“My Daughter, the Teenage Nudist”

I found this “documentary” yesterday:

“My Daughter, the Teenage Nudist”

My Daughter The Teenage Nudist by vivrenu-tv

(I found it here: iNAKED.)

It seems to be a program made for British TV.

It focuses on 2 main groups: one, an 18(?) year old girl named Molly and her friends who are exploring public or group nakedness; and two, these people: nakedvegancooking.com. 

There’s also a guy who is trying to recruit new young members for a naturist group.

One thing that’s mentioned briefly that I wish they’d emphasized a little more is the idea that “naturists” or “nudists” are not necessarily naked 24 hours a day every day.

Someone once suggested that I must be naked all the time. Well, if I’m at home and it’s not too cold, then I most likely am naked. But if someone is coming over, I put something on...unless they just drop by unannounced, or significantly earlier than expected. But that basically never happens. I mean, people don’t even come by announced that much.

Another thing that was mentioned in the program, and which is related to my post from a few days ago, is that if someone is naked all the time they must be really comfortable with their body. One guy responded to that idea by basically saying no, he’s not, but he’s getting much better thanks to being naked.

So while this isn’t necessarily the best video that could possibly be made about nudism, it’s not bad. And it examines the issue in a non-sexualized, non-titillating way. Also it verifies those couple of things I’ve said about being naked. (Yay! It’s not just me.)

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Here’s a morning news clip with a couple of the same folks who were in that longer video. 

Last night

I started out to write about something else today, but this took over. I’ll try to finish the original topic later this week.

(Yes, this is a rant, and no, there are no pictures.)

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this before, but... I was talking with a friend last night, and one thing that came up was that this blog has helped build my confidence about my body. Now, I wasn’t ashamed of my body before. I didn’t have the kind of feelings about my body that would keep me from being naked, or make me terrified of the idea of someone else seeing me naked. I mean, obviously not because I started this blog.

To me, those kinds of attitudes just seem insanely ridiculous. I cannot imagine actually feeling that way myself. However, I do understand that those kinds of feelings are real and horrible for some people.

To anyone who has those kinds of feelings, I’d suggest spending some time with your body. Get to know it. Look at it. Don’t be afraid. Or maybe be afraid, but don’t let the fear paralyze you; don’t let it control you. Expose your body to, if nothing else, at least the air in your bedroom, or bathroom, or somewhere. And then be bold. Claim your body and its right to be, without apology and without covering.

Anyway...

I used to feel about my body that it was okay, and I was okay with it. I liked some parts more than others; there were areas that needed work but which I really never bothered to work on; you know...whatever. I was okay with it.

However, I did feel that I had a small penis. Not really, really tiny, but small. Noticeably smaller than average.

The thing is, I didn’t actually have a realistic idea of what average was. I wasn’t exposed to a lot of penises in my daily life. And the ones I did see were generally in porn. So yes, compared to those, my penis is small. Sure, I knew in my brain that those porn-penises were on average rather large and I shouldn’t be concerned with comparing myself to that. In fact, I imagined that some straight women or gay men might find such phallic abundance to be a little scary. And sure, I’d read a few books—things like Sex for Dummies; yes, there is such a book, and Dr. Ruth wrote it—and again in my brain I knew that my penis wasn’t exceptionally small. But I still had that feeling.

But it wasn’t just about penis size. I’m a small-ish guy. I’m not exceptionally short, but I’m kind of short and fairly thin. Not really muscular. I’m not all those things that men are “supposed” to be. I would compare it to the sort of pressure that women get from magazines and movies, etc. in our culture to be a certain size or shape or whatever. It’s not quite that strong a pressure, but it’s definitely there. It’s not easy for a guy growing up being small.

Well, once I started doing this blog a couple of things happened. One, I got some compliments from people about how I looked. Some were general comments, while others seemed to be specifically about my penis. (See an earlier entry: “impressive”.) And two, I sometimes looked for images to include in various topics that I wanted to write about. And in looking for specifically non-porn nudity, more and more of the penises I found were not so huge. Also as I looked more and more at the pictures I was taking of myself, I felt more and more that I looked okay.

I still feel like there are parts that I ought to work on but which I probably won’t put a ton of effort into. And the difference between how I felt about my body before the blog and now isn’t a really huge difference, but then again, I already felt mostly okay about myself. But I do feel better, more confident. Yes, I could feel even better, mostly if I started exercising, working out, whatever. But I know that this blog has helped me feel better about my body.

I recently asked someone to pose for me, who considered it but replied that they weren’t comfortable enough with their body to do it. I thought that was really a shame. This happened to be a very attractive person who I think has a great body. But it would’ve been a shame even it wasn’t a conventionally attractive person.

We should all try to like our bodies, even if we can’t love them yet. They’re our bodies, right? We don’t get another body. So why not try to find the things that are great about our bodies and celebrate that?

