It’s Just Flesh, You Yanks
A retired British nudist crashes an American body‑drama blog to ask why we’re turning nakedness into a full‑blown production.
Moderator’s note: Nigel emailed from Brighton, UK. He said he found us through a “naturist forum cross‑post” and has been reading with “morbid fascination.” I warned him that Americans do not like being told we are dramatic. He sent this anyway. Sam
By Nigel_58
I am fifty-eight years old. I was born in Hastings, raised in Brighton, and I have been naked on beaches since my mother first stripped me off at Studland at three months old. I am a retired postal worker. I have bad knees, a worse back, and a stomach that looks like bread dough left to rise. I say this because none of it matters. It is just flesh.
I have been reading your blog for a fortnight and I am knackered. Absolutely knackered. You people do not simply get naked. You mount a production. There is trauma and invisibility and fetishization and "men's rights" and moderators locking threads because someone looked at someone else sideways. It is exhausting. I keep expecting someone to announce they are naked and then hand out pamphlets about their journey.
Here is how it works in England. You go to the beach. You take your kit off. You have a sandwich. Maybe it rains. You put your kit back on. You go home. There is no manifesto. There is no support group. There is just a bit of skin and a cup of tea and the understanding that nobody cares what you look like because the weather is miserable and we have better things to worry about.
And yet. And yet, you lot will write a thousand-word essay about the shame of a stomach fold while sitting in a car park crying, and then you will drive home and eat food from a paper bag that is slowly killing you. How do you eat so much of that rubbish? How is it that you will bare your entire soul to strangers about your stretch marks but you will not touch a vegetable that has not been fried? You treat your bodies like dustbins and then you are shocked when the world does not worship them.
I do not mean to be cruel. I think you are all lovely, really. But you are making this so much harder than it needs to be. Nudity is not a revolution. It is not therapy. It is Tuesday. It is a sandwich on a cold beach. It is flesh that sags and wobbles and gets sunburned in places that have never seen sun. It is normal. It is boring. It is life.
Stop performing nakedness and just be naked. Have an apple. Take a walk. Let your body be a body instead of a biography.
My name is Nigel. I am fifty-eight. I am naked right now because my flat is warm and I cannot be arsed to find my trousers. That is all the reason you need.
New entries in the Naked Voices thread go up every Tuesday and Friday. Read along in order to follow the whole conversation.
