Pride celebrations all over the world are about acceptance and tolerance. This year I attended Pride in Toronto, where I live, to be part of a community that accepts people for who they are and what they identify as. To me, that’s called being a human being.
I’m a Nudist/Naturist. I believe that being naked in public is a human right. I have the right to wear what I want, if anything, when I want. But that right has been taken away by archaic ideas of decency and modesty. It made me sick for nearly half my life trying to fit into everyone else’s box of normal. There are eight billion brains on this planet, and there is an individual box of normal for every brain. My normal is not yours, and yours is not mine. But being human, we have choices on what to think. If some of your ideas align with me, I can accept them. We'll disagree if some of your ideas don’t align with mine. But being human means I can accept that you have your perspective, which may not necessarily align with mine, so we should agree to disagree. Not to try to force our box of normal on anyone else.
I belong to a social group called the GTA Skinny Dippers. GTA stands for Greater Toronto Area. The club organizes swimming events during the winter months at community pools around Toronto. It’s a private event that anyone can attend. The membership fees are affordable for the smallest budgets. The club is open to anyone and everyone. The organizers rent space at Pride for a booth to promote the club, and yes, we members come out to support the club. It’s an opportunity to be naked in public without fear of arrest.
One of my fellow attendees regaled me with a story of how he was told by a patron of the event to “Put some clothes on! My children are here.” And then proceeded to walk away. My fellow human seemed to be upset by the altercation. I explained to him that he, the patron, was a human doing, not a human being. That person was doing what his parents, clergy, schooling, and laws programmed him to do. And he was teaching his children the same thing.
What was this patron teaching his children? The exact opposite of what Pride is all about. Why he brought his children to Pride I don't understand. He was teaching them to use ridicule and criticism to shame people into behaving as he wanted. He was teaching his children how to be intolerant and unaccepting. He was teaching his children to do what he was doing. Yet another iteration of a generation of close-minded people controlled by their parent’s ideas of “NORMAL.” It’s too bad. I feel sorry for his children and him. Living with a closed mind is seriously detrimental to a healthy and happy life.
I think that if everyone would sit down and study themselves, they’d see what close-minded ideas they have been programmed with and start to see that it’s not natural or healthy to think that way. I love being a Nudist and Naturist. It’s liberating, and some of the old archaic rules that have corrupted my freedom for so many years are gone, and I am truly free to express who I am.
Naked and free is all we want to be. Free to be ourselves, connecting with and being custodians of Mother Earth. Expressing ourselves as Nature intended.
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