If you enjoy this article and feel inspired then you may find that ANW is the perfect internet platform for you to celebrate your love of naturism. ANW celebrates the freedom and natural independence that naturism offers but also recognises the importance that national federations and local clubs holds in the naturist community - our past, present and future. We have a passion for naturism and invite anyone who feels the same to join us.
Get Real With Naturism - Get Real With ANW
In January we introduced our campaign for 2024: Get Real! (Click here to Read)
Throughout this year we will be exploring different ways of considering the message of Get Real!
The idea is simple – naturism is about reality: We remove our costumes and present ourselves in our natural form.
Though there is more to it than that. Get Real! reminds us that:
We should be real about how society views and accepts naturism
We have to be real and true to the nature of naturism and who we are as naturists.
Naturism is in many ways a lesson in trust. We place ourselves in a situation that much of society would consider incredibly vulnerable, yet the faith we place in our fellow naturists doesn't weaken us but repays us with strength and confidence.
In this article we would like to explore the concept of Get Real within the ANW community itself. Ideas of shared trust and ways to help create a confidence and comfort in an internet setting that can in some ways be as Real to naturism as a day on a beach or time at a local club.
In fact when we started building ANW seven years back, our want was to create something on the internet that felt like a local club or well used naturist beach, but on a global scale. It was heart warming to read the many comments in the recent survey (Click to Read the Survey Results) that referred to ANW as a “large family” and placed the “welcoming” and “friendly” community as an important positive aspect of sharing naturism on ANW.
A Genuine Naturist Community.
That is how we have always wanted ANW to be. We had explored various general and naturist social platforms and we had also run our own blog with community aspects to it (membership, commenting, photo sharing, a forum...), and we could see various ways that the internet encourage fakery and we knew that for ANW to work we had to combat the various weaknesses so prominent on the internet.
In naturist terms this is most commonly people creating fake accounts, people sharing stolen or secretly taken photographs, people using naturism/nudism as a disguise for sexual sharing, people lying about themselves, their naturism and their experiences in comments, discussions and communications, people being offensive and hateful towards naturism and people being pestering, furtive and over attentive to others.
Subscriptions
We always knew that the most honest way for ANW to exist would be for genuine naturists individuals, couples and enterprises to support this endeavour. ANW has taken up more hours than could possibly be imagined to build and to maintain, and is a full time occupation for us. There are also many monthly, yearly and one off fees that need covering. The recent development work has used up several months of subscription payments, strengthening our own on going commitment to ensure ANW grows and grows for many years to come. It has never been a short term idea, it is a life long passion for us, like naturism itself.
The need for paid membership gave us an ideal situation to ensure that certain areas and features were placed beyond the reach of the casual visitor, ensuring that the Life and Annual members had safer places for sharing and those who wanted to share for fake and non-naturist reasons would consider the subscriptions and the limitations a reason for leaving ANW and going elsewhere.
The subscriptions therefore allows the site to exist without invasive and unsuitable advertising, selling personal information; and also keeps the community heading in the right direction in its approach and support of naturism.
We have to be true to naturism in our endeavour to encourage funding. We do not want membership to grow simply by selling the idea of “nudity” and we have also turned away many advertisers who have had a “libertine” approach to nudity. We have always known that by being true to our want for ANW and true to naturism we will also be true to the general community of ANW.
Verifications
An aspect of ANW that we are very proud of is the Free Verification Service. We wanted to discourage the fake profiles so common on the internet and at the same time ensure that people didn't place themselves in a situation where they feared identity theft. The verification service we feel strikes a very good balance.
We wanted it to be available to everyone for free as a way of encouraging honesty across all members of ANW. Building trust in the community and not just in the Life and Annual members.
Although no information on ANW is harvested for third party use, and your time and activity on ANW is for your enjoyment and friendships, we also wanted to ensure people who were a little more fearful of sharing on the internet felt at ease. Using Nicknames/Usernames is fine, quoting a suitably approximate birthdate (we verify in year blocks of Early, Mid and Late Decades), and a nearby large town for your location is fine. Similarly ID sent for verification purposes can have unique reference numbers, street name and number, and day and month of birth obscured.
The verification is about painting a picture of who you are, information someone may get from meeting you at a beach or club. They will know your rough age, gender and general location without knowing your actual birthdate and street address. They will know you by the name you like using, rather than the name on your birth certificate. What is important is the idea of you, who you are and how you come across, and the verification is part of that.
We are happy to verify couples with two IDs, families with adult IDs and an accompanying family photo (dressed is always fine) where the adults are recognisable from their ID. We also add extras to the verification like federation membership or anything else you feel is relevant to your profile that you would like to have verified.
Photos
As part of the verification we confirm that the images you share are representative of your photographic ID.
