How young naturists can in‍terest others in social nudity

Here’s a topic that absolutely needs to be discussed. This thread on Reddit galvanized the following response. If you’re a young person who’s very interested in social nudity, you’ll probably need to take the initiative to find others who share your interest. Don’t wait for someone else to solve the problem for you.

This is the very first step: Talk to as many of your friends as possible about naturism and invite them to participate in naturist activities. It’s true, as you very probably know, that most active naturists are several decades older than you. So it’s difficult to find naturist activities where there are people your age. The solution is obvious: bring any friends with you who’re willing to learn about naturism.

You may find that many of your friends are willing to go to clothing-optional places if they won’t be pressured or required to get fully naked. They may decide to get naked after they feel more comfortable with the idea. But even if they don’t right away, they may consider the possibility sometime later. However that may be, when you’re with friends you won’t feel so out of place at a naturist venue where most others are older.

The truth is that most naturist places don’t strictly require nudity. At most landed clubs or resorts, nudity is required only around the pool or in spas or saunas. Most “clothing-optional” beaches are exactly as the term implies – there’s no expectation that everyone must be naked.

I’ve already covered the problems that young people face in getting involved with naturism: Facts that deter young people from participating in naturism. Now it’s time to explore how young people can get around the obstacles.

You’re probably able to help solve the real problem yourself

What you really want is to find somewhere to enjoy social nudity with many others near your age. Your best bet is to make that happen by your own efforts. In small groups that you could organize yourself for hiking or camping, everyone can decide for themselves how much or how little clothing to wear. There are many other possibilities for people to get together in private groups where nudity is acceptable. For instance:

• Plan parties at private homes, especially if there’s a swimming pool
• Ask at nearby yoga studios whether they have instructors who’d be willing to lead naked yoga classes in private homes (or even in the studio itself)
• Find out whether there’s a World Naked Bike Ride scheduled somewhere nearby during the summer – or organize one yourself
• Learn a little about body-painting (e. g. from online videos) and pick a time to invite others to be painters and/or canvases – in a private backyard or empty garage
• Rent one or more houseboats (or other watercraft) on lakes where some privacy is possible
• Rent some apartments or condos in vacation-oriented communities (e. g. near lakes, forests, hiking areas, etc.)
• Bring a group to rivers where white-water rafting is available (and a rafting company is tolerant of nudity)

Almost certainly there are one or a few of those activities you could arrange without much difficulty. But if not, use your imagination to come up with similar ideas for activities where nudity is possible. Just do it. If you think you can wait for someone else to take the initiative you might be waiting a long time.

Now let’s suppose you’ve found a small number of friends who have either started to feel comfortable being naked in social situations – or at least are happy to socialize with others who’re naked. That might be only half a dozen people. They’re also people you know pretty well. But few of them are able to enjoy social activities together at the same time. After all, many young people have little vacation time and may need to work more than one job just to make ends meet.

Social nudity is more enjoyable the more people can participate in any particular event. If, for example, the event involves body painting, everyone will get new ideas from seeing what the rest of the group comes up with. In a group twice as large, everyone can find inspiration from twice as many ideas. Even if the event is just a backyard cookout, more participants mean more interesting conversations are possible.

Attracting more people to your group of naturist friends

So your little group of nudity-positive friends will enjoy group activities more if additional people can be found to join the group. How to do that? The key thing is that each individual in the group has a circle of friends that doesn’t overlap completely with the circle of friends of the others. So even though many or most people in the group may already have known each other to start with, each individual also knows people who few in the group know already.

That means everyone in the group can potentially bring in friends that most others don’t know. Doing this simply requires that initial group members are willing to discuss their interest in naked activities with friends of theirs that nobody else has. Even if only half the people in the initial group can bring in one new group member the group size will increase by 50%. With a growth rate like that, the group can get larger pretty quickly.

And it shouldn’t really be difficult to do that if you live in a community of a reasonable size. It’s a sociological fact that the average adult is acquainted with upwards of 100 people. Unfortunately, there are very few surveys that estimate what percentage of the population already enjoys naturist activities, or even just being naked often at home. But the percentage is likely to be 2% or more, possibly much more.

So it’s quite likely that there are at least one or two others among your acquaintances who already enjoy nudity. The challenge is discovering who they are. How do you do that? It’s simple, really, if you’re willing and feel safe to talk openly with your acquaintances about your interest in social nudity. If you already have a small group of people who enjoy naked activities together, you’ll have lots to talk about if you just mention some of the things that you’ve enjoyed with others. You can also point out any success you’ve had persuading others to try social nudity.

