The Naked Truth - Journal of a Christian Nudist

Most Christians today would assume that to merely look upon the unclothed form of anyone other than one's spouse would be an occasion for sin. This however, is an idea that comes from our culture rather than from any appeal to logic or a careful examination of scripture or early church practice. As a biblically conservative Christian who was raised in a home where seeing other family members nude was common and never considered a big deal, I have actually taken the time to test my experience against Christian teaching about the body. In the 30-some years I have been studying scripture, Christian philosophy, Church history and theological anthropology, I have yet to come across a cogent argument that seeing others in the state in which God created them is morally wrong. To be sure, some have proposed such arguments, but they have all failed to hold up to serious scrutiny. I therefore became a nudist (or "naturist" as some prefer to say.)


I now endeavor to be "salt and light" and to represent the truth of the Gospel of Christ among a growing sub-culture here in the U.S.A. that regularly chooses to recreate "au natural." Whether among casual skinny-dippers or year-round nudist club residents, myself and other Christians are beginning to have an impact on this often un-churched people group. The obstacle to faith for some is that many Christians wrongly condemn their nudism. My task is to show that the Gospel is true and worthy of believing in spite of the false ideas of these misguided Christians. Please pray that many nudists will come to a saving knowledge of Christ and that they may find churches that will welcome them.


From time to time I will post my experiences and specific prayer requests on this blog. I use the same screen name "stringsinger" on a number of Yahoo! groups and naturist/nudist forums, so you may find my posts elsewhere on the net. Try Google-ing "stringsinger+nude" or some similar variation.


-stringsinger

This is from a different thread, but it makes sense to post it here as well:

I am so tired of hearing Christians toss off this idea that men are "wired to be visually oriented" as if this is an established fact. Where does this idea come from? Sex researchers who "test their hypothesis" by showing pornography to male and female subjects? Evolutionary psychologists who have a prior philosophical commitment to the physicalist idea that human beings are nothing more than machines programed to respond to their environments in ways that maximize reproductive advantage? There certainly is no biblical support for this view of human nature. I can personally attest that vision doesn't play a vital role in my sexual relationship with my wife. My responses come from my emotions of love, tenderness and admiration for her. This is just as true when the lights are out as when they are on. I strongly suspect in fact, that if I were to become blind, my sexual relationship with my wife would not suffer in the least. We really do not advance the understanding of human nature or help the Body of Christ in any way by advancing these kind of silly ideas. Believe me, I am not faulting Larkspur here, he is only repeating what so many Christian leaders carelessly say.

What happens when we accept this lie and teach it? A woman so taught, may wrongly assume that all that is necessary for her to bring to her sexual relationship with her husband is for her to expose her body to him. What then when she begins to age a bit? Will she become become obsessed with retaining her youthful looks? Will he start searching for someone more visually pleasing because "after all that is how God designed him to function sexually?" No wonder so much of the Church behaves no differently than the surrounding culture when it comes to sexual ethics!

Let us apply an assumption of Intelligent Design in our thoughts about the psychology of human sexuality: God designed our bodies to be trainable to do various tasks though repetition. This is how we can learn to walk, ride a bicycle, drive a car or play a musical instrument. When we have practiced them enough, we can perform these tasks practically without thinking. Human sexuality is no different. If you want to know why so many men in our culture have a visually oriented sexuality, it is this: in our culture that shuns simple nudity, yet consumes massive quantities of pornography, men who repeatedly use porn to sexually stimulate themselves are literally training their bodies to respond sexually to visual images. Men who live in cultures where nudity is common, don't have a sexual reaction whenever they see an exposed female breast. Men who do not use porn and who's primary experience of other naked human beings is in the context of social nudism where rules of behavior apply, are repeatedly "practicing" civil, non-sexual behavior toward others who are in their created state (naked.)

I am such a man (a nudist,) and I can assure you that my sexual relationship with my wife is both exclusive and satisfying and it is not in any way dependent upon visual stimulation.

