This selfie is from March 2020.
I know most people will think this is odd, but since 2019 I've been proud to be a part-time naturist. Unfortunately it's illegal to be naked in public anywhere in Ottawa, so I only get to enjoy naturism for one week out of the entire summer (because I don't have a money tree) when I go camping at a naturist or clothing optional campground. Another option is to go to Hanlan's Point Beach in Toronto, which is a legally authorized clothing optional public beach. I wish that Ottawa had a clothing optional beach, I would be there every day of the summer.
Frankly, it makes me sad that our society has become so negative in regards to nudity and the human body. We're so disconnected from our bodies and our true nature that we've not only allowed this aspect of our humanity to be completely prohibited from being seen in public, we actually demand it to be. We insist on keeping our bodies covered up and forgotten about, out of sight and out of mind. In addition, we've disgracefully sexualized being naked in our culture to the extent that we can only think about nudity in a sexual way, our bodies are seen as sex objects rather than simply being who we are for real as human beings.
We generally don't understand the concept or meaning of non-sexual nudity anymore which is an incredibly significant and sad loss of our humanity, and I find this quite despairing. Nudity is always portrayed by the media in a sexualized context, therefore sex and nudity have become one and the same in our culture, even though they are in fact two very different and separate things. You don't need to be naked to have sex, and you can be naked without having sex. This is a very simple and basic concept, yet our understanding of nudity has become so distorted that many people today would have trouble wrapping their minds around it. We have become too sexually immature as a society to do so.
Not very long ago, within the last 100 years or so, our society used to be more open-minded and carefree about nudity, it was simply a part of life to go swimming naked at the lake with your family or friends, or to bathe naked together at the community bath house. Until the 1960's most homes did not have bathtubs, therefore bathing with others at a community bath house and being naked in public wherever people went swimming was the norm. When indoor swimming pools began to be built in the 1920s men and boys continued to swim naked indoors, and it was common for high schools to have nude male swim classes or swim teams. Some indoor pools still allowed males to swim nude as recently as the early 1980's.
How did society change so drastically?
Due to the derogatory influence of religion, people began to erroneously believe that nudity was shameful and offensive and therefore should no longer be seen in public. In the 1920's swimsuits were introduced for modesty sake and shortly after swimming naked outdoors was banned outright. By the mid 1980's swimming nude at indoor pools was completely banned as well. The next thing to be abolished was the practice of allowing high school students to shower after gym class, which ended in the 1990's. Since then, communal shower stalls in community centers and fitness clubs have typically been replaced by individual stalls with doors on them. Fast forward to today, it's now illegal to be naked anywhere in public, including your own backyard or balcony, which I think is very oppressive. We're no longer allowed to be our true selves and enjoy the freedom of being naked outside on a warm summers day. Essentially, being a genuine human being is now against the law.
In fact we're so offended with being naked in front of others that in 2023 Hockey Canada set in place a new policy in which players of "all minor hockey teams" are now prohibited from being naked in front of each other in the dressing room at any time, which apparently includes wearing a towel. The "Minimum Attire Rule" requires all participants on a team to wear no less than shorts and a t-shirt or compression bra at all times when in a dressing room, and they must use the private stalls to change in if they need to put on a base later of clothing. This includes changing into and out of their swimsuit, which they must wear when showering in a communal shower when private stalls are not available.
I wonder how one travels from the changing stall with their bathing suit on to the communal shower? Do they have to wear shorts and a t-shirt over top of their bathing suit until they get to the communal shower? Is wearing just a towel and bathing suit acceptable? After the shower, where is the player supposed to dry off before putting their t-shirt and shorts back on? Can they walk back to the changing stall in their bathing suit to in order to dry off? What if all the changing stalls are occupied, do they have to go back and wait in the shower until a changing stall is available? Clearly there are a few interesting grey areas in this new policy.
Inclusivity is supposed to avoid harm, not cause it.
