Category Archives: beliefs

beliefs, nudism, thoughts

British Naturism

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LadyGod1va has recently written about the opportunities which naturism currently has for expanding in the UK. You can read her complete post here and I would encourage you to do so as it is a well balanced and thoughtful analysis. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything she says – largely because I view the world through my eyes and not hers, and there likely are no completely right or completely wrong answers: horses for courses and all that. So here are my comments, observations and opinions on a number of LadyGod1va’s more salient points.

The problem I see in the UK is that there are far too many independent organisations supporting naturism through clubs, social gatherings, social networks, personal blogs, membership sites, holiday services and so on whilst there is a very small target audience who are openly able to enjoy the naturism life for various personal reasons or beliefs.

Can’t disagree with that. Naturism is still populated by small enclaves of people hiding in the bushes, mostly out of fear. This has to change if progress is to be made. Naturism needs a single, powerful, voice representing the spectrum of naturist beliefs. As LadyGod1va says …

The number of naturists in the UK probably grows or shrinks over the years in relation to the population numbers aged between 40-60 […] We are enjoying the highest numbers of naturists in the UK probably because the population aged between 40-60 is the highest for a long time due to the baby booms of the 60s […] I see it as now being the best harvest of suitable naturism candidates for the naturist organisations to increase their numbers.  However I don’t believe that it is being done successfully because there is just too much choice for what is still a limited number of naturists.

Yes there are a lot of choices, but I don’t see this as a problem if everyone worked together towards a common goal. What I see is the wrong choices for many of the target audiences, or indeed no choice at all. Take our situation (and we can’t be alone):

We are not really club people, so clubs don’t appeal. We don’t drive, which while it isn’t usually a problem and is very eco of us, does mean we have a challenge getting to anything which is remote (in space or time) from public transport. This means we would struggle to get to a remote club, even if we wanted to. And late night swims (and our nearest swim is a late evening event) are impractical because of public transport schedules. We are not people for spending holidays roasting in the sun, so beach holidays don’t greatly appeal. Which leaves us with … not a lot!

So what do we want. Probably what a lot of other not very active nudists want. To be able to go nude in our garden and our local park/beach and to be able to swim nude at our local swimming pool (even if that is only once a month).

Living as we do in a small terraced house in an ethnically diverse area of London, garden nudity is a problem. Our garden is overlooked by neighbours who (due to age, religion and culture) are unlikely to be sympathetic to nudity; and screening the sunny spots in the garden from their view is difficult as they are right by the house. Because of the same puritanical attitudes amongst the local populous (remember ethnic and religious diversity) our local swimming pool is highly unlikely to offer even clothes optional sessions; and certainly not if only odd-balls like us ask for them. Would they be more willing if we were backed by a strong national organisation? Well who knows, but it couldn’t be more difficult. The same applies to parks and beaches while the current ignorance of the law persists.

Which leaves us stuck unless or until there are some paradigm shifts. Paradigm shifts in our brains (there must be other alternatives) as much as in anyone else’s. But those paradigm shifts can be hard when, despite the actuality of the law, there is complete ignorance amongst the populous of what is allowed and frequent disregard of the law by the powers that be. [Photographers are facing a similar challenge at present over the anti-terrorist laws but are slowly winning because photography is a non-contentious and popular hobby and thus they collectively have a strong voice.]

There are many more naturists amongst the general public who just do not have any reason to join any club or organisation because their form of naturism doesn’t require it. [… A] greater number of females are opting not to have children until later into their 30s, these females are quite confident and go topless and some obviously go nude but mostly when on holidays, so why are they not more visible in the naturist circles? I would suggest the following to be the main issues;
1. Because being seen topless in the local park by anyone they know is likely to cause them embarrassment […]
3. Lack of role models, someone has to make a start and others could follow.

Possibly true until there is a critical mass and “everyone is doing it”.

That makes two key target audiences: the 40-60s and young couples and singles. Actually there is a third target audience (although maybe a more difficult one to win over): the late teens and students, who have surprising power and that all important rebellious streak – just as long as you can make it “the in thing”. Get the young enthused and signed up and there’s a future.

2. The UK naturist movement still have a seedy association with sexual activities and perverts of one kind or another.

I’m not so sure about the seedy sexual activities, though maybe LadyGod1va is right. But certainly the perverts wrongly associated with naturism is definitely a worry.

4. Lack of understanding of the law

It isn’t just a lack of understanding but also attempts to erroneously enforce the law – see comments above.

5. Personal or religious beliefs

I don’t buy this as a reason for nudity on holiday but not at home, except as a variant of number 1 above.

My fear is that with pressure from the USA, the religious righteous, influences from the Eastern countries, the UK naturism could suffer.

