In Case You Missed It — 2022
TOP NINE Stories about Social Nudity — 2022
Musings from a Meandering Naturist on Nakedness and Closely Related Subjects
A crusade of normalizing nudity within the context of otherwise prudish societal norms
So, here I go on my self-inflicted TOP NINE CHALLENGE! If you didn’t read the teaser, you can do that here…
Nine is an arbitrary number.
But I think I can make it work in an effort to summarize my time on MEDIUM over the past year, both as a writer and a reader. It’s a reciprocal arrangement if you’re really going to do the MEDIUM thing. The stuff you read is at least as important as the stuff you write!
That said, this first post in the IN CASE YOU MISSED IT — 2022 series focuses on pieces I have written, on MEDIUM, since signing on back in late July, 2022. [There’s a story there, but for another time.] No small feat, I tell ya!
In any event, here are my TOP NINE posts, as determined by a jury of one.
ME!
Statistically unreliable, but hopefully a good read, nonetheless.
Full disclosure. I had a MEDIUM account before this one. But I only self-published a few stories and it mostly sat dormant, noticed by essentially no one. This was a piece I wrote for that original account.
In the midst of an awkward situation in the workplace, I pulled that original account down, but saved this story and posted it again when I started over. It’s the saga of how we discovered naturism in the first place. I think it’s poignant and sweet, and makes me reminiscent for our youth.
I think I wrote this piece in a fit of rage. Naked people often get a bad rap, even if all they really wanted to do was to enjoy the sun and breeze on their skin. Nothing more. Nothing less. This was my attempt to explain that concept to the general, textile bearing (as opposed to baring) population.
In case the previous post wasn’t compelling enough to make you want to give all your clothes to the Salvation Army, I took another swing at it.
The first draft of this piece was inspired by an article that appeared in the New York Times that focused on the perils of splattering bacon grease on your belly when you live in a nudist resort. I took it upon myself to write a more sensible account of the naturist lifestyle. And for the record, NO sane person cooks bacon on the stove top without an apron!
When I signed on to MEDIUM, I thought, “This… will be a great place to write a book; one chapter at a time!”
Turns out, this is a horrible place to write a book. A 3-minute read is too short for a chapter. And frankly, a 10-minute read is too short to make a chapter as well, but almost nobody will click through on something longer than a 7-minute read.
This was one of the early drafts that was going to make a book chapter. Maybe it will; maybe it won’t. But there are a lot of insights here into our naturist life.
This is another piece that was revised from my original blog on WordPress. We had spent several days at Vera Playa; a naturist village on a beautiful beach in Spain. We had walked well beyond the naturist zone before we realized “maybe we should be wearing swimsuits now! — but then again, who can tell?”
I think it’s a good piece.
THIS. IS. SATIRE.
I say that emphatically as a lot of people read it and sent me comments to emphasize that I just don’t get it — which means they didn’t read to the end of the story.
I don’t write a lot of satire, but this is intended to be just that.
Just for the record: I’m a lifelong naturist and my sex life is pretty good!
Naturism and nakedness remains alive and well in Europe.
Between the beautiful resorts in France and Croatia, and the innumerable saunas and spas in Northern Europe, I think they have a pretty healthy concept of social nudity.
But the American story ? Well… that’s a bit more complicated.
This is my attempt at telling that story.
I love this story!
When our kids were young, one of them had a friend for a sleepover and woke up in the night with a bloody nose. My wife went downstairs stark naked to help her.
Nobody got arrested. Nobody seemed damaged. And we got her nose to stop bleeding.
Huh!
I’m not sure this is my exhaustive list from 2022, but it certainly hits the corners of my trapezoidal relationship with social nudity. I hope you found something entertaining at least; thought-provoking at best, in this first attempt at TOP NINES for 2022.
And remember. There’s always 2023!
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