That’s a pretty epic reply Anna with quite a lot packed into it. Many interesting and powerful points.

 

Regarding abuse and the subtle under currents of it’s affects, certainly the many influences can’t be denied. One will make life choices based on what one feels that they deserve. Thus if one feels worthless and undeserving, good choices are unlikely and that belief of worthlessness is reinforced.

 

I would say however that isn’t a blanket rule. Other events and influences help break default patterns. I think deep beneath it all is a powerful independent spirit of self that finds critical moments to shine.

Many people have an immeasurable positive effect on others without even knowing it.

 

On top of all that, each and every moment, each and every one of us can choose differently. I have been fortunate to create my own ‘luck’ many times. It’s more accurate to say, taken sufficient risk to make a significant improvement.

I personally feel it’s this risk improvement approach that provides the ability to transform and transcend.

 

There is however a far more important element that I almost overlooked. You stated “there will always be the memories, there will always be the loss of my childhood” and I would respectfully add “if you choose to keep those memories alive by reliving them in your mind.”

 

One gem of wisdom I’ve gleaned and repurposed to my own ends, dare I say it, is Marie Kondo’s maxim, “throw out anything that doesn’t bring you joy.”

It’s somewhat parallel to a Buddhism statement about suffering. If you want a hot coal to stop burning your hand, let it go. The tighter you grip it, the more it will keep burning.

 

So it is with memories, perception, relationships and core beliefs. Make conscious choices.

 

I suspect where media is concerned and alarming social trends, these are surely just reflections of the toxic sickness prevalent in society. Children inherit suffering from their parents, who inherited it from their parents.

 

So far as ‘normal’ goes, maybe it’s a notion that should be dropped altogether and replaced by acceptance if not merely tolerance.

 

Perhaps I’m thinking of a Richard Bach quote, “you choose to be offended.”

People make that choice far too often. By default perhaps. It’s a failure to consider an alternative point of view. It’s a failure to consider different cultural values.

 

There’s an overall lack of balance. Rushing into the middle to all be the same, then acting out in some objectionable manner to gain attention.

 

If people just accepted differences without feeling threatened or endangered by them, perhaps the world would be slightly less damaged and damaging.

What you write is true but it isn't about reliving the memories, it isn't even about considering them, the abuse was there, it cannot be thrown out because to do so would leave a void in my life, 10 years that cannot just be wiped out. And the many years of lonely hurt that followed.

The only thing you can do is learn to accept it and move on, many children blame themselves and feel guilt. It doesn't matter where I am, how beloved I am, how special I become, my childhood and my family relations cannot be ignored, or thrown away, otherwise where was my childhood? The good and bad of our lives bring us to the point we are, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, I wonder how many abused are just facing a slow death? Far too many. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, I have learnt perspective and context, I have learnt to love and trust and grow. Many abusees remain hurt children in adult bodies. But I cannot ignore it, it is in me, every day, and will be until I die, not something damaging maybe, not something encouraging me to hate or mistrust, not something that gives me daily pain, but when a child has their childhood stolen by people that are supposed to protect them they may come to heal, but as I say the scar will always remain. Is it with me everyday? Not consciously, but it is there in my subconscious. Just like the scar on my knee from when I came off my bike as a child. It doesn't itch or hurt, but it is there, part of me. It doesn't effect me, but unlike the cut on my knee the healing and stopping of pain from the abuse took a long time. 

To deny it would not just be losing a huge part of my past (no matter how negative) but also be denying the strength and the process of healing and the person I am now. I would never have met Steve, had my children or become a naturist if the abuse hadn't happened. The person I am today is because of all of my past and not just the happy parts. 

Being a good parent and a good person is actually very natural, maybe like naturism, it is something we take for granted. The more I think about it the more naturism is about being instinctive, having our natural covering. Clothing is like selling fruit wrapped in plastic. Fake, environmentally unsound, and often unnecessary.

It cannot be easily proved, as societies connection with clothes is long and varied, but I cannot help but consider that societies fear of nudity, and abuse, porn and misuse of the internet are linked. 

Why an adult would abuse a child is such an alien concept to most of us that it seems unfathomable that the supportive, loving and strong path isn't chosen. Like naturism, when you are on the path it seems so easy and obvious. 

Going back to women's and the rantings on the internet and articles around the world. We make the misuse of women seem so inevitable and so commonplace that we are in danger of making it appear the natural choice, a choice that we have to learn to fight against rather than a shocking misuse of the natural order of things.

When we say "normalise nudity" it creates the idea that nudity is currently abnormal, when we say "black lives matter" it suggests that the current way of thinking is that they don't. When we act like child abuse is everywhere and women are raped and misused everywhere we take the shocking and abnormal and make it commonplace. We breed mistrust and contempt. There are terrible situations out there, there is inequality, too many people are abused in one way or another but the way it is handled is making the matter worse. We highlight our differences, we concentrate on our fears and we breed anger. We have to start with what is working and grow that. In the UK the divides are getting bigger, as we look at injustice all over the world and imagine it as commonplace in our own community. This must be happening elsewhere. Like naturism we are sort of saying "normalise equality" which suggest that equality is abnormal. If we start with such a concept and believe it we are bound to feel angry. The average person is actually very fair, the average person isn't a child abuser, a rapist, a racist, a homophobe....they want everyone to get a fair share, believe in equality in the work place, want everyone to have the vote....if we are unable to start off with that premise then we start off mistrusting the very ideas we appear to be angrily fighting for. 

Naturism is normal and instinctive and is part of our core being. We cannot normalise the abnormal but we can embrace the normal.

