Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle_Bud
The End of the Nudist Era
"Odd balls & Loose Skin"
I concur with your observations.. I googled, The aging of the "Nudist" generation, and found a couple of blog entries.
But aging is just part of the change. The cultural change that comes from the young finding their own preferences, partially by learning from observing their elders experience, and remembering..and add to that, the medias' contribution to the perception of nudity..being nude..etc..The internet and cell phones have definitely changed the way people communicate..
From my personal experiences, I've noticed less nice looking ladies laying out by the pool at my local fitness club than just five years ago.. In the past five years, Women only fitness clubs such as "Curves" have opened up..and, this lack of ladies could also be due to the fact the the sales staff warns them when they first join, about lecherous old men like me..  .more than likely, some of the other patrons complained and the rules changed...At any rate..I remember four ladies who would wear thongs out there..There were a couple chicks that would wear micro-minis..  you should've seen some of those old WW II vets faces out there..Priceless..those were the days..
I am sure there are some psychologists' and sociologists' studying this topic at this moment, and more so when the weather gets better..I'm imagining laying out nude on the beach and have some guy come up to me holding his palm pilot  taking a survey..
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THe first link was interesting and reminded me of an article written by a young nudist on his blog:
http://www.gymnophiliac.com/2007/05/generation-y.html
Here you have a generation Y perspective on things, and the gist is that we are not witnessing the "end of the nudist era". What is more to the point is that young people just don't find the mainstream naturist movement or clubs to be very exciting, sexy, or fun. Maybe that applies to the older, more established beaches as well.
There is a real dichotomy in the naked images that we get bombarded with over the net, and I'm sure young people are very influenced that. On the one hand, you have pics of older people sitting around sipping tea and playing shuffleboard in nudist clubs. That must look kind of pathetic and unattractive to a young kid. On the otherhand, there are all these more exciting venues that get lots of photo coverage and show young people actually having....fun! Or well, so it seems (my definition of fun has changed over the years, too...
).
Anyway, so attendance is strong at these events, and as a means of expressing ones sexuality and desire for liberation and attention, how can the beaches and clubs compete?
The naturist clubs especially have a huge image problem now netwise. And they need to deal with the inherent contradiction in their traditional mentality about things. Want long term survival (meaning want to attract young people)? Then start off by redesigning your websites which is most people's "first entry" into the scene these days. Show young people having fun like at Havasu or something. If you can't find any members that qualify as "young", hire some models
OK, great, you say - now that attacks the image problem and gets young people's attention. But unfortunately, doing all that goes against their basic philosophy of what naturism is all about. So what do you do? You die...........or.........you reevaluate what "naturism" is all about.
Well, i don't think "naturism" should be all about wet-T contests either, but maybe there is a middle ground. My advice to the clubs - get into bodypainting! Seriously - the eurpoean clubs are big on that, and the young really seem to enjoy it! BTW - pics from European clubs always show lots of young people in fun type settings. They are truly family oriented over there. So the image problem seems confined to US clubs and their "leave the kids at home so that we can relax" mentality.
Sorry to go on. We were talking about beaches weren't we....
Klondike