This, together with the legal position (see above) is to my mind the biggest stumbling block. And it is a battle which I believe is only going to be won by a strong, united and vocal national organisation. British Naturism (BN) is the obvious candidate to take on this role (as LadyGod1va points out) but it is still considered by many to be nothing more than a marginal player with a dubious past. In my judgement BN now has the will, and the willingness, to take on this challenge, but it doesn’t (yet) have the critical mass and the muscle to be powerful enough. That will only change if one of two things happens: either everyone gets behind BN and takes it in the direction we want it to go, or all us naturists become individually and collectively vocal (regardless of what BN does) in the way that the photographic community are kicking back against erroneous attempts to curtail what they can do in public. Both are paradigm shifts; and paradigm shifts are hard to enable. And no, I don’t have any magic answers; I wish I did.

There needs to be 100s of people like me, girls and boys who don’t need to go around demonstrating about lack of freedom etc. but just do it […] If we are to encourage these people to try and do what they believe in without fear or reprisal, we need more than just clubs, web sites, social networks etc. […]

They need the support of a credible organisation that has the respect of the country’s legal and political and ethical organisations […] There needs to be more than just middle to old aged people making noises about
naturism. There needs to be something more than what we have now. It is only through increasing the numbers that greater freedom will come.

Yes, although see comments on the photographic community above who are largely acting independently of (although supported by) their various national organisations.

However you look at it we need to act …

If you support these views also, then you can help to tackle these problems […] the best way to do so is to become a member of BN and let your friends know that you are a member (whenever possible), this will give you confidence that you are a member of an organisation that is focused on pure naturism and fights all that is unacceptable in naturism […] if you are a member and you run into trouble, you have someone to seek support and guidance from […] if you hold BN membership, you are more likely to be advised correctly and there would be someone who knows the law well enough to keep you out of trouble and media if necessary.

Yes absolutely. We allowed our BN membership to lapse many years ago, when BN lost its way and was riven by internecine wars. But we have recently rejoined because it was clear that in the current environment not only do we need BN but the movement now needs our support, and BN, having reinvented itself, are now up for the challenge.

You can find more about BN at www.british-naturism.org.uk where you’ll find information on the benefits of membership and a membership form. What are you waiting for?

beliefs, quotes, thoughts

Religion as a Self-Fulfilling Prophesy

Here’s one of those longer quotes I mentioned earlier. I leave it here, without comment, for your consideration.

Religions are always stridently opposed to the world of the Supernatural. Alleged paranormal events represent competition for the miracles [aka paranormal events!] necessary to any religious belief system and thus compete for the allegiance and contributions of their believers […]

We can observe many members of society who appear to be intelligent and rational in the pursuit of their daily life. However, on Sundays they go to their church or temple. There they participate in incomprehensible and irrational rituals involving magic, prayer and other activities demeaning to their rational minds. Their rational mind tells them that a god does not exist and yet, there they sit and pray to him […]

[…] people tend to associate in communities of like-minded people. Believers restrict their circle of friend and family to other believers. They surround themselves with mirror images of themselves.

If people wear blinders successfully, then the young and naïve among them hear nothing but the desired belief. No reputable person in his or her sphere of life ever disagrees with or objects to the tenets of their common belief system. As time goes on, people in a mentally incestuous society consider it normal that all seemingly intelligent people believe as the community believes […]

[…] the believer sees non-believers as abnormal and undesirable. Thus, religious belief maintains itself through self-affirmation, insulation and demonization of non-believers.

[cliffkirtley at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/]

beliefs, medical, science, thoughts

Nobel Prize for Medicine

This year’s Nobel Prizes are being announced this week. In general the Nobel Committee makes good decisions on who deserves recognition in the sciences and it isn’t often that I would quarrel with their choice. I’m not really competent to judge when it comes to the Literature prize. And it seems to me the Peace prize is always something between the doings of the court jester and a political football.

The first of this year’s prizes, announced on Monday, was the prize for Medicine which was awarded to Prof. Robert Edwards who devised (and with Prof. Patrick Steptoe developed) IVF.

I apologise in advance if my view upsets anyone (I know it will some) but this is one science award I will quarrel with. In my view IVF should have been strangled at birth.

I take a basically “egalitarian” view of our relationship with Nature: “Nature must be interfered with as little as possible. There are no safe limits so we must always show caution. Nature is fragile. Any risk is unacceptable.” (OK like all these generalisations that is a slight exageration of the detail of what I believe, but I certainly tend more towards the “egalitarian” view than any other.)

