It’s okay to wear clothes, REALLY

I have a rant post this month. Actually I have a really angry rant post I’ve been saving up until my temper cools, thus the lack of blogging, but that will come later. For now though, a rant.

The alt community is comfortable, its so comfortable, its overly encouraging of comfort. There is nothing wrong with having a limit to your own comfort zone, I assure you. It’s important to respect the comfort zone of others, and yourself. In most cases this works quite well. My kink is my kink but if its not your kink that’s okay. It’s pretty standard.

Why does that standard not extend to nudity. I am a pretty kinky guy and am fairly comfortable in the nude amongst people I am extremely comfortable with, in private. Generally if it’s someone I am comfortable being naked around it’s also someone I’m comfortable seeing naked.  Otherwise if someone is nude around me, and it’s an acceptable standard of the setting, I politely avoid taking notice of the nudity and respect their right to be nude. And if in fact the amount of uncomfortable nudity in said situation starts to outweigh my comfort zone, I find a way to politely vacate from that event or location.

For the life of me though, I can’t get others in my extended social sphere to get this when they try time and time again to convince me how much fun I will have with them at the nude beach, where many naked strangers go. I even gave them a chance once, and went, on the condition I could keep my shorts on if I wanted to. I did, and suffered no end of comments and requests to remove my shorts. As predicted there were many other people there, strangers, all very nude, and in that environment I felt vulnerable, and uncomfortable. The fact that strangers very unfamiliar to me were naked would not have bothered me, if my naked companions had not been making a regular very big deal out of everyone's state of undress.

I have been at smaller parties where nudity or semi-nudity has been encouraged as well. And they were very comfortable environments for me, so i was able to take part in some degree of nudity for the play portion. And those at these parties who remained clothed at all times weren’t questioned for it. That is part of why I was so comfortable at my choice to disrobe when appropriate.

My point is having clothing optional situations, parties, events, beaches, etc, is fantastic. But depending on the environment, time, setting, or even mood, not everyone is going to be into being nude. Let’s respect each person’s choice on clothing, in either direction, just as we would respect someone's choice to take part in any other activity. And if we don’t make much of an issue of it, there might just be more people comfortable, and possibly naked.