Sharing images is a big part of the internet but is also a big part of creating a fake identity on the internet.
We created various rules about the use of photography to help ensure ANW stays more real and respectful towards naturism and that the community stays more real too.
These sensible rules are shared in the Terms of Service with more recent additions relating to the use of AI images. Most important for this article is that images should belong to you, be of yourself or people you know and who knew you were taking the photos. Images should not have other websites logos, branding or watermarks (unless they are you own private labels with no company branding) on them. This discourages the use of downloaded images that can suggest the images are not originally your own. Images should place the face as more important than the rest of the body (no cropping of heads, obscuring heads or concentrating on the breasts or genitals). The idea of photograph use is to create a “Reality” and in reality we look at faces when we communicate, and we know the person in front of us is themselves and the people around them are with them.
Too often the internet has profiles that do not show faces (often just close ups of genitalia) and use images that show people as something they are not (old men pretending to be young women with stolen images is a very common habit). These obviously are harmful to naturism. There are also far too many profiles that share hundreds of images of strangers taken from around the internet or hundreds of images of strangers taken secretly by the profile owner while hidden on a beach. These though less obvious also do great harm. They create an idea that naturism is not something that people can enjoy just for themselves. A young couple wanting to take part in naturism seeing these profiles will worry that if they walk hand in hand on the beach then their nudity will be shared by a stranger for the whole world to “like” and comment on.
Part of the Get Real campaign is sharing real photos. This fits in with the ANW rules about AI images. Fake photo-real images have no place on ANW as they create a fake version of reality.
ANW has no place for such behaviour and such fake use of naturism on the internet is not part of any attempt to Get Real!
Behaviour and Respect
These stolen and secret images encourage sexualised, flirty and overly complimentary comments that the real people would probably wish to reject. However, these comments go unchallenged by the thieves who post them, people who want the attention and the followers. These images along with the many sexualised images shared on the internet have encouraged a line of communication that is unwanted by genuine naturist and damaging to the growth of naturism, but the behaviour has become so commonplace that even naturist based groups and sites have images shared purely to attract compliments, attitudes that have actually transferred to real life and have resulted in attempts by naturist societies to combat unwanted attention towards others, particularly women. This is not only going to put off people from being naturists but also from sharing as naturists. The easiest way to encourage more people to enjoy naturism is to offer them an environment they feel comfortable in.
There is a great irony within social media that it is the people who enjoy seeing naked images of other people who actually discourage such sharing through over attentive and over familiar behaviour, as well as being exhibitionist in their own sharing. There would be more naturists sharing naturism on the internet and in real life if others showed them the respect they deserve. On ANW we have always aimed to nurture that respect within the community encouraging the idea that you can share safely and suitably without being made to feel a victim of exhibitionist or voyeuristic kicks. There are always going to people who do not see the bigger picture and try to use ANW in the way naturism and nudity is commonly used around the internet – and by some in the 3D world – but the community majority lead the way and together we continue to move ANW in the right direction.
Showing respect to naturism and naturists is an important aspect of Get Real: without respect naturism has no future. Those people who sexualise naturism are endorsing the media attitudes that are sadly universally supported by many non-naturists and consign naturism to a limited lifespan of interest to a very small minority. It is only by encouraging the family friendly, universal, non-sexual and true reality of naturism that we can ever see long term growth across a broader section of society. With Respect comes trust,: allowing acceptance, understanding and eventually appreciation.
It is why on ANW we place respectful behaviour towards yourself, each other, ANW and naturism as vitally important. Why we have always encouraged members to “Protect Themselves, Protect ANW and Protect Naturism.” To Get Real you have to stand up for your right to ensure naturism is not just here for your own respectful enjoyment but also for future generations to enjoy.
10 Ways to Get Real with ANW.
Fill in your Profile Details to paint a faithful picture of who you are. This information is shared to make friends and it allows you to be found through various search option in the browse Members page. Keep your profile up to date.
Become Verified. It is free and simple to do, the form for image sending is safe and once again this is purely to encourage trust in yourself and the community.
Ask people who send friends requests to become verified. Knowing that people are basically who they say they are is a fair expectation for friendships. Don't just remove their friends request – send them a message suggesting verification.
Share a profile image – this works as a calling card allowing members of ANW to recognise you and your activity.
Consider upgrading to Life and Annual membership. This not only allows you to have a greater level of real naturist communication but also allows ANW to continue to grow as a genuine global platform for naturism helping to cover the time and expense needed to ensure our community flourishes. Get active sharing thoughts, ideas, photos and other aspects of your naturist life. The more we share the normal aspect of naturism with others, the more we encourage others and the more we encourage the trend of safely and sensibly sharing our naturism as an "average and normal" part of our lives.
