Nudist resort etiquette: does it keep us safe, or does it keep us repressed?
I've touched on nudist resort etiquette in the past; and shared my ambivalence about them.
This summer my wife and I were at TLR; and as she looked around she suddenly shared an observation with me:
"This "no-touching" thing is weird. Especially between partners. It just seems unnatural for people to go out of their way to actually not touch each other."
I was floored. Because nearly 20 years ago, my first wife made the same EXACT observation after her third or fourth nudist resort trip. Two completely different women who both expressed the same bewilderment, decades apart, at this aspect of nudist etiquette.
And then it brought back some memories (one of my many flashbacks lol!) It was one long week end, where we went to visit a nudist couple at their home. The first evening/next day we just mostly hung out at their home; socially naked outside the conventional nudist social "norms." During that time: the hugs we gave each other when we arrived were "full-body", we huddled up on the couch and sat "cheek-to-cheek" to watch TV, we lounged around in a circle on the floor - in various sitting, squatting or open-legged postures - to play board games, at one point our lady-friend bent over while picking something up and I voiced my admiration that here breasts "defied gravity" in their firmness, my wife complained that she felt she was getting fat - which our male-friend countered by saying her butt looked beautiful before giving her a "cheeky" slap on her cheek; to which my wife responded by pulling his head against her chest and messing up his hair. All this I felt was just natural, jovial interactions between friends who happened to be naked and unashamed.
The next day we went to the nudist resort. From the moment we arrived we sort of just went into "nudist resort etiquette mode." Physical contact was kept to a minimum. We were less open. I guess our minds were trained to automatically "click over" at the resort. It just felt very different. Less genuine.
That wasn't the only bewilderment my wife expressed this summer. We visited another resort; and from the moment we checked in we were handed a "laundry list" of rules. It was literally an entire page. As our host went over the entire sheet of etiquette, my wife and I looked at each other a bit dumbfounded. Was it all really necessary? It didn't really change our intent to relax and have a good time there; but I couldn't help but think: "What would a TRUE newbie think of all this?" There's a bit of a "cultish" element when the main focus of the introduction is "all the things you CAN'T do", IMHO.
I think nudist etiquette can be limited to three "rules": "Sit on a towel at all times", "Don't stare", and "Only naked in the pool and hot-tub." Anything else implies that without guidelines, people will just run wild, groping each other, taking pictures and being salacious. I think most people have enough common sense to know what "bad behavior" is.
Thoughts?
I agree with everything you said, everything . Even as a total newbie to the social nudity lifestyle, I felt that strangeness if you will that is going out of ones way to avoid almost any and all contact. If we want others to see us as normal people. (Just naked) then normal common decency rules should be enough. The three rules you listed, yep thats all it should be... Easy as 1,2,3.
Naturist etiquette is actually quite simple.Its exactly the same as being a textile . (Apart from always have your towel with you)
Right dont know where the idea came from nudists dont touch. Just cause genuine nudists/naturists dont do full on sexual touching in public? Isn't appropriate to do that in any case.
I didn't post this in the "Sex and sexuality" section. Obviously I'm not talking about sexual touching.
On the topic of touching (which is just one element of my post), in the non-nudist world we give our friends full-body hugs. In the nudist world it's usually avoided. So it's not the same. To say: "nudist etiquette is the same as social etiquette in the textile world" is not quite accurate.
My actual point is whether etiquette - beyond the 3 - is actually helpful or meaningful.
I didn't post this in the "Sex and sexuality" section. Obviously I'm not talking about sexual touching.On the topic of touching (which is just one element of my post), in the non-nudist world we give our friends full-body hugs. In the nudist world it's usually avoided. So it's not the same. To say: "nudist etiquette is the same as social etiquette in the textile world" is not quite accurate.My actual point is whether etiquette - beyond the 3 - is actually helpful or meaningful.
Interesting I didnt address my post as response to your post but rather the reply about touching being the norm across all social setting. I dont know what anyone elses experience is but that is mine people touch hug comment as they would appropriately in a "textile" setting in the naturist community I frequent. There are some thing appropriate in public and others are to be left for private. Wives and husbands and partners hug kiss or high five after a great point in a volleyball game in a casual non sexual way just as they might in a clothed situation. They only time I have seen touch cautioned is if it develops into something overtly sexual. To bad that isnt your experience
Nudony - it would be helpful to the debate if you could do two things:
(1) Post a copy of the sheet of rules if you still have it but not necessarily identifying the resort.
(2) Amend your third rule "Only naked in the pool and hot-tub" to read "nudity is compulsory in the pool and hot tub" as your wording can be misinterpreted by non USA English speakers as stating that the pool and hot tub are the only places when you can be naked.
Personally I would also include the sauna and steam room in the list of places where nudity is compulsory but that may be a matter of taste.
My own take on nudist etiquette is: "Behave as you would in the public rooms of a high class hotel."
Of the few "Nudist" places i have visited, Non Sexual touching is allowed as well as cameras, phones and tablets.
The only places I have been that restrict both are the hot springs. They all require that you leave your phones or other photographic devices in you car. Except for Valley View where they just request that you don't photograph anyone without their permission.
One place in particular has a reputation of the owner kicking people out for innocent physical contact between adults. My thinking is that there must have been something that happened and the law cracked down on them.
I'd have to agree with the majority of posters here that things have gone too far, and in my opinion it's because both nudists and non-nudists often still equate nudism as being tied to sex or sexuality. We're sexual beings but because non-nudists often associate nudity with sex (and because we as nudists want so desperately to correct that way of thinking), we as a group have legitimatized excessive rules in trying to eliminate any behavior that might even remotely hint of sexuality or intimacy.
In an attempt to validate that we participate in non-sexual social nudity we've literally tried to sanitize every aspect of interaction we have with spouses and friends.
As long as physical interactions aren't sexual then they aren't bad. I would want to see spouses react to one another in a naturist setting just as they would interact as if they were in a grocery store or on a textile beach. Friends who would interact with one another in a specific way if they were playing volleyball in a public park should interact with one another the same way on a nude beach - a hug or a slap on the butt could be normal for this group and it's not being done in a sexual manner so it shouldn't be scrutinized as such. While I think when you first meet another nudist there is a more stringent and correct way to interact physically with someone, spouses and friends who interact physically with one another in a non-sexual manner shouldn't change the way they do based on whether they are naked or clothed.
I would say that we all do need to be cognizant of the fact that just as there are non-nudists who do not appreciate physical contact or have personal limits that there are nudists with the same personal preferences, and you have to know your friends. We all know who the "huggers" are in our lives and I assume we all have that one friend that hates to hug, but to remove all contact with those close to you (and whose thresholds you know) when you are in a nudist setting is not healthy and does nothing to promote the nudist lifestyle.
As for always acting like I'm in a 5-star hotel lobby when we're on a nude beach, I'm loathe to think that a man or woman at a nude beach shouldn't be able to lay back with their husband's or wife's head on their stomach or shoulder and enjoy the moment with one another, or that any one of us would be sexist enough to think that any gender would need to sit or lay in a specific position in order to keep nudism "respectable" to the outside world.
Nudism should be safe, but it should also feel natural and right now it doesn't always feel natural having to cross-reference some very archaic checkpoints on our self-imposed lists...
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