Greyfriar's Isle

Nude Lease On Life @nudeleaseonlife.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 01:41 UTC

We are so excited to have Andy Golub and Human Connection Arts joining us at Gunnison Beach for Skinny Dip Day this Saturday! Are you going to be at the beach as well? Head over to humanconnectionarts.org/skinny-dip-d... to register yourself to be body painted by one of these very talented artists!

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:26 UTC

It's been there before, during the second wave and those were not great times, the roots of modern TERFism. But it was different during the late-aughts heyday of liberal tumblr 'choice' feminism, and we may end up missing that time period a lot. IDK.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:25 UTC

I also think lately the pendulum within feminist thought has been swinging back towards sex-negativity and body-negativity, which includes hostility towards porn and towards nudity in arts, and an unwillingness to distinguish between the two. This is mostly based on vibes RN, though.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:24 UTC

I think these may be a sign of legitimate conversations about consent and about men taking up space curdling into body-negativity, which works in tandem with sex-negativity, and that these conversations are at risk of being co-opted that way.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:22 UTC

Lately, I've been seeing some arguments along the lines of 'being naked around people who don't want to be around naked people is sexual assault', and yes, often it is, but in that absolute form, it only holds up if you think that nudity is always equal to sexuality. What it is, is fucking rude.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:19 UTC

Finally, a quick footnote, more of a loose thought, about anti-nudity attitudes on the left. Right now, these are not being spread at gunpoint, so I have no desire to show off how Fair and Balanced I'm being by mentioning it in the body of the thread, but I do have some concerns.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:18 UTC

And The Camp, substack.com/@thecamp, and the Naturist Education Foundation: naturisteducation.org

Because whatever else you might think, being informed helps. The truth will set you free.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:17 UTC

Anyway, read the coverage on Planet Nude, www.planetnude.co?r=3ntv3o support the Naturist Action Committee and spend some time around some of its contributors who provide historical and cultural context, like Almost Wild: substack.com/@almostwild

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:10 UTC

"Doing better" probably starts with telling better stories about ourselves and understanding where to be tactful and where to push the envelope. And getting our comms out of Level 101. Yeah that's it, I think I'm… not exactly done, but spent, for now.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:07 UTC

( I can tell my brain fog is starting to assert itself and I will need to wrap this up more quickly) I think 'accurate information' already covered the 'knowing the enemy' section and I've sort of stumbled into "Doing Better" as well.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:05 UTC

"We're living in harmony with nature", says a naturist who flew from Europe to a resort in the Caribbean. And so on. Let's start by trying to separate our aspirations from what is true, which is that most of the time, nudism/naturism is very boring and mundane and about people's personal comfort.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:03 UTC

There's likely to be a bit in there about how nudity erases artificial distinctions. Which is at best a half-truth, as, for example, Black or trans first-time nudists find out when the first person they see at an upscale resort is a guy protecting himself against sunburn with a MAGA hat.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 08:01 UTC

Paragraphs 2-12: "All the wobbly bits! But it did feel liberating. I forgot I was naked! This guy wishes everyone could be named always. How about some volleyball?" Paragraph 13: "That was fun, now let's never do that again." Naturists: "Some interesting thoughts and a good read"

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:59 UTC

We welcome any media that even mentions naturism, even if it's always the same, it always treats naturists as the other and is stuck at Level 101 in perpetuity. You've read the articles. Paragraph 1: "I Never thought I'd dare to go naked in public, but I just did"

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:56 UTC

This is getting fairly long and I'm not tired yet. I may be able to get all of my dogwalking thoughts out after all. Where was I? Oh yeah, accurate information about ourselves. You know who the biggest purveyors of stereotypes about naturism are? Naturists.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:55 UTC

… go persuade other conservatives that express anti-naturist views or prejudices that they're mistaken and that they're being misled by that hate group. Leave anti-naturism on the left to us on the left. We're really good at arguing with ourselves over literally anything, I promise!

