So quickly, it has come to my attention that I’m a disappointment to some of my fellow nudists. By defending those who choose anonymity, I’ve been told that makes me suspect. By not posting photos of myself, I have dug just one more hole.

But, what end does a butt serve? Sure, I might never gain the popularity or notoriety of other nudist bloggers, but that wasn’t my intention for this website anyway. Indeed, the blog was (and is) to be occasional, while the information for those who might pass through Vermont is the reason this site exists.

I get it. As a younger nudist with no nudist role models, I certainly enjoyed seeing the “photos of freedom” on Clothesfree dot com, because it showed me I wasn’t alone and that there was normalcy in the practice of social nudity. But many of those photos were tucked behind anonymity on a website that gathered content, some of it from the other side of the planet, rather than merely posting photos of people from their California hub. Those photographed chose to have their picture taken and presumably were cool with those photos being shared. More power to them.

I’ve been photographed, too, but choose not to share them online. Not now, anyway. I do this, not to arouse suspicion in fellow nudists, but to protect myself in a country that is suspicious of us to the point of making us societal pariahs. It’s easy for some to tell me to throw caution to the wind, always easy for others to tell someone what to do. But what is nudism if it requires a lockstep approach rather than capturing the ethos of bodily autonomy? If we are to be the welcoming community we claim to be, do we not owe it to people to live within nudism on their own terms, within their comfort zone?

Resorts and their photo policies get it. People on the beach who request permission get it.  And not publishing photos of myself is my choice at this time. It makes me no less a nudist, no less thoughful about our place in this world.

So, let’s keep this movement going forward rather than placing litmus tests on what makes one an authentic nudist. Out and open nudists are nudists. Closeted nudists are nudists. Anonymous nudists are nudists. We are one and the same, choosing our limits, and embracing our bodily autonomy.

Let’s celebrate that rather than tearing down our own.

Can you practice skyclad indoors?

If so, that’s what I’m doing on this Winter Solstice. The height of privilege is to be in the Northern Hemisphere but to be able to be nude and commune with the earthly pull of this time of year. I am in a very warm house, fortunate by life’s circumstances to enjoy these moments, to feel deep connection, to welcome the light back into life on this shortest day of the year.

When I think about light, I think about lightness, as well. The relief of burdens, the shaking free of that which has built up over the year. I am not a well-practiced person of spirit. In fact, I often forget a lot about that side of my nature as the events and pressures of everyday living mount, clouding the mind. The Solstice, especially the one in winter, is the time for me to remember that I am a spiritual being in a human body and that all of this is an illusion, a creation we’re all making up as we go along.

So, what do we create that is new? What narratives can we bring into the world about how to be – with ourselves, with others, with nature, with the rest of humanity, with the ethereal?

The return to light is the return to hope, the return to outward presence versus inward thought. We don’t wait for the dark at the end of the tunnel, after all.

As we cycle toward June and the ever-expanding light, let’s remember to do what we can to bring peace and kindness into the world.

Thanks for being here.

Representative Clem Bissonette (D) of Winooski has won reelection to the Vermont House. He entered an extremely brief retirement, but since his name was still on the ballot, he has chosen to take his seat. In the last legislative session, he did something quite peculiar.

At the behest of one constitutent – I repeat, ONE CONSTITUENT – he submitted an anti-nudisty bill to be considered. This bill would have annihilated our ability to enjoy Vermont’s natural beauty the best way we know how. A pastor was angry that a man who showed up nude on the streets of Burlington (well within Vermont law) and requested that his representative do something about it.

Even though Mr. Bissonette knew of no other complaints and claimed in the linked story to have no issue with the status quo of Vermont’s law, he entered House Bill 73 which made it a crime to appear anywhere in public nude – punishable by two months of jail time, no less. This would have meant: Goodbye, Ledges; goodbye, Willoughby; goodbye, secluded river spots. And hello, excessive sentencing.

If you don’t think one person can change the world as you know it, think again.

Luckily and thankfully, the bill went absolutely nowhere. But Bissonette is back.

I can’t tell if its laudable that the rep went so far as to draft a bill on behalf of one citizen. Would he move to loosen Vermont’s nudity restrictions of one constituent approached him on that issue? My guess is he wouldn’t, but you never know.

Maybe an enterprising nudist in his district should try.

When you’re in high school, you are often assigned some of the most stultifying pieces of “lit-ra-chuh,” simply because they are considered “classics.” If you’re like me, these books contributed to a hatred of reading, at least of assigned reading. Think of Moby Dick and its countless passages about the minutiae of whaling or Silas Marner, which just sucked.

Well, sad to say, but that’s what reading our historical nudist “lit-ra-chah” is like. Stilted, austere, written through what seems to be fearful eyes; fearful, perhaps, that the days were numbered on the authors’ ways of life. After all, the story is about nudism, which while a curiosity, was probably not well regarded among what would be considered “respectable company.” And given decency laws, historial Puritanism, and (let’s face it) a country that nearly a century later for some of these books has shown little growth about the human body, they probably felt they had to produce books that read like scholarly articles.

These books were a slog. Often the authors treated “the nudists” as though they were anthropologists glancing in on a foreign society. However, each book has at least one author who was or became a nudist at the time of writing. In many respects, though, it seems as though these authors were scared to write from simply their first hand experience. I suppose there wasn’t much room for the authors to write, “Yeah, that’s right! I’m a naturist and it’s awesome!” So you get pages of examples and statistics, semi-scientific polls, and some pseudoscience about the benefits.

Nudism Comes to America by the Merrills (repackaged as Naturism in the United States) presents a survey of attitudes about nudity and in the U.S. when it first arrived on these shores in the 1930s. They interview psychologists, medical doctors, researchers, and artists, among other factions, which is a worthy enterprise. It is as dry as it is worthy, though, though it is nice to see that generally, the professional world didn’t find the pursuit condemnable.

Maurice Parmelee, a sociology professor at CCNY, wrote Nudism in Modern Life, a more intimate account of the nudists/naturists in his social circle. Uncomfortably to today’s eye, Parmelee writes about bodies being beautiful or ugly and about it having a eugenic purpose to create more beautiful people. The comments about ugliness typically apply to women and he even mentions that some should just keep their clothes on. Essential if you’re a completist, but crikey, it’s not necessary.

Nudist Society and Growing up without Shame also provide exhaustive surveys of nudism in this country. The former clocks in at more than 400 pages and you feel every one of them. Published in the early 1970s, the book takes into account the fact that the sexual revolution puts a new wrinkle into the discussion. They dip into history, look at sexual behavior, family nudism, and even people who left the movement. Very long story short, the authors basically find that nudists are pretty normal people in comparison to the rest of society.

Growing up without Shame looks at family nudism and the perspectives of those who grew up as children within the movement. Based on interviews with young people and their habits as they’ve grown up, they determine that there’s no greater chance at deviance than in the clothed world. In fact, one quote in the book is that a naturist venue was “like a church camp,” basically saying, “Hey! We have morals, too.” And really, isn’t this the intention of such a book? To show that we’re good people?

The latter books are more readable, but stuffed with surveys and statistics in an effort to show nudism’s legitimacy. The boredom they induce might be by design. See? say the authors. It’s dry; it’s stuffy, it’s lit-ra-chuh; it’s scholarly! Basically, there’s nothing to see here. These folks are normal. You might be curious, but the movement isn’t turning folks into marauding hordes. In fact, they could be your neighbors.

It’s nice to get a feel for our history, but as Journey might say, “It goes on and on and on and onnnnnnnn……”