-Gregg Gatewood (stringsinger)

Labor Day provided the rare opportunity for my whole family (myself, my wife, my 17 year old son, and 22 year old daughter) to spend the day together at our local nudist resort. This was the first time my daughter was able to join us since we became members a little over a year ago. She typically has to work on weekends when the rest of the family is able to go. This was her first time back in a social nudist setting in about ten years. She took to it right away as if she had never been away, and enjoyed the whole day.

Of course, the rest of our family has been going regularly for more than a year, so we are starting to establish friendships with some of the other members, residents and regular visitors. This time, I spoke at length with one such couple, Al and Sharon who having met my daughter for the first time and who already knew my son, remarked about how "well grounded" my children seemed for people their ages. I offered that while many young people have been taught by our education system that they are essentially accidents of nature, my children have grown up knowing that there are good reasons to believe that Christianity is actually true and that God has a purpose for their lives. At this, Al mentioned that he had seen some guys that he has worked with who's "lives were a mess" do a complete turn around after becoming Christians. I explained about the work of the Holy Spirit who indwells all believers and enables them to break the hold of sin and live morally upright lives.

Please pray for Sharon and Al. They seem very open to the Gospel, each of them having had a Catholic upbringing, but not presently attending any church. Pray with me that the Christ will draw them into a close relationship with Himself, and that they might then find a place to be in community with other Christians.

-Gregg

On another Christian forum I frequent where nudism is being discussed, one member objected that being nude around others would be "unhygienic." A nudist member gave the standard response:

"To address your concerns about [hygiene], the proper etiquette when involved in social naturism is to bring a towel to sit on."

This is of course true, every nudist knows to always bring a towel to sit on. But there is another issue related to how well our culture does with body hygiene, and this was the subject of some discussion at my club over the weekend. So I posted the following reply:

Speaking of hygiene...I was discussing this with my son and a couple of other folks while we were relaxing in the spa at our local nudist resort this past weekend. My son tells me that absolutely none of the students at his high school use the showers after gym class anymore. At the Jr. high he previously attended, the unused showers were used for storage space! How hygienic is it to go to all the rest of one's classes all sweaty and smelly from exercising? Apparently, the fear of seeing or being seen nude is so strong now for those of Jr. high or high school age (even among one's own sex) that hygiene is ignored! This seemed bizarre to those of us who attended high school in the 1960's, 70's or 80's when showers were a requirement (at least here in California.) Something has gone very wrong with our culture when bodily hygiene is neglected for the sake of so-called "modesty." This is not the case among social nudists. If one gets sweaty from playing sports, he just showers off, as often as necessary. There is no need to undress before or to put on clothes afterward. Our club has a communal shower area with six shower heads. Everyone uses them - male, female, young or old. Showers are required before entering any pool or spa. It is almost a certainty that nudists shower more often than the general public. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that due to their greater body acceptance and awareness, nudists practice better body hygiene than most any other group of people (with the possible exception of doctors.)

Fortunately, my son doesn't have any gym classes this year, so this is no longer an issue for him. But the school bathrooms, well that's another story...

-Gregg

An important thought from another thread:

You know, there is something really profound and true about what you are saying here. I hope that everyone reading this will ponder and take it to heart. It may just be that our cultural affinity for wearing an artificial covering at all times makes us lose sight of each other's humanness. It is ironic, but when we see people in their natural state, not only are their bodies more apparent, but their souls as well.

-Gregg Gatewood

So what about children seeing their parents nude? Isn't this harmful to them? Some child rearing "experts" like Dr. Benjamine Spock have warned that it is. But are such opinions actually backed up by academic studies? The answer is that they are not. There are not to date, an abundance of such studies. Of the ones that do exist though, the only conclusion one can draw, is that child exposure to casual parental nudity is not the least bit harmful and may even be beneficial. For a good survey of the relevant studies, I recommend reading this article by Mark Storey on the FCN website. (There is some vary minimal nudity on the masthead of the web page, so don't go there if you if find the appearance of humans in their created state offensive.)