Share on the activity feed, take part in forum discussions, write blogs, create albums, run and join groups, vote in polls, make friends, join us on Virtual Meets.... We are always looking for new members to Interview about their naturism, from all over the world. These interviews are about showing Real Naturism with ordinary naturists sharing their thoughts about our wonderful life choice, inspiring everyone to consider naturism as part of their lives.
Ensure your activity on ANW is respectful of the others, ANW and naturism. Do not make others feel uncomfortable, consider how your activity and words come across. If you are over familiar or flirtatious, then it will not just discourage others from being your friend but will also confuse those that are new to naturism and put off people from using and sharing on ANW. Sexualised behaviour and conversation will only do damage to yourself, ANW and naturism. This is a naturist website and sexual behaviour is just as out of place here as in any other non-sexual specialised website. The nudity is not an excuse to act sexual and to confuse it as such has more to do with those people who hate and mistrust nudity on the internet than fellow naturists. More people will share their naturism on ANW if they make the right emotional connections. If your words appear to have sexual undertones then so will naturism.
Illustrate Naturism with your photographs. If possible stay out of the bedroom and bathroom. Ideally get outside. Try not to centre the focus of the photograph on genitalia, breasts or bottom, consider how you would set up the shot if you were dressed. If your photos appear exhibitionist it may encourage people to block you and will present the wrong idea of naturism, and often misrepresent you. Posing for images and selfies can appear awkward at the best of time, so can easily be misconstrued. If your poses seem forced and unnatural then so will naturism.
Get to know each other through ANW. Be very wary about swapping emails. A member reaching out to you and immediately wanting to swap emails is often a danger sign, particularly if accompanied by a request for sharing photos. Ask yourself questions: Would you just give anyone an invitation into your life? Why the immediate interest and demands? Why not chat on ANW first? Why not share photos on ANW? The albums library is there for sharing in. Are they verified? Beware of excuses. The vast majority of ANW members are very well behaved and genuine naturists but occasionally we do have to remove members for inappropriate behaviour both publicly and privately. These offenders have often been pestering people for emails and also make ANW an excuse for their reasons saying things like “I have been told I cannot share images on ANW.” We would never do such a thing. If you have any doubts about fellow members or read such statements get in touch with us, share your concerns or ask questions.
Protect Yourself, Protect ANW and Protect Naturism. If anyone is behaving inappropriately towards you tell us. To ignore them, or worse still leave ANW, will only allow them to continue acting incorrectly towards others. Such behaviour if left unchecked will ruin any club or beach and will ruin ANW.
Get Real in your behaviour. Lots of people like tag-lines like “Normalise Nudity” what does that really mean. Nudity should never be considered “Abnormal” so the suggestion is actually rather negative. Maybe “Act Normal with Nudity” would be a better suggestion. There is nothing more natural than naturism. Which is why we prefer the term “naturism” over “nudism.” We are in our natural state when uncovered and naturism is best presented through natural behaviour. In many ways naturism is simply normal life but with the absence of clothes, and that is the best way to behave on ANW. Nudity isn't shocking, it isn't forced and it doesn't have to be underlined. It can just be! The best images and behaviour are represented not by highlighting the naked state but by simply accepting it. It doesn't matter if your breasts and genitals are seen, just as it doesn't matter if they aren't.
This last concept is a huge part of naturism, and is very easily understood when enjoying naturism at a beach, club, event or venue. The unclothed state is second nature, you simply do not go around considering your nudity. You get on with your swim, lunch, sun bathing, conversations, sandcastle building, sport, reading and so forth without worrying about being naked. That is the best way for people to understand the concept of what naturism is, and it is an aspect of naturism that is rarely seen on the internet. Most naturist websites, social media profiles, blogging sites, “Patreon” style accounts and other naturist presence on the internet make a big deal about the nudity – showing it, not showing it, charging for it, reinforcing it, shocking people with it...Genuine naturists know that in genuine naturist circumstances this is not genuine naturism.
Our hope with the Get Real campaign is to capture genuine naturism. To Get Real about naturism on ANW is to encourage as many members as possible to not just be genuine and respectful, and to not just take part in the Free Verification Service but to also show Real Naturism. Through our photographs, behaviour and communication we can allow new visitors to ANW to see and appreciate examples of what it actually means to be a naturist.
If ANW gives the internet at least one place to Get Real With Naturism then we can hopefully encourage more and more people all over the globe to become genuinely inspired to try naturism within respectful and trusting environments in locations all over the world.
Thanks for Reading – Steve and Anna
© 2024 www.anaturistworld.com All Rights Reserved -
Anna and Steve have shared over 200 articles and blog posts on www.anaturistworld.com and write regularly for naturist publications. If you would like to collaborate with them on any naturist / nudist promotional activity, articles or interviews or quote from any of their work please contact them via email at [email protected]
