We Are All Ambassadors

This (slightly less-than-optimal) photo of a Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park advisory notice was posted on Bluesky recently. The board advises patrons on the inappropriateness and negative impact of sexual behaviour in the resort. Part of the text states, "Because they don't know the reality, the general public assumes that our movement is about sexuality. We have been fighting that assumption for nearly a century. But it persists and it is a key perception that keeps people away." Bare Oaks are absolutely right: this is precisely why nudists' behaviour  has to be seen to be squeaky-clean at all times.

A few years ago, I invited a friend to participate in the Brighton WNBR with me. Although she wouldn't describe herself as a nudist, she was not at all adverse to naked recreation, and we had walked naked, swam naked, gone to the beach naked and even celebrated the New Year naked together several times before.

She was a little overwhelmed at first, but eventually her top came off, she started to enter into the spirit of the WNBR and began to thoroughly enjoy it. That was until the stop on the Hove Lawns, where everyone gathers for a rest stop and a chance to meet and talk to other participants. Unfortunately some of the riders, only a tiny minority –maybe half a dozen of the 7-800 riders on the WNBR that year– were overtly indulging in touching and stroking.

They were not too far away from us, and my friend and I both saw what was going on at the same time. The sight provoked disapproval and irritation in me, and shock and dismay in her. My irritation quickly turned to anger when I saw the impact the spectacle had made on my friend, who, to a certain extent, had put her trust in my judgement when she had accepted my offer to go on the ride with me.

This is what Bare Oaks tries to make clear, "it only takes one person" for people to "start to suspect everyone." They go on to say that they have lost people in the past because of this, and I can safely say that my friend, for one, will never participate in another WNBR again. Luckily, we continue to do other naked things together, but not in the context of a crowd of other people.

If nudists want to see more people on WNBRs, going bare on the beaches and getting into nudism in general –maybe even naked hiking in the countryside– it is our responsibility to lead by example all the time. There is a time and a place for sexual behaviour, and that is not in a non-sexual nudist, naturist or naked setting.

If we want to convince others that nudists are just like other people, but with just one small difference, it is of absolute importance always to be impeccably behaved... even more so than other people. One thing other people do not generally do is to have sex in public. If they do, they are generally regarded by society as deviants, and we can expect a similar label to be applied to us if we indulge in this sort of behaviour. Humans being as they are though, it is unfair but inevitable that any label will not only be applied to the perpetrators, but to the collective as a whole. Because of this, and for the sake of nudism / naturism, nobody can behave badly; we are all ambassadors.

Our thanks to Bare Oaks for the use of their material.