You won’t even have to talk with most of your acquaintances either. Because the chances are that many of them already know each other. And you can bet that anyone you discuss the subject with will tell others he or she knows: “Hey, have you heard that Joe hangs out with this little group of friends who love to get together for parties and stuff completely naked? And it’s not a sexual thing at all!” Just be sure it’s always emphasized that your naturist activities are completely nonsexual.

Now just do the math. Say you live in a relatively small community that has, maybe, 5,000 to 10,000 people in the 18 to 35 age range. If even just 2% of them would be interested in social nudity, that’s potentially 100 to 200 people who might eventually join your group. How are all those people going to learn about the group? You certainly don’t need to talk with all of them. As long as a reasonable percentage of those already in your group are willing to talk about their favorite social nudity experiences, the word will get around pretty fast. You should, in fact, always encourage people in your group to spread the word, if they feel safe doing so.

Informing group members of ongoing activities

However, you may be thinking to yourself, “Wait! 100 or 200 people is a rather sizeable group. Surely there’ll need to be a lot of time spent just organizing activities and getting the word out when something is planned. I don’t have any extra time to spend on that kind of work!”

But here’s the important thing to understand. Even if the group as a whole has 100 or 200 people, many activities may involve not more than 10 or so. Many people simply don’t have space where they live for more than that number at the same time. Also, there will be a number of subgroups that form naturally, based on people who live close to each other or have similar interests (sports, home parties, camping, etc.) The important thing is that everyone is aware of the larger group, so it’s possible to identify who to connect with for specific activities and events.

In order to have an event that can involve a larger number of people, it will be best if it can be at a nearby landed club or clothing-optional beach. There should definitely be such events too, since that is where people can meet others in the group that they wouldn’t otherwise be acquainted with.

If there isn’t a suitable beach or club nearby, it will be necessary to get more creative. Perhaps it’s possible to reserve a private room at a local restaurant for a get-together – good business for the restaurant, if they’re OK with nudity. Otherwise, a hotel might consider renting a meeting room for a catered meal or party. Another possibility is renting an evening at a local indoor private swimming pool.

You’re probably wondering how people in the group keep in touch without needing anyone who puts together some sort of newsletter to inform everyone what’s happening. The solution is obvious. Use online social media. It’s possible to set up private subgroups at various large social media sites like Meetup, Facebook, Reddit, MeWe, etc. (Sites like this often don’t allow photos with nudity, but there are alternatives for people who do want to share photos containing naturist nudity.) At Twitter – which is quite tolerant of nudity – you can set up an account where tweets and responses are “protected” and accessible only from permitted accounts.

In general, only people who are “officially” part of the group should know about your private online communication space – because you want to limit it to people who already know others in your group, rather than just anyone who happens to use the social networking site. Of course, some people outside your age group could also be allowed access – such as older friends and relatives who might be naturists themselves.

So, suppose you want to have an impromptu party at your home on Saturday for 6 or 8 people. You’d only need to post about it in the private online subgroup. If you’re concerned that more people than you can accommodate would be interested, simply ask for an RSVP (by response online, email, text message, or whatever) and say that there’ll only be room for the first 6 or 8 respondents.

But what if you have difficulty finding the first few others you know who may be interested in social nudity?

This can certainly be a problem if you live in a fairly small community or you’re not comfortable discussing your interest in social nudity with your current group of friends. If this is your situation, you’ll need to take another approach. Probably the best thing to do is to go to the closest landed naturist club or resort, or else join a nearby non-landed club, if there is one. Get to know the people there, and explain that you’re interested in starting a group for younger naturists.

Most of the people in such places will be of an older generation. That’s just how it is. But you’re likely to be warmly welcomed, because most naturists are naturally friendly people, and they sincerely want to have younger people become involved in naturism. Besides, many are parents or grandparents of people close to your own age. If those older folks have children or grandchildren who are open to trying social nudity, those in the younger generation may well be interested in meeting other young people for naturist activities that wouldn’t appeal as much to the older generation. Some, perhaps, were raised in a naturist home, but lost interest in their teen years.

As long as you’re reasonably outgoing and comfortable socializing with older naturists, you should have no difficulty getting their assistance in finding people around your own age who live near you and might be interested in social nudity. Everyone wins in this scenario: you find new naturist friends, and they become involved in naturism just like their older relatives.

This is an excellent approach to consider even if you have already found a group of people for naturist activities. It’s a great way to help the group grow more quickly – especially if others already in the group are willing to help with this effort.