Being openly naked is a positive and healthy lifestyle which many people fail to understand. I'm also certainly not the only puppeteer or artist who has ever wanted to enjoy an openly naked lifestyle.
However I am the only naturist in my family, so I had to learn about naturism all on my own. One of the most positive things that I've learned is the fact that when kids are raised in naturist families, where everyone is naked in front of each other, the children grow up with a wonderful gift of self-confidence and positive feelings about themselves. They do not have the negative and sexualized view of nudity that is so prevalent in our culture.
Certainly, teaching kids to be confident and feel good about their bodies is far better than being taught to have lifelong feelings of insecurity, shame and embarrassment. So then why do we do it? Why do we shame each other about our bodies and being naked? What is more civilized, shaming our bodies for being what they are, or respecting our bodies for being what they are? I think the answer is self evident.
Since I first began posting my nude photos online in 2023, along with articles about my experience with naturism, some of my non-naturist friends and fellow artists have reached out to offer me their support and I sincerely appreciate this very much. (continued below)
I don't have a "perfect body" but it's just perfect for me.
The simple truth is, being openly naked is far healthier and more natural than forever shaming our bodies and keeping them hidden away. Being openly naked embodies me with a powerful sense of joy, freedom and confidence that makes me feel happy to be alive. It has taught me to love and accept myself just the way I am, and to jettison society's oppressive shaming. In regards to coping with my chronic depression, being openly naked has been extremely healing for me! It is far more effective than any medication I have ever tried!
Canceling me in any way simply for talking about this openly or for sharing my naked selfies online is a closed-minded act of censorship, as it seeks to silence me and limit my right to self expression. To do such a thing is wrong no matter how one might try to justify it.
It seems to me that in the rush to judgement about my being openly naked while also being a puppeteer, people forget that puppetry is an extremely diverse art form. I should not have to tell anyone in this day and age that this is not a medium just for children!
Over the years, I've seen my share of puppet shows that have had scenes with nudity in them, either with the puppets being naked (and I'm not talking about Kermit the Frog not wearing any clothes, this is regarding human puppet characters with human bodies) or the performer themselves being briefly naked. Ronnie Burkett instantly comes to mind as being one of the former (specifically the puppets in "Provenance" which I saw three times because I absolutely adore Burkett's puppetry), among many other puppeteers. I have yet to do such a thing myself though I would absolutely, very much like to do that someday under the right circumstances, specifically in regards to being naked on stage during one of my shows. I think that would be quite a brave thing to do.
Yet, there is also a critical distinction to be made here. I do not and have never posted pictures of sexual behaviour, that is not at all what I am doing. I'm simply sharing what my natural, naked body looks like because I am proud to be a human being and am tired of shaming myself or being shamed by others for it. I've had enough of the shaming, so instead of allowing that nonsense to affect me negatively and prevent me from enjoying life the way I want to, I'm choosing to be comfortable in my own skin.
If we look at nudity more objectively, rather than making sexualized assumptions about it, there is no reason at all why anyone should be embarrassed or ashamed to be naked. More importantly, it makes me happy to be seen as the real me, my true naked self. I have been wanting to do this all my life but have been too afraid to do so until now. I'm very proud of myself for being this brave.
Over my lifetime, I've taken hundreds of beautiful naked selfies, all beautifully posed and photographed, yet all of which I immediately destroyed out of shame rather than sharing them openly with anyone else. The immense shame that my Catholic upbringing, and society in general, taught me to have about myself and my body was to such an extent that I felt that I had no choice but to destroy the photos. It still makes me very sad that I did so because my younger self was quite handsome. I destroyed something that I thought was beautiful about myself out of fear and shame, but I'm not doing that anymore.
It's wrong that I should have ever been made to feel that way in the first place. Our culture has a very unhealthy outlook when it comes to nudity and cancelling people simply because they are brave enough to be openly naked. We need to change that negative and unjustified ideology within our culture and start celebrating our bodies instead, rather than insisting on shaming them. It's not okay to be so hypocritical about who gets to be a genuine human being and who doesn't.
Here's an example of one of the very few photos from when I was younger that I didn't destroy. I took this one twenty years ago when I was 32. Several nude photos were taken during this particular photo session but those were all deleted, despite how beautiful they were. I don't think one needs to be a gay man or a heterosexual woman to look at this photo and understand what a tragic loss it is that those uniquely beautiful nude photos were destroyed out of shame.
The world certainly doesn't need to see me naked, the sky is not going to fall, but there is certainly something inherently wrong with our culture when a handsome young man (or a beautiful young woman) feels that they are not allowed to openly express and share their own natural beauty with the world.
Certainly, we each have our own comfort zone with nudity and being naked, and I have absolute respect for that which is why I never send out unsolicited photos or otherwise force anyone to see my naked body if they don't want to see it.
The photos on this blog have been edited for that very reason. My other blog page Mikey Artelle's "Naked and Free" Body Positive Blog has a blocked access page on it which people must consent to passing in order to view the content. The images with nudity that I post on my Quora page are all blurred unless the image is clicked on, therefore consent is again required. I also post photos on NonShy which is exclusively a nudist's website so the only reason to visit that site is to see people's nude photos and connect with other naturists.
As such I am doing nothing to offend anyone, I am simply being my honest, true, genuine, human self. Cancelling me for that is just simply a rotten thing to do.
I simply refuse to give merit to anyone who would try to shame me for being openly naked.
It's worth repeating, being naked and free makes me happy to be alive! It makes me feel proud to be me and a genuine human being! I absolutely love it!
Thank you kindly for taking the time to read my post. - Mikey Artelle
Photo: Mikey Artelle's naked selfie from the summer of 2020, age 46.
