- Spain is the country with the most nudist beaches in the world, and not surprisingly a large number of Spaniards have visited one. A recent poll by MuchoViaje.com revealed that 30 percent of Spanish women regularly visit nude beaches, while 42 percent have been to one at some point. Of the remaining 58 percent, 22 percent of them expressed a desire to visit a nude beach soon, while 45 percent of all women polled said that they would never consider going. In sharp contrast, only 29 percent of men surveyed said they would never go to a nudist beach.
- Diego Maradona, football (soccer) legend and manager of the Argentinean team at the upcoming World Cup, has said that he’ll run naked around the base of Buenos Aires’ famous obelisk should his team win. Many others have pledged they’ll join him in this endeavor!
- The first nudist hotel to open in a predominantly Muslim country is now closed after barely a month in operation. The hotel, located in increasingly conservative Turkey, was forced to shut its doors to undergo improvements ordered by municipal inspectors. Despite obeying the law, the owner doubts he’ll be allowed to reopen and plans to relocate to either Cyprus or Croatia as a worst case scenario. Only foreigners are permitted to stay at the hotel, as Turks are prohibited from entering.
- Al Natural is a stage play in Spanish about naturism where all actors are nude during the entire performance. The play by Venezuelan Jose Vicente Diez Rojas, had its premiere in Caracas in November of last year. A version of the show is currently running in Bogota, Colombia, where it opened May 28th.
- A Canadian nudist has been ordered to cover up in his own home! The 63 year old gent had thought that it was well within his rights to be nude anywhere on his property in Repentigny, Quebec, but neighbors thought otherwise and called the police. A county judge ordered him to not be nude in or out of his home and handed him a two year suspended sentence.
- Meanwhile, notch one for nudists in Switzerland, where a man regularly hiked on mountain trails near the town of Herisau in his simplest attire, that is until he crossed the path of a woman who placed a complaint with local authorities, who fined him 200 Swiss Francs. The nudist refused to pay and brought the matter to a higher court, where the judge handling the case vindicated the nudist, saying he did nothing wrong, and ordered the municipality must pay his court costs.
- In Peru, Alex Gonzales Castillo, a candidate for the mayoralty of Lima for the Humanist party, has included the creation of nudist parks in the city as part of his platform.
Related Articles:
Tags: Al Natural, canada, colombia, Maradona, Peru, spain, switzerland, Venzuela
MANCHESTER, UK – Five hundred people got naked in the frigid air of an early Manchester morning this past Sunday. They posed for the lens of celebrated nude photographer Spencer Tunick. Four thousand had applied to participate originally, but this wasn’t about quantity as in many of Tunick’s past shoots which sometimes involved over ten thousand nude volunteer models.
Tunick was commissioned by the Lowry art museum in Salford, near Manchester, which is named after the famous local artist L. S. Lowry, in an effort to raise funds for the non-profit institution. The project called for Tunick to snap photos whose composition would be reminiscent of Lowry’s trademark work, which portrayed ordinary people going about about their ordinary lives. In this case, the subjects weren’t so ordinary for their nakedness, not a typical situation in Manchester!
One rule in a Tunick shoot is that volunteers must not have visible tattoos or they must be placed far in the back of the scene. Eyeglasses must be removed as well, the photographer wanting his subjects to appear as natural as possible. Tunick had wanted to use the Manchester United football stadium as a backdrop for one of the four installments of this shoot, but the team refused to permit it, citing fears that so many people would damage the field.
Sample photos of the shoot here.
Related Articles:
Tags: Manchester, photography, Spencer Tunick, UK
- German supermodel Heidi Klum recently revealed that she loves being nude. She claims that this predilection probably originated from her childhood years. Her parents, Günther and Ema, liked to walk around nude around the family household. Klum didn’t specify if she only gets naked at home, which she shares with singer Seal.
- In Spain, a man originally sentenced to prison on counts of public lewdness for bicycling and walking nude in public in the town of Guipuzcoana (Bilbao area), had his conviction overturned on appeal. Public nudity isn’t a crime in Spain if it does not involve sexual behavior, and the court took the view that there was no evidence to support his original conviction.
- Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Nick Lowe, a man recently fined for cycling nude in a town north of Wellington, has launched an appeal to the country’s supreme court to make nude cycling legal. Some nudist events are tolerated in New Zealand, such as international nudism day and the world naked bike ride, Lowe reminded the lawmakers.
- Paradise Gardens, the nudist club near Cincinnati, Ohio, is for sale. The club first opened in 1972 and the current owners decided to call it quits after 25 years.
- The FBI charges that David A. Diehl, of Jacksonville, Florida, took pornographic pictures and movies of himself with a minor while at the Star Ranch nudist club in Texas in 2000. Diehl was living in Austin at the time of the crime.
- It’s nudist season again in the northern hemisphere, where cold climate nudist clubs are gearing-up to launch the 2010 this month or next.
Related Articles:
Tags: heidi klum, new zealan, paradise gardens, spain, star ranch
The People’s Republic of China isn’t a place renown for civil liberties, however an artist there has won national and international acclaim for his nude self-portraits.
Ou Zhihang started his pet project 10 years ago, photographing himself nude doing push-ups in locations where newsworthy events had taken place. He did this despite the difficulty of getting naked in a public place that often had a heavy police presence. For example, just after the Tibet riots several years ago, Zhiyang traveled to the restricted area and took nude shots of himself in Lhasa. He also did the same after the Szechwan earthquake.
The 51 year old Canton-born “Nude reporter”, as he’s known, was recently given a World Press Photo award for his work. Not only that, but Zhihang is now working as a real television reporter in his native city.
* * *
Yatan Rumi, the nudist club near Tanti, Argentina, is set to hold its annual nude race this Sunday, March 21.
* * *
One hundred nude cyclists paraded through the streets of Lima, Peru, last Saturday for the fifth year in a row. The event is held to promote cycling and protest against environmental pollution.
* * *
Wednesday, twenty young people lay nude in front of the Bogota, Colombia bullfighting stadium to protest the cruelty of the sport. The protesters smeared themselves with red paint to simulate blood. A similar protest was held a month earlier in front of Medellin’s corrida.
* * *
The first annual VKS nude race at La Tejita nudist beach in Tenerife (Canary Islands) is scheduled for April 4th.
Related Articles:
Tags: china, Ou Zhiyang, stories
It had been almost three years since our last visit to Yatan Rumi, arguably the largest naturist club in the world, but return we did, just in time for its seventh anniversary.
Not much has changed on this 1500 hectare rocky outcrop in the pre-Andean mountains of Cordoba Province in western Argentina, and that’s probably a good thing! Although rampant inflation has driven the price of almost anything in Argentina to almost double what they were in 2007, club owner Miguel Suarez has maintained his fees almost the same. We used his shuttle service (35 pesos per person), with pick-up at the door of our hotel in downtown Cordoba for the two and a half hour ride to Yatan. It takes about an hour an a half to the small town of Tanti along paved highways, and then another hour on dirt roads, the last part of which, inside Yatan’s grounds, is over extremely rough terrain. Miguel’s small 4 wheel drive vehicle can handle just about anything, but be forewarned that you’re in for quite a bit of shaking! All the way up, however, the breathtaking vistas of the surrounding valleys and faraway mountain ranges keeps your gaze fixed on the horizon, which helps against motion sickness.
Aside from a small shelter for campers to prepare their food, the lodge is unchanged, although cleaner than we remember it. The new live-in caretaker is now Patricia, a lovable senior who handles every one of the chores, with an occasional hand from one or more of the guests. Pablo, the caretaker here for many years, started a rival club in the same province, Aguila Blanca, in 2008. We didn’t manage to visit the latter on this trip.
The first day was clear and hot, the temperature in the neighborhood of 28 degrees Celsius, and my exuberance rewarded me with a slight sunburn. Remember, the higher the altitude, the easier it is to burn! The day’s activities consisted in short hikes, dipping in the waterfalls and lazily taking in the natural beauty surrounding us from the shade of one of the few rocky overhangs. Dusk, which comes quite late in this part of the world in summer (it’s February) brought us back to the lodge, where we sat watching the many foxes trot across the large lawn that serves both as campground and nude football (soccer) pitch. Even when naked, Argentineans are still some of the best footballers in the world, incidentally!