To this academic empirical evidence, I can add my own anecdotal testimony. I was raised in a home where it was common for me to see my parents or siblings (two sisters) nude. We just didn't make a big deal about having to cover up when other family members were around, and were unashamed of changing clothes or bathing in each other's presence. We even, on a few occasions, went skinny-dipping together as a family. Additionally, my parents slept nude. I readily adopted this practice for myself and now consider it the only sensible way to sleep. Being raised in this kind of environment helped me to have a good attitude toward my own body and respect for the bodies of others. I can think of no negative effect this has had on me, unless one considers problematic the fact that I am now a nudist, but that simply begs the question under consideration on this blog.

My wife Kathy's family of origin experience was very different than mine. Her family was always secretive about their bodies and her parents were loath to speak about the body or its functions. She grew up with a sense of shame about her body, and was afraid to ask her parents any questions about it. The lack of openness about the body in her family prevented her from telling her parents when one of her school teachers began to molest her. She silently suffered at the hands of this evil man for three years, until being promoted to a higher grade level removed her from the school where he taught.

I entered into a marriage relationship with Kathy, not knowing of the damage that had been done to her self image and her sexuality. This has created significant hardship in our relationship for which God's mercies have brought tremendous healing. Because of our very different upbringings though, early in our relationship, we had a clash of child rearing philosophies. While I advocated the type of openness that I had experienced, she, despite her own experience, was fearful that nudity would somehow be harmful to our children. Our children's upbringing has therefore been varied in this regard.

We set out to try a more open approach and even participated in social nudism. But during a time when Kathy was in therapy to address issues stemming from her molestation, she became fearful of being around strangers and was counseled by someone at church that social nudity is sinful. At that time, and with a great deal of turmoil, we ceased all social nude recreation and began to be clothed at all times in front of our children. I agreed to this for Kathy's mental comfort and her conscience sake.

Looking back, I can see that this sudden shift in the way we related to our children caused a good deal of confusion for them during this time in their lives, most especially for our youngest (our son). Except for this necessary hiatus from nudism though, our children have been for the most part, raised as nudists. As they are now entering adulthood, I see in them, a much better body self image and a more sensible attitude toward the opposite sex than the majority of their contemporaries. It remains to be seen if they will choose continue to be nudists, or who they may marry and how they will choose to raise their own children. I have great confidence in them to make good decisions in these areas and look forward to watching their adult lives unfold.

What I have been writing in this journal reflects the experience and thoughts of just one person. Readers should be aware that there are many others like me, who find nudism to be an important part of their life in Christ. With that in mind, I'd like to recommend an excellent resource. Anyone who has a serious desire to learn about nudism from a Christian perspective should take a look at the Figleaf Forum web page. I am a subscriber to their newsletter, and have been systematically reading though all of the back issues. I am more than half way through them, and can vouch for its high editorial quality. There are articles by the editor, forum members and from critics of social nudism. Both the newsletter and the web site are text only. That is, there are no photographs depicting nudism, so the information they contain is available to all without fear of being offended. Whether you are curious, indifferent or hostile to nudism, you will find something of interest in the huge volume of information available there.


-Gregg

I've been a little too busy to post anything here lately, but I found a website the other day that I wanted to share, and this is my first opportunity to do so. In keeping with the theme of my last post, this one again points to someone who views nudism from a different perspective than my own. Despite the fact that I became a nudist early in my life, I am now in my middle-aged years, and it is quite unremarkable to read about nudism from my demographic. Middle-aged males are well represented in nudism (at least among those who are willing to write about their experiences on the Internet.) The reality is that all sorts of people (couples, families and singles) participate in social nudism, but fewer women seem to write about it.

This is why I am recommending the personal website of SunnyDay, a twenty-five-year-old, married, Christian woman who writes quite eloquently and prolifically about her experiences and thoughts on living life as a nudist. Her section entitled "My Stories" chronicles her early nudist experiences at age seventeen through her present life with Brian, her husband of two years. Of particular interest to Christian Forums readers will be Sunny's discussion about the compatibility of nudism and her Christian beliefs. Thank you Sunny, for a great website!

