CNN Nude Golf: Naked Without the Drama



CNN recently ran an article about nude golf in Australia.  They made all the predictable jokes about playing the course in the buff but then expanded the piece to include nude athletics at various nudist parks here in the United States.  Nudists in America haven’t been able to swing a nude golf outing yet (it is hard to sequester a whole golf course the same way you can a bowling alley or indoor tennis court), but there is still hope. 

            I have never made a secret of being a social nudist.  My husband and I live at a beautiful nudist resort.  Other than a lack of clothing our life there is exactly like life at any other retirement community.  We have an active sports schedule, play cards, have book club, quilting group, happy hours (with and without alcohol), and lots of group dinners.  We are active in politics, our local churches and community activities.  We have people of every political persuasion, personality, size, shape and size.  In other words, we are America without the wrappers.

            Nudists are more than just people who don’t like to do laundry.  [Since we always carry and sit on our own towel at a nudist parks that actually amounts to a fair amount of laundry, but at least it is easy to fold.]  We are people totally comfortable with ourselves: warts, scars, cellulite and all.  When you are totally nude you are totally vulnerable.  To know that you can be totally accepted at your most vulnerable is an empowering moment.  It also means that we are the least body conscious people in the country. It may be hard to understand but we just don’t care.  It is what you are from the neck up that counts.  

            The biggest problem a nudist has is explaining the lifestyle to someone who is convinced that nudity equals rampant sexuality. It does not. 

But people who are sure the two go together may need more explanation. Nudists don’t deny their sexuality.  All living creatures are hardwired to do three things: to eat, to not be eaten, and to pass on our DNA.  That means that the desire to reproduce (in the case of mammals that is a sexual act) is born into us.  We can’t take out what God put in.  But we do see nudity as just one thin part of a much more complicated picture.  To us, a nude body is no more related to sexuality than a scale of notes is to a cantata.    

            In an age where much of what is considered beautiful and desirable is provided by Hollywood, the media and Barbie dolls, social nudism provides an antidote to that kind of toxicity.  The best built man in the world is just a jumble of rocks without character and humility.  The most beautiful woman becomes a hollow and tinny echo chamber when what comes from her mouth is lewd, rude or malicious.  We have all seen people whom we originally thought were beautiful only to hear them say something so outrageous that our entire picture of them contorts before our eyes.  Everyone’s character is like the picture of Dorian Gray.  It shows who we really are.  All the good that we do shines through and all the corruption blots out the light.  Maybe that is why some people are beautiful at 90 and others seem, “used up” at 35.  As nudists we very quickly learn how to look below the layers of superficiality and into the eyes of the soul.

            Visit a nudist park this summer, you’ll keep the faith.

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