I honestly and most sincerely believe that if people were more accustomed to seeing real, “normal” (or even not “normal”), average, everyday bodies undressed, it would be tremendously helpful for a lot of people’s self-esteem...that is, if we could get over the shame and horror that someone else might be seeing us. And if we didn’t hide away and shame ourselves, our bodies, we’d be better off psychologically. I’m not suggesting that everyone go naked 24 hours a day and in all locations. Sometimes it’s too cold. And sometimes we need something protecting our skin from the sun.

Someone once suggested to me that if people—specifically women— were more commonly naked, then men would go around with erections all the time, and that would be just awful.

Well, no, they wouldn’t. For one thing, past a certain age, men tend to require actual physical manipulation to achieve and sustain an erection. And anyway, an erection doesn’t have to be a scary, awful thing. I guess that’s one of the reasons that nudists carry towels. But more importantly, we would get used to seeing naked people, and we would stop automatically sexualizing nudity, so men wouldn’t always have erections all day—even the younger guys.

Don’t be afraid of nudity. And, for that matter, don’t be afraid of sex. People are sexual. 

Now if you’ve specifically been hurt or victimized in such a way that makes it very painful for you to deal with such things, then I say I’m so very sorry that such things have happened to you, and I hope that you are getting help to deal with those issues; I hope that in time you can come to a happier, healthier place concerning sex.

Otherwise, to everyone else who has issues about sex, I say get over it; don’t be a slave you some moralistic shame or fear-based ideology that you were taught as a child. Put away childish things...and childish attitudes. Make a damn effort. 

The Rite of Spring

My first semester in college I took a music class—I think it was Intro to Music Lit, one of those courses for music majors that you were supposed to take before your main music history classes—in which, at some point half-way through the semester, we watched a video of part of The Rite of Spring. 

The Rite of Spring, or Le sacre du printemps, is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky.

And Vaslav Nijinsky

choreographed the original production for the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1913. Both the music and the choreography were considered outrageous and nearly caused a riot by the audience.

It was definitely “pushing the envelope” in its day.

The score is now considered a major work of early 20th century “classical” music.

Well, when I watched this video in that class, just a little over 20 years ago, it wasn’t “outrageous”, but to me it seemed quite new and a little shocking. There was some nudity.

(AHHH! Naked people! AHHH!)

There was a solo dance in which the female soloist sort of danced her dress off. I didn’t know the piece then. I didn’t know that it is often performed with nudity. I was just surprised by the fact that her dress was falling down and she didn’t stop dancing, and no one stopped her to tell her. I thought at first that perhaps it was just one of those live performance accidents, but it eventually became quite clear to me that she couldn’t not be aware of this situation.

I don’t remember what the class discussion involved after we watched the video. So I don’t recall if the nudity was even brought up.

I have occasionally looked for that version, but I haven’t found it yet. I don’t recall any names—the dancers or company involved.

(None of these are from that version.)

Thinking about it now, I find it shockingly ridiculous that I found it surprising and shocking and had never seen any artistic performance before then which included nudity. And I can’t imagine I was the only one in the class who had that same level of ignorance or, if you’ll pardon the pun, that lack of exposure.

We still find nudity shocking today—at least nudity that doesn’t fit into certain acceptable or expected categories. Naked babies are fine. Nakedness in pornography is pretty-much a “given”. Nakedness in (some) cable TV and movies is okay as long as it’s set up right: a love scene or a shower scene or if it’s done for comedic effect. But it must be “pointed to” in a sense; it must be filmed in such a way as to bring it to our attention and played for the most titillation possible.

(BLECH! We suck.)

Ya know folks, artists are entertainers. Yes, we sometimes present nice, fun, sweet, pretty, socially non-problematic work which is extremely unlikely to offend anyone. 

BUT!!! We also are instigators, commentators, instructors, and many other things ending with “-ors”. Sometimes we present challenging, uncomfortable, ugly, shocking, surprising work that you very well may find offensive or may not even fully understand. If you’re shocked or surprised or offended, then you should ask yourself why.

What is being presented here that I find problematic in whatever way?
What is the author or creator of this work trying to do?
Should I be offended? Am I supposed to be upset about some external thing?
Or perhaps should I be re-examining myself and my assumptions about art and life?

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Well...

If you’re still with me... 

This turned into more of a rant than I expected. I’m quite certain I know why that is. Most likely I shall share that here sometime soon. 

the skinny-dipping congressman

A congressman from Kansas—Kevin Yoder—

Yep, I am "that guy"!

—while on a recent, privately funded, congressional “fact-finding” trip (whatever that means) went skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee.

That's right, the one that's in the Bible.

He was one of several members of Congress, their staff &/or family members who went in for a swim after diner and drinks. But apparently he was the only one to go naked.  

Well...okay. So what?

Yoder later made a statement to Politico.com:

“It is my greatest honor to represent the people of Kansas in Congress and [for] any embarrassment I have caused for my colleagues and constituents, I apologize.” (politico.com)

Wow. Really? This man did what, in that moment, probably seemed like a natural sort of thing. Why in the world is this an issue? Why should anyone need to apologize for this?

Apparently he and the others in the group were “rebuked” by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia).

Grr...Eric Cantor not happy.

