So true RnR. When we decorated the ANW home page which was a little over 2 and1/2 years ago a good six months before going live we choose a little two word introduction. Naked - Naturally. We all know that the site is about naturism it is in the title but what do we want to remind people of when they first "open the door" that naturism is natural, that nudity is natural and that people will naturally be naked on this site - meaning that unlike other social media sites we naturaslly accept nudity but also that the nudity should feel natural. There is a certain amount of fakery involved in all social media - the selfie, the posing, taking time out of your day to connect with people on the other side of the world, making friends with strangers. But we want it to feel as natural as possible, because social media is also a life line. In a world where we no longer know our neighbours. In years gone by most men would travel to work together and often work at the same place, women would have coffee mornings, young children would play around them, older children would be out playing football with jumpers for goal posts or making dens, gossip "over the garden wall" as we hang out the washing, father's heading to the social club or pub for a pint on the way home, communal day trips, holidays in the same fortnight when all the factories in the town would close down. Social media is a plaster covering the wound of society losing sight of each other - but the distance and the slight level of fakery has distorted our reactions and behaviour. When it used to be polite for the neighbour to say "I love your new hair-do" to a friend (no matter what she actually thought) we now have people pouting into the camera desperate for hundreds of likes and comments such as "gorgeous," where we used to have friends maybe talking about relationship issues with trusted friends we now have people posting images of their "relationships" with others as a short cut. Images are a replacement of reality. I cannot see you in real life and share a meal and a drink with you so here is the picture. Like a post card it says "I wish you were here."

Naturism itself is a fakery too. Like social media it is a replacement of the real deal. We should all have a natural attitude towards nudity. It should not matter a jot if I take my bins out in the nude, we should swim naked at local baths, we should all be happy to be naked in the sun at a park or beach, it shouldn't matter if people see us naked in our garden or home. As mentioned above it isn't about being normal, it should be about being natural. But sadly most of society developed a hang up where natural nudity is concerned so along comes clubs, national organisations and events. To find ways to have natural nudity but the fact that is it organised means it can never be natural. No matter how much fun it may be going to a naturist event at a theme park, or in a restaurant, the fact that it has to be created and run on a certain day means it is a dip into a fake world. Naturism is a theatre where we pretend for a while that the world still sees nudity as natural. National organisations need to offer their members as honest and as real a time into this fake world as they can. The closer to reality we can make it the better. The real world is a much more honest place than we believe and clubs and national organisations need to recognise that the closer we keep naturism to reality the easier it is for it to be trusted and to gain interest. People get naked at beaches and at Glastonbury because there seems no reason not to. That is naturism. Joining a club can appear forced - they exist because they offer the ability to enjoy naturism in a controlled environment that isn't available in the real environment - and that is the best alternative but people need to see that it is a natural opportunity and not a forced, controlled and fake moment. The more natural the promotion of naturism the better. Naturally society are a mixture of people - ages, genders, races etc - so naturism needs to as best it can reflect that without forcing the issue. Take a park on a sunny Sunday. There is no ratio, statistics, limits, or concerns - people from all walks of life turn up and use the park - picnics, barbecues, playground squeals, feeding the duck, climbing trees, paying music, celebrating birthdays, individuals, large family groups, couples hand in hand. No one is sitting at the gate turning away single men or welcoming women with hang ups about their body or suggesting there aren't enough of one minority or too many of another. Like ANW people are just welcome and are only not welcome if they are offensive to others. 

The local clubs and national bodies have a tricky balancing act - to supply nudity to society in as natural a way possible but in a fake environment. People need to be willing to pretend for a while, and club joining isn't what it was. Given the choice of spending two hours a week playing in a local brass band or sitting in front of the TV with a beer most people chose the latter. Partly because we don't know each other and trust each other like we used to and partly because we are all rushed off our feet and exhausted by "making ends meet." Faking it in a club for a while is not a luxury most people consider - or at least think they don't - but most people are faking it in a club every day - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram - and unlike the local club it feels safe - but it is also shallow and littered with unhealthy attitudes. Say something nasty to the trumpet player in your brass band and he will still be there next week. Say something revolting to a "friend" on Facebook and the worse that can happen is they block you. 

Clubs may seem Old School but there are plenty of examples of new school club joining and that is what naturism needs to appeal to. National Federation need to get volunteers to run a stall at Glastonbury or hand out leaflets at WNBR's not because they are naturist events but because there are people there that are thinking "nudity is natural." They need to be here doing the same. They cannot force a change of attitude on the whole of society but they can find open doorways and use them. Clubs need to appear less like "controlled environments," which of course they have to be to a certain extent, but more like opportunities - it isn't about brainwashing but about being yourself.

Adverts that use nudity may be forced to attract attention - but they are an opportunity to say to people - look it is no big deal - why should it be shocking or seen as wrong? 

