I discovered naturism when I was facing my biggest fear in life. I had spent eight years trying to acquiesce and appease this fear. Actually, that’s not quite true; I had spent twenty-one years doing that, but the last eight were particularly more difficult. Though the appeasement attempts were mostly successful, appeasement never makes fear go away, it just buries it temporarily. During this time, I saw a photo of a naked woman and was mesmerized by it. It took a while to decipher the source of the appeal. She was striking a powerful pose, but that wasn’t the only thing; the entire photo was not sexualized. There was also a naked man in the photo, and she was clearly more powerful than him, but even that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she showed up as a human being, first and foremost. It was so unusual, so arresting; it moved something deep inside me. (Years later, I find that it is still very different; even amongst many naturist photos, it’s as if the lens consumes a woman’s body in a very narrow box.) I decided I needed to know more. 🪐
On the other side of fear