Ya know, unless there’s a whole lot more that’s not being told in the news reports (and why is this even news-worthy?), then this is ridiculous nonsense. Maybe some prudish, uptight people would find Congressman Yoder’s behavior to be upsetting. But I simply do not see how skinny-dipping has any impact on his ability to do his job.

The world is clearly fucked up.

nonsense

I read a post on the facebook several days ago which mentioned that someone I knew some time back has died recently. And the post ended with “God just gained an angel who...”

When I see that kind of nonsense I just think, “Ug. People...really?”

Look, I realize this is insensitive, but...

People die. Okay, I’m sure that anyone who was really close to this person who died feels sad. They feel a sense of loss. I understand.

And maybe I’m just a heartless fuck, but...

“God” doesn’t gain an “angel” when a human dies. I don’t remember such a thing from Sunday school. So why do we say such things? I don’t get that. Humans and “angels” are different creatures. Aren’t we humans, according to the mythology, the pinnacle of creation? Certainly we’re above angels in the standard hierarchy. I think it’s because we have free will. Angels were created as servants, but we weren’t. So to become an angel would be a sort of demotion.

Now, exactly how would it be helpful to someone to think a dead friend or loved one has now been demoted to angel?

.   .   .   .   .

Clearly it’s just soft and fluffy, touch-feely nonsense that people tell themselves and each other to keep from dealing with the reality of the situation—that we humans are like everything else on this planet: we die and then our bodies become fuel for something else.

But no! We do not accept that. So we try to fool ourselves into thinking we’re some special immortal exception.

It’s not even enough for us that we imagine the “soul”—the essence of “what we really are”—separates out and continues on forever. We try to fool ourselves into thinking our bodies are gonna go on forever too. And not just with medical advances and cryogenic dreams.

We don’t generally want people to see normal, naturally decaying dead human bodies. So we pump them full of chemicals and paint them up to preserve the appearance of life, and we seal them in air-tight boxes before we put them in the ground. And we express horror at the idea that dead bodies are eaten by something. Even if it’s just bugs, or plants, we’re all eaten by something.

Every living thing on the planet eats other life and is, in turn, eaten. That is what happens, every day, every year, every millennium. That is how the whole thing works.

I can only hope that one day I’ll be delicious.

Unfriends (2)

So I lost a couple more friends on the facebook not long ago. I know who it was: a few students I’d played for this past year. I don’t know if they unfriended me because of this blog, or if it was more of a spring (summer) cleaning, a general unfriending, as I won’t be around to play for them or even to say hi occasionally this coming school year.

The rate of my facebook unfriending has certainly slowed significantly. The first few months after I started this blog (and started posting it on the facebook) it was considerably more than a trickle. But not lately. And I actually sort of miss it. It’s almost like if I’m not offending somebody I must be doing it wrong.

Now, this blog isn’t intended to offend. But, just like I don’t try to flash people, yet I don’t mind if people happen to see me naked, I’m not actively trying to offend people, yet I don’t have a problem with it if someone is offended.

In fact, maybe people need to be offended sometimes. Certainly if it gets them to think then it’s probably a good thing. Although, I suspect most people who get offended just sort of shut down any analytical part of their brain and just ignore or go into rant/talking-point mode.

So...feel free to be offended. 

Coffee Talk

This morning at Starbucks I overheard a few snatches of a conversation. 

It was a couple of over-tanned, middle-aged, blonde dye-jobs discussing in their annoying Southern accents how they’ve lately realized that they’ve just sort of moved apart from their respective high school sweethearts/(soon to be ex-?) husbands.

Luckily I was leaving, so I didn’t have to try not to hear the specifics of their (not at all) surprising story.

Not Facebook-able

Well, I’ve been feeling restless, antsy, maybe even frisky lately. I’m sort of just waiting for the next few weeks to be over. I’m not doing much of anything much of the time. So the other day I was getting brave about exactly what I post on the facebook. You could say I was pushing the envelope, but I would say I wasn’t really aware of any envelope-pushing. At any rate, the envelope pushed back.

I’ve been blocked from posting on facebook for a few days because of this picture from a few days back:

I kinda figured it’d be okay. Or maybe on some level I didn’t. Maybe I’m just bored, and I was trying to liven things up a little. I don’t know.

But if I was gonna be blocked for posting a picture, I should’ve posted something a bit more extreme. Something like these:

Much more offensive than mine, right?

—         —         —

Not being able to post stuff or comment on stuff has made me very aware of just how much I've been doing that lately. Too much, probably. It’s the main form of contact I have with “the world” i.e., most people I know.

Quite a few times the first day of being blocked I had the impulse to check facebook. But I didn’t have it open. Not being able to post or comment or even like others’ posts, I didn’t see much point in staying logged on. Usually I keep facebook open on my computer all day if I’m home, which is most days lately. I’m starting to get over that impulse, but at some point later day I’ll be able to post and comment again. So, it’s not unlikely that the previous behavior will return.

Oh yeah, they also took this opportunity to switch me over to the “timeline” on my profile, or at least to tell me that it’ll take effect soon—August 6th. Somehow I’d quite happily avoided it for several months now. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, however I will view this as an extra little “fuck you” from the facebook people.