The next day, our last, began with a thick fog and a cool 19-20 Celsius (65-68 F). Such is the unpredictable weather in the mountains! It was fortunate that we decided to go hiking early, as by noon a thunderstorm rolled in and copious amounts of rain fell until just before it was time to head back to Cordoba. It’s easy to hike at Yatan, as there’s little vegetation to impede your progress, and there’s countless “caves” and strange rock formations to discover. There’s such a large tract of unexplored land at Yatan, you might just stumble across something completely new and it will bear your name for all posterity!
That’s exactly how “Piti’s Falls” where discovered in 2008. An Argentinean regular nicknamed Piti lost his way among the rock formations and accidentally came across postcard-perfect waterfalls and a large natural swimming pool, about thirty minutes walk from the lodge. Suarez offers free guided walks to this hidden paradise, which sadly we didn’t get to enjoy thanks to the awful weather we mentioned earlier. There’s also several smaller waterfalls and a natural water slide just 5 minutes from the lodge, but you should not miss an opportunity to enjoy Piti’s falls.
Our return journey from Yatan to Cordoba was much like a safari adventure, as the little streams had turned into raging torrents and some parts of the track had been washed away. We joked that this was the “Dakar Rally”, the famous all terrain car race which coincidentally had recently passed through the same road that leads up to Yatan’s gate.
Yatan hosts a sweat lodge (temazcal) February 26-28, and March 21, 2010 will hold its annual nude marathon race.
Quick Facts: Lodging at Yatan Rumi costs 50 pesos (13 USD on this date) per night per person, while a full meal plan is 70 pesos (18 USD) per person per day, and as mentioned earlier, the shuttle service from Cordoba is 35 pesos (9 USD) per person, return (reserve in advance). For day visits, the fee is only 20 pesos (5 USD). If you need a cheap hotel in Cordoba, a local nudist hotel owner offers a special room rate of 197 pesos if you mention you’re going to Yatan Rumi (Cordoba Inn Aparthotel). Lan Airlines flies to Cordoba from Lima, Peru as well as Santiago, Chile. They also serve major US and European cities, thus connecting you directly. You can also fly in from Buenos Aires, but remember that if you land at Ezeiza airport and are Canadian, Australian, or American, there’s now a punitive tourist tax of 70, 100 or 138 USD respectively which you’ll have to pay on arrival. This tax isn’t collected at Cordoba’s airport thus far. Knowing Spanish is a big asset at Yatan, as most folks don’t speak a word of English!
Links:
Author is currently traveling, so trip photos will be posted here upon returning home!
Related Articles:
Tags: argentina, yatan rumi
Life under Hugo Chavez’s totalitarian government has progressively become harder, yet a hardy group of Venezuelans continues to enjoy a dose of freedom through the joys of nudism. Soynudista has been around for four years, and claims a membership of over one hundred, according to founder Nestor Collins.
Collins, born in the USA to a Venezuelan mother whom brought him back to the old country as a child, says his group remains apolitical, but has enjoyed a large measure of public notoriety via the media, including appearances on national television talk shows. Although nudism was virtually unknown in his adopted country forty years ago, Collins reminds us that it’s no longer taboo, Caracas having seen 1,800 people disrobe in the city center for a Spencer Tunick photo shoot just a few years ago.
Collins told us that there are no laws in Venezuela that prohibit public nudity, and although there are currently no legal nudist beaches, he fully expects that someday there will be something akin to Haulover, the legendary nude beach in Florida of which he also happens to have been one of the original founding members. Collins is currently the chairman of Soynudista, which means “I am a nudist”, leaving the day to day management to six coordinators who organize such things as the monthly beach trip for this family-oriented club. Collins also co-founded the only other nudist club in Venezuela, but only participates in this one.
The club is non-profit, although members are asked to contribute 10 Bolivares a month, just over 2 USD, to help defray costs. To find-out more about Soynudista, visit their web site.
