The Naked Truth
Nude Recreation Declining
By Daniel Muniz

The American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) is now facing the naked truth. Its declining membership is becoming increasingly older without much prospect of recruiting younger nudists. Instead of representing a cross-section of America, the AANR now consists of mostly baby boomers. And having too many older nudists in a facility is discouraging younger people from even considering the idea of shedding their clothes and participating in AANR affiliated camps and resorts as well as in other related events.

The Solair Recreation League in Connecticut experiences that problem most acutely.

The median age of their membership is 55. Such a large number of older participants at that particular nudist camp have severely inhibited their ability to successfully sign up a new generation of younger members to partake in that form of recreation. And numerous other nudist camps and resorts are experiencing very much the same problem with lack of interest and enthusiasm from the college age crowd.

These sites are finding it very difficult, if not impossible, to attract youthful adults to even consider visiting their facilities. And when a curious youthful prospect does show up, he or she is practically alone without any of their peers from their age group. As a result, a younger generation has the impression that the people who go to a nudist colony are just hippies who still haven’t abandoned their sixties lifestyle.

Interestingly, getting naked in this country is not as much of a taboo as it once was generations ago but what perplexes the AANR is that younger people don’t want to get naked with them.

An increasing number of college age adults probably have the least of all inhibitions of walking around in the buff among a large group of people. Any spring break destination can clearly testify to a lack of propriety and modesty. The Internet is also saturated with vivid pictures of young people getting naked at wild parties. In fact, the creator of the “Girls Gone Wild” video series has made an enormous fortune of finding tens of thousands of attractive women who are more than willing to take their clothes off in front of a video camera.

But that is a harsh reality for the AANR to accept.

For decades, nudists have adamantly insisted that nude recreation is simply a natural leisurely activity without any sex or debauchery attached to it. In fact, the AANR has gone out of its way to dispel the notion that lewd conduct is allowed in their facilities. Consequently, they have made nude recreation as benign as possible by implementing guidelines for civilized behavior for walking around naked.

However, the youthful generation doesn’t see it that way.

They associate nakedness with arousal and titillation, especially when copious quantities of alcohol are involved. In many cases, it is also the drunkenness that helps facilitate the act of everyone taking their clothes off and the debauchery that results from alcohol is simply a byproduct of it.

Of course, an AANR site does not want to have drunken spring breakers ruining their placid atmosphere.

Furthermore, cost is another big issue.

For instance, annual membership for Solair is an eye-popping $500. The camp has a $200 discount for people under age 40 and they even have a steep discount for college students that only charges $150.

However, a youthful adult wonders why bother paying any money at all when you can go to a party and get naked for free while getting drunk. Furthermore, while an AANR affiliated facility maintains a “hands off” policy, some of the parties that a young person can go to will be anything but that.

Finally, there is an element of narcissism involved.

The people who go to these nudist colonies are not the beautiful people. There are quite of a number of individuals that you do not ever want to see naked.

For those expecting to be titillated will be sadly disappointed.

That is not to say that older people cannot be attractive while being in the nude but that popular culture is vain and narcissistic in that it demands beautiful perfect people to grace magazines, television sets, and movie screens. The mass mind is fixated on the perception of beauty.

Perhaps the writing is already on the wall. Formalized nude recreation is not only declining but its failure to attract a younger generation means that through attrition these facilities will wither away. Lack of interest will simply ensure its demise.

And if it happens, will that be a loss to civilization? As for me, I have always felt that there are probably way too many people in the world that you don’t ever want to see naked.

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