-Gregg

A very favorable article entitled "Clothing restrictive; society should accept nonsensual nudity" appeard recently in the Texas Christian University student newspaper the TCU Daily Skiff. The article identifys the author as a non-nudist who supports nudism ideologically. The idea of Christian nudism must be gaining ground in our culture if someone like Ms. Weaver is willing to not only broach the subject, but to defend it in the student paper of a Christian university.
Good for her! The text appears below:
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It is no accident that in the biblical creation story man was naked. After all, Adam and Eve represented nature.

It is also no accident that when they sinned they took up clothing to hide their shame - in some ways, wearing clothing was their punishment for sin.

But Adam and Eve had it wrong. Before they felt that nudity was shameful, they thought nothing of it. It was natural. And God certainly had no problem with it. They were not obligated to clothe themselves.

Clothing is very functional, especially in cold weather. My wool coat and boots may not be very useful in Texas, but they sure come in handy in Kansas City.

In the heat of a Texas summer, is clothing really necessary?

Clothing performs a lot of necessary functions. It shelters people from the elements. It can protect the body from harm. It can be a form of self-expression or disguise. It can keep prying eyes at bay.

But clothing is also very restricting. At times, it restricts freedom of movement, or is even painful - any girl who has worn an underwire bra for 18 straight hours knows this. It can even be dangerous - try running in high heels. It can give people the wrong impressions, and the wrong clothes can distort a body.

Additionally, clothing is expensive. Everyone has to own the latest and greatest fashions and have clothing for every occasion. It has long since ceased to be merely functional and is even worn in instances where it is clearly not necessary, like at the beach.

Worse, clothing has become a form of societal pressure. Every woman wants to fit into that teeny swimsuit. Or lose a dress size. Some women will even go pretty far to fit the clothing norm. A new procedure, toe shortening, is available for women who want their feet to fit more easily into pointy shoes. They would literally disfigure themselves and put their bodies at risk for fashion.

But The Naturist Society doesn't think this is necessary.

As TNS' Web site reads: "We take the issue of body acceptance seriously. We view the nude human form for what it is: a gift of nature, dignified and worthy of respect, regardless of shape, size, age or hue."

TNS is an organization that provides information and resources for "naturists," another term for "nudists." The term "naturist" emphasizes nudity as a natural state of being and seeks to avoid sexual connotations associated with the term "nudist."

I recently spoke to a naturist who participates in nude events like swimming, camping and nude bowling. He said that rather than cover a body and smooth out imperfections, clothing actually distorts the body and makes it appear uglier than it really is.

The human body is natural and beautiful, he said. And when people become used to seeing each other naked, they lose their self-consciousness.

Being a nudist is not about sex or sensuality; it is our culture that teaches us this concept is the purpose of nudity. Nude pictures in our society almost always emphasize sensuality, rather than show people in natural or comfortable situations.

When people become used to nudity, and when it becomes natural rather than nude, nudity is no longer a state of continual arousal. Instead, it is a comfortable state of being.

I am not arguing that our society needs to become nudist, but that society and individuals need to become more comfortable with the concept of nonsensual nudity. Instead of portraying naked people as sexual commodities, accept them as beautiful and comfortable expressions of humanity.

My challenge for you is to try being nude more often, if just once or twice a month. After a shower, don't immediately cover yourself. Leave off your towel and lounge on your bed (if you share a room, you should probably ask your roommate's permission or wait until he or she is not around). Next time you go to Florida or Europe, seek out a clothing-optional beach. See how much more comfortable it is to swim without clothing. For women, in some areas, it is legal to be topless in any place men are allowed to be. Take advantage of this rule. But don't pose for Girls Gone Wild. This isn't the type of nudity I'm talking about.

I'm not suggesting a complete lifestyle change, unless you want to make one. Just learn to be comfortable in your own skin and with the skin of others. After all, my friend tells me, you'll save a lot of money on clothing and you won't have to do nearly as much laundry.

Opinion editor Stephanie Weaver is a senior English, philosophy and French major from Westwood, Kan. She is not a nudist herself, but she supports nudist ideals.

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