Related Articles:
Most nudists are highly sociable, while some are so sociable they will routinely invite their many naturist friends and acquaintances to mingle in their own home. If this is something you’ve pondered doing yourself, we give you a few pointers here that might help make it a successful soiree:
The setting:
Your yard might be the most suitable environment to host a nudist party, weather permitting (below 70 F is not usually good nude weather!). Just one thing: If any neighbors can see over your fence, forget about it! Unless you live in a nudist community, you are sure to generate controversy and perhaps an embarrassing visit from the police. While your home is your sanctuary, you have to bear in mind that local bylaws might construe any public nudity as lewdness, even if it was not intended to be public. As nudists, we are constantly trying to maintain a low profile and thus gain wider acceptance, or at least tolerance, from the non-nudist public. If you respect others, they’re more apt to respect you as well.
If your yard doesn’t have the necessary privacy, or you do not have a yard, it’s perfectly acceptable to hold your reception in the confines of your house or apartment, as long as you have non-transparent curtains covering any windows which could afford an unwelcome view from the outside.
The other alternative is to hold the event in a rented party room or restaurant, but this could result in unwanted publicity. Unless the owner of the facility and any hired help are also of the naturist persuasion or at least sympathetic to it, tongues are sure to wag in town! You might not care, but some of your guests might.
Who to invite:
This one’s easy: only experienced nudists! A nudist party is not a good place for a newbie (nubie?) to have his first social naturist encounter. No matter how hard your non-nudist buddy begs you to attend, you will likely regret it if you relent. Keep the knowledge of this event within the community.
The ground rules:
You may feel a bit sheepish about laying down ground rules for a party, but trust us that if you do not, some make take it as an invitation to anything and everything. Make it easy by simply e-mailing your guests a friendly reminder of what is to be expected of them at such a gathering. The rules are the same as at any nudist resort: bring a towel to sit on, no sexual behavior allowed, etc.
We recommend you make your party nude only, rather than clothing optional. The problem is if a few people choose to stay dressed, a lot of those who would otherwise get nude will not, and then it’s not a nudist get together anymore, is it? The opposite is also true: If everybody is nude, anybody arriving later will feel awkward keeping their togs on. Lead the way: greet your guests in the flesh to set the tone!
What to serve:
In an interview a few years ago we had with John Ordover of CO Dinners in New York, he joked that “no hot soup” should be served. In all seriousness, we think soup can be served, but no food item should be scalding hot, for very obvious reasons! Also, it might not be too attractive to have a bunch of people with bits of food mingling with their body hair, so maybe you should skip the flaky, crumby stuff!
More importantly, there is the subject of alcohol. Have an open bar, or even “byob”, and watch the drunks happen! A drunk nudist could become just as crude and lewd or even violent as a clothed drunk, and just imagine having to call the police if a drunken brawl broke out or one of your pickled guests decided to take a walk around the neighborhood in the buff! Make it a dry party, or limit it to a glass or two of a nice wine, which you or your help will dole out. No self-serve!
The set-up:
Most people do not like to strip in front of others, thus it’s an absolute requirement to provide a room where your guests can undress and store their clothing in a plastic bag you or they provided.
Of course, all your guests should bring towels to sit on, and you should have a few extra ones on hand in case someone forgets. If you have furniture you rather not risk having sweaty naked people sit on, the solution is to remove those items from the party area or drape them with a blanket, sheet or sofa cover.
Activities:
You do not really need to program any special activities, as your guests will be plenty happy just to socialize in the nude, but a nude swim in your pool, if possible, is a sure hit. Some like to include dancing, but be careful to avoid music that requires body contact. While the mere sight of nude bodies doesn’t sexually stimulate a nudist, bumping and grinding to the beat might lead to temperatures soaring and inappropriate behavior and you have to blurt out: “Get a room!”.
Alexandra and I have held many nude poker nights, and this always has worked well as a social lubricant. Strip poker? No, that makes absolutely no sense in a nudist context!
In conclusion, a well organized and executed nudist party will leave you and your guests a happy gang and inspire many of you to repeat the experience! As we all know, we are a sociable bunch and we are at our best when we can shed ourselves of our textile constraints!
Related Articles:
Tags: get together, nudist party
We’re frequently asked by TV production companies to post casting information for members of the nudist community. Here’s one just in…
My name is Michele Spinak and I work on a program you may be familiar
with that airs on Discovery Health Channel called *I’m Pregnant
and…* The show airs Tuesday nights at 9:30pm.They have been very
successful so we have been asked to gear up for a second season.
