The New Naturists Manifesto
Most people know the joy of nudity in small doses: the sun on their faces, the wind in their hair. Still, even as these joys are exalted, they're seldom embraced. We, as naturists, however—as natural humans—know what it means to experience these joys completely, profoundly, and intensely. We're not oblivious to textile culture: we simply refuse to choose insensitivity, disconnection, constriction, and shame simply because culture prefers it. The opportunity costs are too high. Thus, we appeal to all people, of all ages, cultures, and social strata: unbind yourselves. Shed your inhibitions (and your elastics) and embrace the beauty that is your natural body. Feel: really feel, and engage. Connect with your fellow humans and the world around you. You are, first and foremost, yourself, and there is nothing obscene about that. Naturists represent!
Our flesh is the truth, and it is beautiful
As naturists, we embrace the dignity and sensibility with which we were born—naked, unashamed, and free. We cannot be truly happy with ourselves until we shed the prejudices imposed on us by cultures that are unhealthily obsessed with and afraid of raw physical presence. These prejudices would have us hide the freckles given to us by the sun, the wrinkles we've earned through experience, and the physical variance granted us by nature. These prejudices are debilitating and wrong. We seek a more honest way of perceiving ourselves, of helping others to do the same—rejecting the notions that we are only as good as what we conceal and that we, as humans, are intrinsically indecent.
Exposure is engagement
In unbinding our bodies, we also bare ourselves to all possibilities of sensation, joy, and vigor; feeling fully the world around us. We don't cover up on a beach because muffling bits of our bodies makes no sense. We might as logically decide not to see green or hear a swallow's song. Such arbitrary restrictions are not only irrational, they are unhealthy. If we literally cloak ourselves from ourselves—and, moreover, from our communities and the world around us—we lose touch with them. Physical health, ecological health, and mental health all suffer. Instead, as naturists, we celebrate our right to connect, to feel, to expose ourselves fully to our world in all of its (and our) glorious diversity.
We are respectful and responsible
No naturist is an island. We're all part of many systems—social, cultural, ecological, legal, and ethical. With profound respect for the basic human rights of privacy, property, and wellbeing, we seek to establish a healthy, happy culture free of harassment, oppression, and destruction. This focus extends not only to other naturists, but also to the broader communities within which we interact, and to our environment as well. We champion the health of ourselves, our families, and our biosphere. We reward social connection, enlightenment, and the creation of joy. And where we seek change, we do so, with dignity, civility, and, whenever possible, panache.
They will know us by our glow
New naturists are beautiful, perfect, and free. We believe it. We own it. And it gives us...a something that not even threads can hide. That is all.