In consequence I feel that if a couple are unable to have children naturally then Nature has some good underlying reason for this and perhaps we should not be playing God. To me IVF is not a step forward but something which we should not be meddling in; it is the medicalisation of a normal part of normal life. Not being able to have children isn’t a life-threatening, debilitating or even disfiguring disease. Compare it with, for instance, on the one hand elective cosmetic surgery and on the other type 1 diabetes. (It is also the first step on the path to eugenics, but that’s a completely different argument which we won’t go into here.)

As such to me IVF is not something worthy of a Nobel prize. That is in no way to belittle Prof. Edwards’ and Prof. Steptoe’s undoubted medical and technical skills and their vision of how to solve the problems from which much has indeed been learnt. (For example, Prof. Steptoe was a pioneer in the development of laparoscopy as a surgical technique.) But just because we have the technology to do something does not mean we have to do it.

Prof. Edwards is on record as saying “The most important thing in life is having a child. Nothing is more special than a child.” All I can say is that if he thinks that putting another mouth to be fed on this planet is the most important thing ever, well I despair. Where are his ethics? Where was his Ethics Committee? Oh, hang on, back in ’60s and ’70s when the work was being done there probably wasn’t an Ethics Committee. Hmmm.

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, photography, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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Here, in random order, is this week’s rather rich helping of amusing and insightful quotes.

The first two are from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert; right on the money as always:

A CEO has something called a “vision.” That is a view of the future that is not supported by evidence.
[Scott Adams at The Scott Adams Blog]

The primary function of a CEO is hurting other people, specifically the stockholders and employees of competing companies. He wants to take their market share, their wealth, and their happiness. And a CEO isn’t too affectionate with his vendors and employees either.
[Scott Adams at The Scott Adams Blog]

I can think of many who won’t like the next, but again it is so true:

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.
[Found on Tumblr]

And this was from a video clip of an interview with a couple of gays; it cracked me up!

Love at first innuendo.
[Dan Savage]

This one is for Katy …

Eat cake. Change lives.
[Macmillan Cancer Support advertisement]

I couldn’t resist this wonderful critical put-down on a paragraph of absolute scientific mumbo-jumbo:

That paragraph reads like he authors were cobbling together a braille sentence using the random distribution of acne on someone’s back.
[Jesse Bering at www.scientificamerican.com/blog/, 22/09/2010]

If only I’d been told this next many years ago!

The only disability in life is a bad attitude
[Quoted by Kittypinkstars at Flickr]

How the other half live:

Glamour model Katie Price has been found guilty of not being in proper control of her pink horsebox after veering into another lane in Sussex.
[BBC News]

Needless to say it was the very idea of a pink horsebox which got me! And so finally an interesting “off the wall” take which again contains a huge element of truth:

I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people. Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.
[Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists]

That’s all for this week.

beliefs, food+drink, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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I’ll spare everyone another picture of Rye or the Romney Marsh today and instead I offer this week’s crop of amusing and/or thought-provoking quotes.

Plan B and Arcade Fire get Q nods
[BBC News website headline]

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.
[Lily Tomlin]

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
[Antoine de Saint-Exupery]

Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.
Baths, wine and sex spoil our bodies; but baths, wine and sex make up life.
[Epitaph of Tiberius Claudius Secundus]

Inside every old person is a younger person wondering what the fuck happened.
[unknown]

Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.
[Aristophanes, The Knights]

Leadership is a form of mental illness.
[Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert]

Oh and I thought I’d spare you more from the Dalai Lama on Compassion – that’s all he seems to talk about at the moment, although I do see why as that is largely, at rock bottom, what Buddhism is all about.

beliefs

State Religion

Islam (various sects), Christian (various sects), Buddhism
Razib Khan over at Gene Expression indirectly makes an interesting point, which I’d not previously realised and which is illustrated by the map: How few countries actually have an official state religion. And how many we would think have an official religion (eg. USA, Brazil, Spain) actually don’t.

OK if you follow the link behind the map some of the data are a bit debatable, but however one cuts the numbers it means that somewhere around 90% of the world’s population live in countries with no official state religion. And many of the countries which do have a state religion are tiny (eg. Lichtenstein, Yemen, Bhutan).

Another interesting thing is that over 50% of the countries with a state religion are Islamic. Does this say something about Islam or about the underlying mindset of the peoples of these countries?

It also demonstrates how far behind the game we English are in clinging to our official state religion. Time to wake up and smell the coffee?

amusements, beliefs, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s crop of the profound and amusing.