We are doing our initial outreach for the second season and some of
the topics we are looking to include a nudist. We are looking for
pregnant women who will be giving birth during the months of March or
April.
Here is a description of the program: “I’m Pregnant And…” is
a six-part series for Discovery Health Channel produced by Sirens
Media. In every episode, viewers will follow the expectant mom
through her day-to-day routine, dealing with the hardships of
pregnancy while navigating through her difficult circumstances.
We’ll follow the mom through the labor and delivery of the
long-awaited child, and see the conclusion of the story through a
post-delivery update.
Each episode is a half hour long and is sort of split into three
parts, pre-birth and back story, the birth, and the follow up after
the birth.
We would like to film the pre-birth/backstory (3 day shoot) in mid
February. We are hoping the birth (1 day shoot) would occur sometime
in the month of March or April (we are flexible). Then we would
return a couple of weeks later to for a follow up shoot (2 day shoot)
to see how mom and baby are doing.
We do offer compensation to the person who is chosen by the network.
That we discuss with that person upon being picked.
Here is the link to the tv schedule:
http://health.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=62.15494.127170.37382.x
If interest in the possibility of participating please contact me at
(+1) 301-920-9860 or mspinak@sirensmedia.com
Related Articles:
Tags: casting, Discovery Health channel, I'm pregnant and, reality show
Dear readers, after five years of running this site with pretty much the same look and feel, we decided it was time for an upgrade. We hope you enjoy it!
Among the new features:
» You can now post your comments on any article, past or present. Comments are moderated.
» New link submit and contact forms. Our previous versions were broken after our last move to a new isp.
» We now have archives
» You can register right on the site rather than a forum, and thus receive only notifications of new articles, and not forum postings.
» RSS feeds directly from our site rather than a third party site.
Our sister site, vidanudista.com, will also undergo a similar facelift.
- Tom & Alexandra
Related Articles:
If you own or manage a nudist club, landed or non-landed, you’re perpetually concerned about the possibility that some member may not be who they pretend to be: respectable nudists like everybody else. It can be particularly damaging to a club’s reputation when the media mentions that a sex offender was a known member of XYZ nudist club, as has happened several times in just the last year.
Many club owners think that by simply barring single men from entering they’ve solved the problem, but in reality it’s not unusual for sex offenders to be married or in a heterosexual relationship, and although the vast majority are men, not all are. Thus this type of policy, often masquerading as a “gender balancing rule”, is far from secure, and is certainly highly discriminatory against single men, who are in fact the largest component of the nudist community. Also, it’s not unusual for a man in a nudist couple to travel alone on a given day, as has happened to me. I would be refused entry in a lot of nudist venues on those occasions. To be fair, these same clubs will usually admit single men if they’re sponsored by, or guests of, established members.
Others choose the high road and admit single men if they’re members of a recognized naturist association, such as the INF or AANR. Neither is this perfect, but being a paying member of such an institution says that you’re at least half-serious and possibly understand the naturist philosophy and principles.
There is one way to screen unwanted visitors and cut-off the worst of the lot at the pass: The US sex offender database. Many governments around the world maintain databases of all convicted sex offenders, but it’s not accessible to the public. Not so in the United States! Anybody can search the entire database online for free, and get not only a mug shot, but the current address of the person. Just enter the first and last name of the candidate in a search form on the web site and bingo! (See URL below). Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, if the aspiring member/visitor is from a foreign land, you won’t have much to go on, and you can’t really refuse somebody because of a gut feeling.
In the end, there’s no perfect method for screening new members, but if nudist clubs banded together, perhaps with the help of the associations, we could have our own database of “problematic people”, and not of just the sex offending type. Currently, there’s nothing preventing a deranged individual from running amok at club A, being kicked-out and then proceeding to do the same at club B. If club A could post the details of the incident in the aforementioned central database (via a web site, no doubt), club B and every other could prevent the troublesome individual from entering their premises.
Some of you may think that all this is greatly exaggerated and take an “everything’s just fine as it is” stance. The plain truth is incidents of an un-nudist nature do happen, and more frequently than most of us would care to admit. Is it not the duty of any community to protect its own?
Related Articles:
Tags: club, rules, sex offenders
Loading ...