Inclusivity (based on "religious reasons, chronic conditions, body image, and gender") is the excuse being used for justifying this ridiculous policy which will only reinforce the inherently misguided notion that is it ethically wrong to be naked in front of others. The new policy will reinforce in an a more militant way what we already teach to children, that the true nature of our humanity, our naked bodies, is shameful or offensive and should be kept hidden. How sad for those kids to grow up in such a strict system of oppression, one that is actively robbing them of their humanity and freedom to be truly alive as a human being.
The ideology that we can only be inclusive in sports by limiting everyone's rights and freedoms to the same level of those who were born with or otherwise developed a situation that limits their willingness to be naked in front of others is completely absurd.
A far better way to make everyone feel included equally and loved, would be to teach players, especially at that young age, that all bodies and genders are diverse and as such we should love and respect our teammates unconditionally as human beings no matter what type of body or gender they may have. Imagine how empowering such a message would be if THAT became the new policy of Hockey Canada? Imagine if a young person who is transgender was told that they would be accepted by their team wholeheartedly, no matter what, for who they are even while they are completely naked? Wouldn't it be far healthier to teach young people including trans youth that they don't have to hide their bodies out of fear or shame anymore? Wouldn't that be a far better policy or goal to set forth as the new norm, rather than forcing everyone to hide who we are even more than we have been? Rather than reinforcing the shame that makes trans kids want to hide their bodies in the first place?
The good old days that I never new
It's shocking to us now that we were ever once a society that thought positively about public nudity. Yet, there are many archival photos and historical works of art online, most of which are from the mid 1900's, showing that people swam naked together either outdoors or at indoor bath houses or swimming pools. Just Google "historical nude swimming" or "archival nude swim team" to find a variety of images online. There are also news paper articles about nude swimming, simply Google "swimming nude news articles" to read a few. Such historical images are not shown openly in public anymore because today they are considered to be too indecent and taboo.
As such, we've gone from a society that once believed nude swimming was no big deal, to one in which we're not even able to talk about it in public and actively ban historical photos of nude swimming. We're content to forget about this important part of our history and the very idea that nudity was ever portrayed in a positive and natural way in our culture. That's how silly and prudish we've become as a society! That's how disconnected we've become from our true human nature!
We've lost something special
The fact that we can no longer tolerate being naked in front of each other and can only see nudity in a sexual and offensive way means that we've lost a critical part of our humanity and innocence as a society. We no longer accept each other or ourselves just the way we are as human beings, instead we shame each other for being human and cringe at the notion of seeing each other's naked bodies.
Anyone who has raised children knows that very young children will take off their clothes regardless of where they are because wearing clothing is unnatural, we have to teach children that being naked is wrong and indecent in order to shame them into keeping their clothes on. We accept the beauty of the human naked form in art such as statues or paintings, yet if someone were to stand naked in public next to a nude statue they would be arrested for indecency. It says a lot about our culture that a statue of a human being can be publicly naked but an actual human being can't, it's quite absurd.
Meanwhile, we expect ourselves and others to have an illogically perfect body that coincides with whatever the current benchmark for beauty or bodily perfection happens to be. Only those with perfect bodies such as models and actors are permitted to be naked or semi-naked in public, while the rest of us are arrested or shamed and cancelled for doing so. As such our society promotes a very unbalanced, unrealistic, and unhealthy outlook about nudity, as well as our bodies and who we are as human beings.
Naturism is about celebrating our humanity
The ongoing sad state of things in our society is not the case in clothing optional or naturist spaces. The people in these communities are much more welcoming and accepting towards others. It's been my experience that naturists are kinder, more respectful and courteous. Non-sexual nudity is seen as natural and normal, it's simply who we are for real. Many nudist campgrounds or resorts are in fact family friendly spaces where couples vacation with their children.
How wonderful it would have been to grow up in a naturist community, being taught that you should not feel any shame about your body and to respect others regardless of what shape or size their bodies happen to be. To be loved and seen completely for who you are as a human being, instead of being told to cover up your body because it is shameful or offensive.
