Family influence on naturism

[Xen]

Following some other posts I would be interested to hear what people think is the influence of the family in someone beomming a naturist.

My family weren't naturist, indeed I doubt if my parents often saw each other naked at all, far less be seen by anyone else. They would be horified if they knew that I am a naturist.

I was aged about 10 when I first saw an adult nude. He was totally unaffected by this (he was a swimming instructor so must have been nude in public many times before) and all I remember is that I wasn't told off, the ground didn't swallow me up and that I didn't feel at all 'dirty' (as I had always been told nudity was. It took me many years to get from this point, through the agony of enforced nude showers at school followed by odd nude swims and saunas on holiday in my early 20s, before I plucked up the courage to go to a naturist club. That was almost 10 years ago and I have been a naturist ever since.

If anything my parents' attitude encouraged me to beome a naturist - I wanted to explore it (while not doing it as an act of rebellion) and having done so found out how great it feels to be naked - particularly on beaches, in pools and when sunbathing - and how relaxed the atmosphere is when everyone is nude. I do sometimes wonder though if children who are brought up as naturists will be so relaxed about nudity, that while they may not mind being nude in front of others they will be so relaxed about it that they won't bother to become nudists.

In essence is enjoying naturism something that comes from within and the link to the family is quite weak ?

[Xen]

Following some other posts I would be interested to hear what people think is the influence of the family in someone beomming a naturist.

My family weren't naturist, indeed I doubt if my parents often saw each other naked at all, far less be seen by anyone else. They would be horified if they knew that I am a naturist.

I was aged about 10 when I first saw an adult nude. He was totally unaffected by this (he was a swimming instructor so must have been nude in public many times before) and all I remember is that I wasn't told off, the ground didn't swallow me up and that I didn't feel at all 'dirty' (as I had always been told nudity was. It took me many years to get from this point, through the agony of enforced nude showers at school followed by odd nude swims and saunas on holiday in my early 20s, before I plucked up the courage to go to a naturist club. That was almost 10 years ago and I have been a naturist ever since.

If anything my parents' attitude encouraged me to beome a naturist - I wanted to explore it (while not doing it as an act of rebellion) and having done so found out how great it feels to be naked - particularly on beaches, in pools and when sunbathing - and how relaxed the atmosphere is when everyone is nude. I do sometimes wonder though if children who are brought up as naturists will be so relaxed about nudity, that while they may not mind being nude in front of others they will be so relaxed about it that they won't bother to become nudists.

In essence is enjoying naturism something that comes from within and the link to the family is quite weak ?

My parents weren't nudists. My mother was a prude, and my dad was an exibitionist. My dad was nude a lot in the house and didn't care who saw him. My mother didn't even like being nude in front of her husband.

I always enjoyed being nude indoors and out when I could get away with it. When I was 5 and my youngest brother was 8, we knew what a nudist was because we played a game pretending that we were nudists. I'm not sure how we had learned about nudists.

Perhaps my dad's openness with his nudity, whatever his motives, gave me a desire to be nude as often as possible. I would sneak out of the house at night and walk nude. I would go to secluded places, take off my clothes and walk nude. I would go to the local beach, go out to the deep water, take off my swimsuit, and swim nude with my swimsuit in my hand.

I didn't get into social nudity for a long time for two reasons. One reason was my lack of manhood. The second reason was that everyone told me that nudist places didn't allow single men in. I was 55 when I first tried social nudity, and I still wonder why I didn't try it decades ago. I'm a divorced dad and granddad. I just wish I had a lady friend or wife who is a nudist to enjoy my love of being nude.

After not getting into social nudity till age 55, I want to be nude all the time. I hate clothes and love being nude. Growing up around nudity probably causes many to lose their love of being nude with others because they've seen so much of it that they lose interest. I can't wait to get to the resort and get my clothes off. I dread having to put them back on and put it off as long as possible. I never wear clothes at home unless there is someone here who would be too embarrassed, but sometimes I just don't bother to put anything on even for them. It's my home. If they don't like my nudity they can stay away. Be nude and have fun. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

[Bob S.]

My family was also non-nudist, although I can recall as a youth playing "naked games" with my brother and sister. yes, it had that hint of sexploration, but we really only focused on the nudity and much less on the sexual aspects.

Over time, we stopped these games and privacy became more of a factor. I, however, seem to have been the only one of us three who embraced the nudity aspect of our play. I can even remember playing naked, alone in my room. I had my door barricaded as I did not have a lock on it.

It would be an intereting study to find out how certain people from non-nudist or anti-nudist households grew up to embrace the nudist lifestyle.

Bob S.

[Trailscout]

I grew up in a home that was not nudist, but neither was it very prudish. When I was a child, my parents bathed me with my female cousins when they were visiting. My mother went skinnydipping with her brother one night on a family trip to the lake. Throughout my childhood, my father did not wear clothes after his evening bath. My grandmother came to live with us and objected to Dad's nudity, so Dad was more discreet after her arrival. But no adult in the house, including my grandmother, bothered closing bathroom doors. My parents paid one visit to a nudist resort after I was an adult, but that was the first and only time they ever went. When I was a boy, like all the other boys in the neighborhood, we wore nothing but a pair of brief shorts all summer. At the pool, boys did not wear the knee-length baggy trunks like they do now. We wore very brief trunks that did not conceal our male contours. No one laughed or called attention to it. We were just boys and our swimwear didn't hide it. In church camp, scouts and school, we were nude in the locker rooms and showers and didn't have a care in the world. In time, we were taught to be embarrassed to let girls see us nude, but we were not born that way.

I went through a prudish phase, but by the time I went to college, my confidence returned and I have happy memories of an innocent night of skinnydipping with one of the girls in my class as well as such trips with buddies.

I was woefully ignorant of social nudism and was very reluctant to visit a nudist resort, but once I learned that it was non-sexual, I began investigating the subject on the Internet.

Last year I began visiting nudist resorts and went to a nude beach. It was just a natural progression from the way I have been living my whole life. I sometimes wonder if there is such thing as nudism, but I often feel that there is a cult of body-shame that is widespread in our society. Adam and Eve were not nudists before the fall, they were simply people living the way God meant for them to live, and yes that included nudity.