, physical appearance, and personality type and so on and we can only suggest two areas where some sort of generalisation might hold true. These are age group and social background.

Naturists age groups

Most naturists seem to be over 35 and a significant proportion are of retirement age. This seems to be much more the case amongst British and Dutch naturists, slightly less so amongst Germans and considerably less so amongst Spaniards and French naturists. We have often wondered whether the extended family tradition associated with Mediterranean culture may play its part helping younger people feel comfortable naked in the company of people of their parents’ and grandparents’ age groups. However naturism is growing more popular and as it does, we would expect to see the number of younger naturists increase.

Naturists social backgrounds

Much less certain is whether there exists a common denominator in the social backgrounds of naturists. From our experience, it seems that more naturists are representative of what is generally referred to as ‘middle class’ than of the other socio-economic groups.

We have met naturists from most occupations, including a full time Tupperware sales couple, an international lawyer, a psychiatrist and even an officer of the Guardia Civil (the Spanish civil guard – police force). But the naturist candidate for having the least likely occupation must surely go to a skin cancer surgeon who we met on a totally unshaded, Cretan beach in the full midday, summer, sun!

So overall it would seem that apart from the special bond that binds together any social group of common interest, especially minority ones, there would appear to be little else about naturism that could be described as a common factor between naturists.