Getting New Blood

I read some Forum comments on a naturist site concerning the possibility of the naturist movement becoming extinct due to lack of new blood, and the effect of prohibiting single men from nude clubs or resorts being a deterrent to finding new and younger nudists.

I don’t know for a fact that naturism as a movement is having any more trouble finding younger members and sympathisers than any other movement. However, after reading a large number of posts to this effect, several ideas come to mind.

1) Society in general is not very tolerant of children and young people. So many of our activities and events are not child-friendly, and may even be of interest only to adults. Children can become very conscious of this and, early on, decide to set themselves apart. So if the naturist locations are full of adults, they may decide to go elsewhere, even if they, too, are adults by then. It takes a while before one realises that full adulthood has been attained. In my case, I sometimes think of 50 as old until I remind myself that I turned 46 this year (2009)!

2) From what I hear in testimonials, many of us may come to naturism sort of like coming to an epiphany. We see beauty in the movement itself and wonder how others can be so blind to what we perceive to be its inherent goodness. So, many years later we wonder why nudity, or at least female “toplessness,” is still not allowed at public beaches or city parks. Because it’s like an epiphany, adult naturists tend to remain naturists for life. Children who have grown up in the lifestyle may come to a totally different opinion. While many will be nudists into adulthood, some may just not have the same enthusiasm their parents had, and may even wonder “What’s the attraction anyway?”

3) No one is born married or “in a relationship.” We have to actually meet our “significant other.” And in the case of gay men, that significant other will probably not be a woman. So as long as single males are excluded from naturist clubs, young single men can’t get in and young single women who do get in can’t find any young single men to mingle with. I’m sure there are good reasons for maintaining a balance between the sexes, but we are still giving young men ample reason to drop out altogether.

I recall a conversation I had with a woman who represented a local club of the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB). She mentioned that her club had trouble finding younger members despite the abundance of visually impaired people in her city. She attributed this to the fact that most young people no longer feel the need to join clubs for socialising and having fun. MSN and other computer tools have changed the way people connect, and the challenge will be for clubs and organizations to make themselves relevant to today’s young people.

In a sense, this may explain the success of Internet nudist sites. The younger people especially will appreciate using the Internet and other electronic tools to make contact and keep in touch. When you can interact and perhaps make plans for naturist outings this way, who needs a club?

Of course, this in itself doesn’t explain why there are fewer people frequenting naturist centres. In this case, it may be a simple matter of generations. If David Foot, author of Boom, Bust and Echo is to be believed, there were fewer tennis players in the 1990s because older people tend to go for less strenuous activities, and the peak of the baby boomer’s tennis playing days were in the mid-80s. Tennis clubs which were initially turning people away suddenly found themselves emptying and searching hard for new members.

Could something similar be at play in the context of naturism? Older naturists may not be interested in going to naturist centres for various reasons: they have their own hideaway now, they no longer have to drag children along, they’d rather be nude on their own terms, they’ve moved south, etc. Perhaps twenty years ago, their situation was different and frequenting naturist centres made sense. The logical “replacements” would be their children who drag along the grandchildren. And since the fertility rate among naturists is probably not any higher than the rest of the population, new “converts” must be found among the textiles. Is this, in fact, happening? For the good of the movement, I hope it is.