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:53 UTC

Seriously, I've just taken a look at the lively but already closed comment section on that Planet Nude article and the denial is strong with some of you. Go clean up your own back yard! Instead of trying to persuade readers there that Libs of TikTok is not a far-right hate group…

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:52 UTC

And if you are personally one of those right-leaning nudists who are angered at being tarred with a broad brush right now, I have a question for you. What are you doing about it? Because if you've been out there on Planet Nude commenting "nuh-uh!", you need to stop doing that and do something else.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:49 UTC

The best answer I can give to that, for now is "Support the Naturist Action Committee, they do good work.

naturistaction.org

And generally, keep your eyes and ears open.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:44 UTC

But who's even collecting this data? Where can I go to find out what a political candidate or action group actually thinks about these issues? I'm pretty sure that the Project 2025 people would send all naturists to prison if they could, but where's the hard evidence?

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:43 UTC

Also, in the American political context, opposition to nudism seems to be pretty bipartisan because any other position can quickly kill political candidacies. But more business-oriented and libertarian Republicans probably don't care, and could be persuaded.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:41 UTC

… it's never that simple, is it? Conservative nudists exist otherwise those comments to pro-queer Planet Nude articles wouldn't be happening. And there's a whole philosophical movement within naturism that is called Christian Nudism, which I can't even begin to pretend to understand, but it's real.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:38 UTC

So my natural inclination is to think that attacks on nudism/naturism are going to come from the right, and support for it is going to come from whatever is left of the left. And these new, more violent attacks absolutely bear that out and naturists should face up to that. But…

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:37 UTC

Right-wing evangelicals came to nude beaches to hand out clothes, as if nudists hadn't heard of modesty. Back then, their anti-nudity campaigns were fairly toothless and ridiculous, but that didn't stop me from taking note of whose side they were on.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:36 UTC

In those days, an actual political party that people voted for had "expand nude recreation" in its platform for local elections (it was the PSP, the Pacifist Socialist Party, also known for their election poster featuring a nude woman in a field during the seventies). And right-wing evangelicals?

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:34 UTC

When it comes to the friends and enemies, this is where I need to back off a bit from my own preconceived notions and my own lived experiences. See, I've always been pretty left-wing and also back when I was younger, things really did seem pretty straightforward, at least here in the Netherlands.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:33 UTC

But we can have accurate information that tells us who our friends and enemies are, what the law of the land and the cultural norms are where, what persuasive/lobbying strategies work on whom, and about who we ourselves are.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:30 UTC

You may be able to inform some of the people on the fringes of that MLM, the young, impressionable (or old and gullible) people who Libs of TikTok is in the process of recruiting, by targeting their existing prejudices about nudity being always sexual, but the core movement is unpersuadable.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:28 UTC

By 'accurate information' I mean accurate information for us, not for them. You can't *inform* the people behind Libs of TikTok into believing that everything that goes on at Bare Oaks is above board and healthy. They're a political MLM that thrives on spreading lies and hate.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:24 UTC

Joining forces means joining forces with each other as naturists, but also with LGBTQ organizations, sex workers and others who are being targeted by far right hate. Those things worked, back when we were playing offense.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:24 UTC

So, what do we do. Well, I'm not the comms director for a major naturist organization, I'm just a schmuck who draws naked people. But I think it would start with * joining forces * accurate information * knowing the enemy * doing better.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:22 UTC

As this article said, they came for the LGBTQ people and now they're coming for us, with lies and with guns, the same tactics they used on the LGBTQ people. If nothing else, we have the same enemies in common. And we need conservative-leaning nudists to understand that they are, indeed, our enemies.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:21 UTC

…there's always someone in the comments saying, I've got nothing against gay people, but everything's cool now, right?/they've gone too far this time/this has nothing to do with us/it's sexual, don't shove it in our faces. Wrong. It has everything to do with us, says this cishet dude.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:19 UTC

Whenever there's an article on Planet Nude that connects naturism with queer culture, regardless of the nature of that connection, whether it talks abt queer exclusion from naturist spaces, or the role queer orgs have played in making naturism more acceptable back when we were still playing offense…

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:16 UTC

I suffer from brain fog and so what seems like a cogent argument when I'm thinking about this stuff while walking the dogs doesn't always come out as coherent writing when I sit down an hour later. But I'm gonna try. First, this was heartbreaking but also not at all surprising. This was coming.

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Greyfriar's Isle @greyfriarsisle.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 07:14 UTC

www.planetnude.co/p/far-right-...

Heartbreaking to read of attacks on the GTA Skinnydippers and Bare Oaks Family Naturist park by the far-right hate groups Libs of TikTok and True North. If you're a #naturist, you should read this article and then think about what you can do about it.

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