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.
Comments
Jody: Nigel, bless your heart. You think because you were born on a rainy island with no emotions that you invented nudity? I have been a nudist since 1987. You were still learning to queue properly. The reason we write “biographies” is because in America, people like me get treated like furniture. You want to compare notes on who has it worse? Let’s start with your country’s class system and work our way down.
Nigel_58: @Jody Class system? You have a caste system based on waistlines. At least our rain is democratic.
Desiree_33: Oh, a British man telling us about healthy bodies? You lot fry everything that isn’t already boiled into gray submission. You conquered half the planet in search of flavor and still ended up with beans on toast. And let’s not start on whose country has bigger body image issues when your newspapers literally had tits on page three for forty years, but God forbid someone has an accent that isn’t posh.
Nigel_58: @Desiree_33 The beans are a national treasure, and you have no culture.
Marcus_W: @Nigel_58 We have no culture? You eat blood pudding, my guy. Blood. In a pudding. You put vinegar on chips. You are not allowed to talk about cuisine.
Clara_44: Nigel, I cried on my kitchen floor before I found a place that treated me like a human. You mock us for feeling deeply while your entire country runs on repression and warm beer. At least when we get naked, we actually feel something. You get naked, and it’s just another Tuesday because you have the emotional range of a parking meter.
Nigel_58: @Clara_44 I have feelings. I feel very strongly that your chocolate is rubbish.
Jen: @Nigel_58 If nudity is so boring and normal to you, why are you here? Why read our “exhausting” blog at 3 AM Brighton time? Could it be that your “just flesh” attitude is actually loneliness wearing a stiff upper lip? You came here because something in all our drama spoke to you. Admit it.
Nigel_58: @Jen I came here because someone said Americans were funny. They were right.
Greg_52: I spent a week in England for work. You know what I saw? A nation of people terrified to make eye contact on the Tube but perfectly happy to get pissed naked at a festival. You don’t have healthy nudity, Nigel. You have nudity soaked in alcohol, so you don’t have to talk about why you’re sad.
YoungNFree22: British food is so bad that they had to colonize entire continents just to find a decent recipe. And then they made it worse. You want to talk about dustbins? Let’s talk about spotted dick.
Nate_29: @YoungNFree22 I was going to defend him, but spotted dick is indefensible.
Nigel_58: @Nate_29 It is a steamed suet pudding, and it is delicious, and you are all barbarians.
Aisha_B: The way British people love to act like they solved racism by not mentioning it, while your football fans throw bananas at Black players. You don’t get to lecture Americans about body acceptance when you lot still mock people’s teeth and accents and postcodes. At least our drama is honest.
Lin_22: I am nineteen and Chinese-American, and even I know the British Empire was just a search for seasoning.
Sofia_19: I don’t know who to be mad at, but I am definitely mad. Also, I googled spotted dick, and I am not okay.
BeachBum_Mike: @Nigel_58 I have been saying this blog is too dramatic. Finally, someone from outside sees it. Though the fast food thing was a low blow.
Jody: @BeachBum_Mike Even Mike is team Nigel? Nigel, you have accomplished the impossible. You united us against you, and Mike still managed to agree with you. That is talent.
Heather_38: I think Nigel raises some valid points about positivity, but the food shaming was really unnecessary. We should be building each other up, not tearing down.
Desiree_33: @Heather_38 He called us dustbins. This is not a positivity seminar. This is a roast.
Sam_Moderator: I have an American blog, an American comment section that was at each other’s throats yesterday, and now a retired postman from Brighton has wandered in to tell us we are too emotional and eat too many chips. I should lock this thread. I should be responsible. But I have been laughing for ten minutes straight, and I am going to let it burn. Nigel, you have twenty-four hours before I deport you back to your island. Everyone else: aim below the belt but above the neck. And someone please tell me what spotted dick actually is, because I am afraid to Google it.
New entries in the Naked Voices thread go up every Tuesday and Friday. Read along in order to follow the whole conversation.