Too many children are abused, too many women are mistreated in one form or another, but if we cannot see that most men are not a threat or that in our instincts we want to nurture children and work as gender equals then we have no normal to work on. We know that women and men naturally work together as a team and make the team stronger by doing so. Greater than the sum of our parts. That is not just about couples or families but about community. It is common sense, just like the fact that "ALL lives matter." If we aren't allowed to have an understanding of that then we cannot start to build and repair. 

The internet and media in an attempt to create Trends to show how PC we should be and highlight injustice fail to recognise or care that they are encouraging the world to lose faith. They are saying - the world is racist, the world is sexist, the world is homophobe, the world is perverse. They are asking us to keep the mistakes of the past raw and bleeding and hate filled. Past events that are supposed to be moved on from and healed and learnt from are dug up and used to create new anger. But it is selective - we ignore the good and the progress and remember the injustice, and we only remember select injustices - ones that appear to be linked to current trends. How far back do we need to dig to find itches to make bleed. If they decided Da Vinci was a child abuser would we be burning the Mono Lisa?

We need to start today, we need to move on and not back, we need to sensibly combat injustice and we need to do that with a common idea that we believe in justice and not with the idea that we don't. Women cannot fight injustice if they start with the idea that they have to fight every man. We cannot tackle child abuse if we see 50% of the world as would be suspects, we cannot teach our children how to recognise threat if we don't first recognise it ourselves. We cannot combat racial issues or sexual issues, or age issues, or religious issues if we start of by saying that everyone is guilty of the crime. We keep acting like it is a small percentage of people who are fighting a massive injustice. A handful of enlightened sportsmen. What we are suggesting is that we are starting off with an unsurmountable task. Doomed to failure before it even starts. No wonder it makes people angry. No wonder we all seem to be shouting at windmills. No wonder that art is grinding to a halt as we fear that anything we do may be taken as a slight against an aspect of society. 

I was an abused female child. But if I was to imagine that all men are a threat to me as a woman or my son's as children then I would be doomed and they would be doomed. As a naturist I sleep in peace on beaches surrounded by strangers knowing that the majority of people are basically trustworthy. My children have played happily naked all their lives with other children, with their parents, with us. Never have I felt any sense of danger. But there have been men (and women that I haven't liked and trusted in my life, there have been people that my children have said to me "I don't like them" - have they had the good instinct to mistrust someone or is it simply that we all find people that don't fit to our tastes. Either way if we learn to follow our instincts rather than just fear everyone then we have a chance of liking society and functioning in it. 

We can do it, we can see that most people care. Covid highlighted how well humanity can pull together, even though it also showed how individuals can be disgraceful. The current problems in the Ukraine shows how the world doesn't want to ignore injustice on a global scale. There are huge problems but if we work together and not apart then we are much more likely to find the answers. 

In naturist terms if we start off with the idea that naturism is natural and an instinctive part of our lives we are much more likely to encourage people than by saying, naturism is something practised by a minority group why don't more people give it a go?

I would love to chat more about encouraging women into naturism and what can or should be done about it. 

My belief is that by encouraging everyone, ensuring naturism is seen as family friendly and safe we will by default encourage more women.

In our latest blog https://www.anaturistworld.com/blog/46028/a-naturist-family-enjoying-naturism-12-nkd-part-1 we mention that two men and two women completely new to naturism were part of the weekend. Where as the men remained reluctant throughout the women embraced it fully - and had an amazing time. Was it that the women felt at ease because they connected to the family friendly nature of the event. The men (by their very nature - without meaning to appear sexually stereotyping - but still doing so in good nature) not so connected to the attitudes of families, parents and children - were possibly not so easily convinced. Women by tradition are the carers - men the hunter gatherers. We cannot help but be effected by our inner subsconscious workings. Would the two ladies felt as relaxed if it had been an adult only venue? 

My belief is that women (and families) need naturism to feel safe - something that the internet seldom allows to happen, something that beaches can appear to sometimes fail at (with too much concern about dune dwellers) and without being already convinced most women (and their families) will stay away from booking a holiday, or join a national body without knowing what they are letting themselves in for. 

The simplest way to encourage more women is to ensure that naturism remains and is promoted as family friendly and to encourage more couples with young children to get involved. More of everyone, and safety in numbers. 

The great thing about NKD was that it was a prime example of how naturism should be, like a.b.y.a.C week as he reported here:https://www.anaturistworld.com/blog/46007/we-joined-a-naturist-family-youth-camp-by-a-b-y-a-c and the various blogs that me, Steve and RnR have written about our time together this summer.

I am also reminded that we have had a solo woman last month tell us on a beach that she had just spent her first day naked on a beach thanks to seeing Steve, the boys and me playing in the sea. What better way to encourage trust in a life style than to show how healthy and safe it is. 

This has to be where the future lies - and the question is how do we get more people doing this and ensuring that naturism continues being loved by generations to come?     

We wrote yesterview in the first part of our Interview https://www.anaturistworld.com/article/46034/a-series-of-questions-to-anna-and-steve-the-creators-of-anw-part-1 about the importance of families in naturism and that we think if any aspect of society needs encouraging to naturism then it should be families and that by default will encourage others. 

I think this is particularly true about encouraging women - women will trust naturism if they see it as family friendly but also women often have children themselves. 82% of women in the UK have children by they time they are my age. If we want more women we need more families. Even many women who do not have children will be encouraged to trust naturism by the exisitance of other women, mothers and children. They will also more easily trust the men in naturism if they see them as part of families or trusted by families.

I would love to hear more views on this idea.