Frankly, certain parts of the body are only seen as being dirty or offensive because we have chosen in our culture to see them that way. However, we can also choose not to see them that way. We can choose to see them simply as another part of the human body, which frankly is all that they are. We can choose to see the entire human body as something that is virtuous and worthy of being celebrated for the miracle that it is, rather than being shamed and outlawed.
It's entirely up to each of us what we choose to be offended about, or what we choose not to be offended about. In any case, it is not fundamentally truthful that the naked human body is offensive. Our behaviour can be offensive regardless if we are wearing clothes or not, but our naked bodies are not inherently offensive.
Going full Mikey!
The first time that I went to a clothing optional campsite was in 2019, and I found it to be a very positive life changing experience. As a socially shy person my whole life, I never thought that I would have the guts to do such a thing, but I'm very glad that I did. Freeing myself from society's shame and allowing myself to be naked outdoors in nature is a most exhilarating and liberating feeling.
Quite honestly, you have not lived until you have experienced the joy of being unabashedly naked outdoors on a nice sunny summer day, especially while hiking on a trail through the woods or going for a relaxing swim! Being openly naked in front of likeminded others has taught me to love myself just the way that I am. I absolutely love being naked outside, it rejuvenates me and makes me happy to be alive!
What's most remarkable is the effect that being naked outside has had on my chronic depression. It's like a natural antidote that just eradicates my low moods. I'm consistently in a positive frame of mind for the entire week that I'm at the clothing optional campground. As I said, if Ottawa had a clothing optional beach I would be there every day, I have no doubt that being naked outside more regularly would completely diminish my chronic depression during the summer!
In any case, I'm still a socially shy person, yet I also don't care who sees me naked which makes for quite an unusual combo. Apparently I'm not quite as introverted as I thought that I was. Simply put, I have nothing to be ashamed about, I'm done with all the shaming.
I tried to post my unedited naked selfie on this page
I truly wish that I could post the unedited version of the above naked selfie here on my own blog, it is honestly a completely harmless photo. I attempted to post it here, and it was online for about three hours, however Blogger then blocked this page behind their "sensitive content" warning page which made it seem like I had posted all kinds of pornographic material! Therefore I took the picture down in order to get rid of that silly warning page. That's also why this page is so boring with just text, I was going to include some historical images of people swimming naked together but those photos would just get blocked again so I didn't bother.
I respect that everyone has their own comfort zone with nudity, and I certainly would not want to offend anyone. Yet it still makes me sad that the majority of people in our society would think that allowing others to see your entire naked body is such a bad thing. It's sad that we always insist on shaming our humanity and hiding it from each other. I wanted to post the photo in order to show that there is nothing wrong with simply being naked in a non-sexual way. Our naked bodies are simply who we are for real as human beings.
To be completely honest, I am still somewhat afraid of what people who are not familiar with naturism will say when they find out that I'm a naturist. Will people try to shame or cancel me or assume the worst about me? In my own small way I'm trying to change the negative outlook that society has about nudity by being as open about it as I can without offending people.
Conclusion
My own outlook is that everyone's body is beautiful no matter what age, shape, size or colour, because we are all unique, we're all one of a kind. There's only one of each of us in the entire universe, and it took billions of years of evolution to get to the point of time in which you and I were at last created! Therefore, in my humble opinion that means we are all miracles, every last one of us.
There are 8 billion people on earth, yet there is only one of each of us, there is only one of you! You are unique, you are the only YOU there is! You are irreplaceable! You are special just the way you are, just because you are you! You don't need any Facebook likes to be special, you don't need a special talent or job, and you don't need to have the body of a supermodel, you are special just because you are alive and the only you in the entire universe.
We should not be ashamed or offended by our humanity and who we are for real, we should celebrate our bodies and our humanity because we are all beautiful, one of a kind creations.
-Mikey :)
Text and photos copyright Mikey Artelle, 2024.