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
[Mark Twain]

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
[Carl Sagan]

As an atheist I do not believe that there is a God in fact, but the fact of the beliefs of others that God is is highly consequential. It is less important what the real Islam or Christianity is, than what Islam or Christianity is for the people at any specific place and time.
[Razib Khan at ]

Science has nothing to do with common sense. I believe it was Einstein who said that common sense is a set of prejudices we form by the age of 18. Inject somebody with some viruses and that’s going to keep you from getting sick? That’s not common sense. We evolved from single-cell organisms? That’s not common sense. By driving my car I’m going to cook Earth? None of this is common sense. The common sense view is what we’re fighting against. So somehow you’ve got to move people away from that with these quite complicated scientific arguments based on even more complicated research. That’s why it’s such an uphill battle. People start off with a belief and a prejudice–we all do. And the job of science is to set that aside to get to the truth.
[Simon Singh in an interview with Wired at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/]

Q: How can you tell if it’s been raining cats and dogs?
A: You step in a poodle!
[Misty at Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/misty69/4969353334/]

beliefs, personal, sexuality, thoughts

Erotic Operandus

1 Comment

For various reasons, I’ve recently been thinking a lot about my belief in how we should approach our erotic lives and our erotic selves. The following is how I think our erotic credo/philosophy should work.

  1. Ownership. No-one – yes, no-one: parent, friend, guru, god – has the right to tell you what your sexuality should be. It is yours and yours alone to share with others or not as you choose (although, of course, the law decrees there are things which must remain at best forever in the realms of fantasy).
  2. Fear. Don’t be afraid of your sexuality, what other people might think of it, or anything to do with sex. Your sexuality is yours and for you; no-one else. This is all part of liking yourself. If you can’t accept your own sexuality how can you meaningfully engage with someone else’s?
  3. Answers. There are no universal right or wrong answers. Your erotic is someone else’s pornographic and yet another person’s tedium. There is only what is better or worse for you.
  4. Communication. Be prepared to talk about your sexuality, anywhere and to anyone – make it a normal part of your life. That doesn’t mean you should flaunt or proselytise your sexuality; just be open and honest about it when appropriate.
  5. Appreciation. Learn to accept a compliment and appreciate the simplest erotic gesture.
  6. Nudity. Nudity is a normal part of life; there’s nothing dirty or unnatural about any part of our bodies and bodily functions. Indeed nudity is good for you; even Benjamin Franklin took regular “air baths”. Or to quote my wife’s god-father, “If you see anything God didn’t make, heave a brick at it”.
  7. Fantasies. We all have fantasies, we all have wet dreams, we all masturbate. Brilliant!
  8. Masturbation. Masturbation is normal, enjoyable and good for you! Almost everyone does it throughout their life. Where’s the problem?
  9. Orgasm. Each of us is responsible for our own orgasms.
  10. Sticky Bits. Don’t be afraid of genitals and bodily fluids. They are the stuff of life. Without them we’d none of us be here. Embrace them; make them yours.
  11. Sexual Excitement. By all means take another person’s sexual excitement as a compliment. There’s nothing wrong or threatening about an erection in and of itself, just as there’s nothing wrong or threatening about an aroused yoni (it just ain’t so obvious). The erection/arousal makes no demands and requires no attention, although the person attached to it may want some attention. Your erection/arousal is your own responsibility and no one else’s.
  12. Responsibility. Only you know what’s right for you and you must take responsibility for getting it. Ask for what you want of yourself or of your partner. Not to do so is denying part of your sexuality. Don’t be afraid; most partners love to be asked!
  13. Cherish. Your sexuality is what you make of it. Cherish it. Make it good and make it yours. Enjoy!
beliefs, science, thoughts

In which I become Immortal

Time, according to common belief, is unending and infinite.  The Universe, but not time, began with the Big Bang.  For if time had started only with the Big Bang there was no time before the Big Bang in which to create the components thereof.  So time apparently stretches back into the infinite past.  And time will go on for ever; it stretches off into the infinite future.  Or does it? 

Some current scientific theories are suggesting that at some point in the future time ceases to exist, or perhaps becomes frozen (which seems to amount to much the same thing).  Other theories suggest that time has no independent existence anyway; it is but an artificial construct of our existence; it exists only because we are measuring it.  (There’s a mind-bending article on the science of all this in the September 2010 issue of Scientific American, but you’ll need to subscribe or buy the magazine.)

It seems to me eminently reasonable that something as intangible as time is purely a human construct.  Do animals (cats or dogs, say) measure time?  Does one not need a level of self-awareness, an understanding of self, to be able to measure time?

Logically therefore, if time has no independent existence, I am immortal.  Consider …

Before I was born (or conceived, or attained pre-natal consciousness, depending how one wishes to measure these things) there was no time.  It was not part of my existence, because I didn’t exist and therefore couldn’t measure it.

Similarly when I die, time ceases.  Again I am no longer able to measure or observe it.

Ergo I have existed for all time, and am thus, by definition, immortal.

Strange mind-bending things these scientific theories of everything!  Bishop Berkeley eat your heart out!