The "globe trotting naturists who preach they are the new naturisum, whilst hiding their privates through clever screen shots, but are they really?" I simply think are a product of fame seekers on the internet selling themselves rather than naturism and confusing the issue of naturism by making it seem both elitist and saucy. If they successfully encouraged naturism then they would not stand out as worthy of interest and note - because people would be too busy being naturists themselves. It is not in their interest to encourage naturism it is in their interest to self promote and encourage an elitist aura. The whole idea of naturism is not about "how lucky we are as individuals " but about the fact that naturism is on your doorstep - and clubs and societies can help make that a reality - no matter how fake the situation really is. H&E sadly devoted a whole page to screenshots of naturists on Instagram this month - how much would they normally charge for a full page advert - personally I thought it was the worst thing I have ever seen in the magazine ever. Completely pointless and showing how Instagram accounts have pictures of bottoms or hands in front of breasts to avoid showing nipples and genitals. Suggestions about how clever it is that people find ways to hide themselves and get around the rules of Instagram but failing to recognise that some of these people do the same thing on places that don't need such rules - their own websites and even within the pages of H&E! I fail to see the relevance of showing Instagram accounts. Instagram hates nudity - why not have a advert for a clothes manufacturer? H&E wants people to follow them on Instagram but why? - wouldn't they be better following them by buying the actual magazine and visiting their website? They already have the magazine in their hand - why send them to large, faceless, social media - especially one with an ever growing fear of nudity? If they want to "waste" a whole page why not have a page sending people to the BN or INF?  Is Meta not big enough? If Meta has its way nudity would be something only shared in private and perverted messages in chat rooms. Leaving the page blank would have been better in my opinion than simply advertising Instagram. Where do priorities lie? We could have written another article if they were short of space, or provided them with a promotion encouraging awareness of ANW - A social media site where people don't have to cover their breasts or turn away from the camera. There must have been a million better ways to use a page. 

It all goes back to something mentioned in an earlier post - are we promoting naturism or just self absorbed. What comes first. Anna and I need funding for ANW, magazines need advertisers and sales, national bodies and clubs need memberships to exist - but it seems that too often the priority is the money and not the goal. Anna and I put naturism first - we have to - otherwise what is the point. Does a national body have a want to appear to be alone in promoting naturism, so it does not lose members to other opportunities? If that is the case then they fail to see their importance and their relevance. We are all stronger connected. Together we stand, divided we fall. As RnR say we have to fear "eroding naturism."

Since my reply there have been great additions, and some I'm still digesting as they are nothing like I've seen recently online: insightful, honest, real thoughts and not a prepared speech about what we all ought to believe to be a proper citizen. Nevertheless, this quote from Steve felt like a sledgehammer hit of reality:

Images are a replacement of reality. I cannot see you in real life and share a meal and a drink with you so here is the picture. Like a post card it says "I wish you were here."

We are involved in a court case against our contractor, asking for the payment of repairs in an old house we restored but that now is plagued with ascencional humidity from the stone walls (it used to be build the old way, with an open cavity beneath the floor so it could evaporate to the outside, but they cemented it and now the new floor looks like it's been rotting since World War II). We got a reply from his lawyer complaining of how offensive it was that we are not willing to accept an offer of 1/3 of what we're asking by saying that the repairs are not a Moroccan bazar in which we're widly bargening prices between 4000 and 50000 euro. Everybody gets offended so easily and I also find that it is nothing but a farce. One says something is offensive and becomes automatically in the right. I can say was robbed by a tall bald man but not by a tall bald black man, as if his skin colour implies the guilt of every black men. The way things are, we'll end up unable to describe the robber as tall—that's descrimination, like all tall men are robbers—, as bald—it's a disease, you're discriminating against someone who suffers from hair loss—,and as a man—that's descrimination, I don't really know if someone who looks like a man is actually or feels actually like a man. Who robbed you?—A person; can't describe more than that.

Steve/Anna: when you contacted national associations to join ANW, did you contact Naturigal, Naturistas de Galicia? We would happily join them so we could partake in their actions like nude hiking, despite being at least 200 km away from us.

NaturistHub... what are your thoughts? At first I thought it was a good idea, but now it seems it's just another "everyone in" kind of site which will eventually dereail.

I don't think we have Naturigal listed - we will have to put that right - so if we haven't got it listed we won't have contacted them. 

NaturistHub - I guess time will tell - I think you have to have a huge amount of passion to drive a website forward - if there is enough passion there then it may be OK.  

Thanks for sharing the situation with your home. We are still waiting for a court date for the problems we had with the removal company we used from Spain. When the case went up against them they threatened to make a counterclaim against us as a way of getting us to withdraw - and you think claiming what? That we forced them to break some of our things, insisted that they loose £6000 pounds worth of other things and demanded that they refuse to let us have anything back until we paid three times the original agreed price. In what possible way have we caused them any harm? What sort of a crazy world is this when you can be mistreated by someone and they act like they can take you to court for being their victim? The sad thing is that it will have taken about 2 years to get the claim dealt with and we already feel so distanced from it that it is hard to imagine having the drive to explain to the court what happened in what is becoming a historic event.

Associations of any type are often a mixed bag.  They are often created to provide services to the association members or to advance the goals of the group, in a word, "lobbying".  Then to, they often are created to help members find customers for their services.  In looking at all the comments, naturist federations at least do two of these three and some, more than others, attempt at a third.

I'm not a member of AANR here in the US and to be a member of a foreign association (BN for example) makes little sense.  Having the property I have I don't go to a local naturist venue, especially since my wife would not participate.  I think AANR exists to do two of the three functions I described, those being providing some services to members and helping resorts reach customers.  Do they work at influencing government to recognize naturism?  Maybe, maybe not.  Do other federations do more of this?  I can't say.

Do associations get stuffy and set in their ways?  Of course.  They're run by humans and none of us at times like change.  No one likes to see their status quo upset.  Should they be prodded to change?  I can't say.  

It would be great to see nudity accepted here in the US the way it is in the UK.  By this I mean that being seen in public is not automatically criminalized.  What I've read indicates that Vermont is somewhat this way but not in other states.  If AANR would work on that it would be great.  Will it happen in my lifetime?  I doubt it.

Many folks added some excellent points here.  I hope what I've said adds to the conversation.