Nudity, sexuality or both?

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There are many popular misconceptions about nudity and sexuality, and these misconceptions often scare people away from activities and places they’d actually enjoy. Perhaps it’s time to outline where our group fits into this complex spectrum.

Sexy, Naked or Both?

If you’re new to this, the first key point to understand is that nudity and sexuality are not the same thing. They’re not completely unrelated concepts, but one does not necessarily imply the other.

If you doubt this, you can find proof by visiting any traditional naturist park. Nobody’s wearing anything, and there’s no more sexuality on display than at a church picnic. Indeed, you’re far more likely to encounter sexual behaviour at a classy restaurant or at your office Christmas party than at a traditional family-friendly nude venue like Sunward or Bare Oaks.

Fears of being hit on, of becoming aroused (and therefore embarrassed), and of being cornered in sexual situations are, in the naturist world, largely unfounded. Everyone worries about it until they work up the nerve to actually try stripping off, at which point they invariably discover that it’s not actually a problem.

Still, there’s an often-repeated claim that social nudity is completely non-sexual, and this isn’t exactly true either. Sexuality is an important part of the human condition; to deny its existence is unnatural. It’s part of our biological hard-wiring, and we should be honest about accepting that fact. After hanging out for a few minutes in clothing-optional circles, most people seem to realize that appreciating sexuality and acting on it are two different things, and that it’s really quite easy to maintain a respectful distinction between them. It’s a marked difference from the rather less civilized, less sophisticated attitudes that are commonly on display at bars and nightclubs in our area.

Sexuality, like most aspects of human life, does not lend itself to clearly defined categories. It covers a broad, multi-dimensional spectrum of activities, beliefs and ideas. No two people can even agree on an exact line delineating what is or is not sexual.

You can be sexy without being naked; you can be naked without being sexy; you can be both or, at times, neither. All without changing who or what you are. It’s your attitude and your actions, not your attire, that set the tone.

At KFFBS events

Where, then, does the Kingston-Frontenac Free Body Society fit in?

We’re not about sex, hookups or the “swinger” scene. Are you interested in that sort of thing? As long as your own beliefs work for you, great! You’re quite welcome to join us. Just don’t expect to find that degree of sexuality on display at our events.

Some of the issues we touch on – gender equality, the elimination of “rape culture”, body positivity – overlap with what sex-positivity groups work on, and we’re friends with the leaders of many such groups. And some of our membership will inevitably overlap with groups that have a more sexual focus. This doesn’t mean that we’re promoting sex, only that we’re accepting of people who have different opinions and beliefs about sex. We don’t really care whether you’re a nun or a porn star – if you genuinely appreciate the values on which the group is based, you’ll find that you are among friends here.

We accept sexuality, without dwelling on it. We appreciate it, but we also know to regulate and control our impulses as appropriate. And, as it turns out, this is surprisingly easy to do. Just try to be respectful and mindful of what others are thinking and feeling, and the rest follows naturally.

So, despite what you might fear at first, sexuality simply doesn’t cause any problems here. It’s just one component of the great beautiful tapestry of human life.

By Matt of KFFBS

9 thoughts on “Nudity, sexuality or both?”

  1. Well said! Any successful society, our socially nude society included, is composed of people who voluntarily agree upon certain behavioral standards in order to create a smoothly functioning environment satisfactory for all. No one can control (or know) what’s in another’s mind, but as a society we CAN control anti-social behavior. We owe it to ourselves and each other to do so.

    Everyone is welcome to join us, as long as they understand that our mutually agreed upon social ethics require them to accept or reject them. If someone cannot accept those minor restrictions on behavior, then perhaps they should seek other company elsewhere.

    Some would change our time-tested understanding of human interaction to suit their own purposes; they need to found their own society and see how well that works for them. Maybe they do have a better way for groups of naked people to interact socially; let them prove it rather than disrupt a hundred years of success simply because they don’t fit in.

    Very good article. Nudists/naturists aren’t asexual, they simply know that there’s a time and place for everything. Social nudism isn’t about sex, it’s about socializing in the nude.

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  2. Well thought out piece and I don’t think you can make one mutually exclusive from the other there will always be some ties from Nudity to Sexuality but I prefer the term sensuality as sensual implies there is an esthetic in place but it’s about the art of the human form the same way we appreciate nudes in the classic art sense that we see in museums where obviously from the Middle Ages onward even in “Spiritual Works” in great cathedrals of Europe we can see the appreciation has been there a long time before we walked this earth.

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  7. This conversation is very long-overdue in the nudist/naturist community. There would not have been any need for “The Great Penis Debate” had we been talking about not only our basic sexuality, but also about accepting those parts of us which make us uniquely male and female. I am not a man because I think, talk and act like a man. I think, talk and act like a man because I AM a man.

    There is great difficulty in distinguishing sexuality from sex, particularly in western societies and cultures. Our sexuality, our gender and their distinctive parts, goes to the very core of our being. From the moment of conception, we are either male or female, and the baby develops their gender-distinct parts long before it is born. We don’t declare a baby to be a boy or a girl…we ACKNOWLEDGE that it IS a boy or a girl. Why are we SO AFRAID of our gender-distinctive parts? Are we afraid of who and what we are?

    As a man, I have no clue what drives women to want to get pregnant and bear children, other than their inner-biology, which I don’t understand. I can say, without a doubt, that my first wife, and the mother of my children, gained her greatest satisfaction in life and was her happiest when she was having children, and I gained great joy and satisfaction from giving that gift to her. She was next-to-last of nine children, so she learned her motherly-arts from one of the best.

    I have become a crusader for penis-acceptance, because I see, even among nudists/naturists, a strong anti-male prejudice. We are either ALL equal, and we accept ALL people equally, or we have a serious problem. I am also tired of having to defend my own sexuality, because that means having to defend my person-hood. Take me as I am, or I will find some place where they will.

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