Aussielicious

It’s amazing to see the difference in levels of prudishness and censorship around the world. In the U.S. a contestants hint of bum crack on Survivor gets blurred out, but in New Zealand they post video on official news sites of the Annual Nude Rugby match complete with full frontal action!

Thanks to James for sending me the link. If anyone has the embeddable file, please let me know!

Yesterday was a long weekend here in Australia when we celebrate the Queen’s birthday. A couple of mates and I headed off to a place called Babylon. There used to be a korean bathouse in Sydney but that closed for renovations, partially reopened 18 months later and is now closed again. Something like that is fantastic for soaking nude in these winter months so it was a bit upsetting to hear they’d closed.

Thankfully I heard about Babylon from a reader. It’s in Haymarket, right next to chinatown and it seems like it’s still largely an undiscovered secret. The clientele yesterday were us three guys, several older asian guys and a few muscled mediterranian guys but still very quiet. It’s so nice to just sit quietly, chatting a bit with mates and soaking in the warm baths.

A friend pointed me towards this place today. He and his partner are nudie mates of mine and they are heading to New Zealand early in the new year so they were thinking of heading to Autumn Farm Naked Week but they won’t be able to get there sadly.

Autumn farm is “Home to a community of gaymen with deep roots in the artistic and environmental movements, we are open every day of the year and are ready to welcome you.” They have a few nude men only events through the year and it looks like a stunning place to go and relax, all in the buff.

Looks like my list of beautiful nude places to visit is growing! Check out their website here.

Kirill is a fellow blogger that runs a site called Active Naturists, and he loves being nude even more than me. He lives in Berlin and I would say, given my little bit of experience in the world, that if I was going to pick a country and a city that was the most nude-liberal in the world, I would pick Germany for that country and Berlin for that city so maybe it’s no surprise that Kirill is a nudist with nude friends.

He travels when he can to nude holiday destinations and blogs videos and photos of the  trips. He tells me he debated whether or not to post images of himself nude on the internet but then made a conscious decision to do it. He wants to be an example to all the younger guys out there who are self conscious. Nudism has a reputation out there for only being for the older generations and a quick flick through naturist websites and magazines would largely support that theory.

I personally have thus far, stuck to my resolve to not post full frontal images of myself on this blog. There are full frontal images on the gay sites that I use from time to time and a couple of other places and maybe, just maybe I’ll be happy enough with a full frontal image to post it on here. Thanks to Kirill for flying the flag for young nudists everywhere.

If you could turn up to work on a daily basis and without fear of legal action or physical danger, do your job in the nude, would you? A fellow blogger, Peter of Narcissus Gazed, is about to go off to a nude island in France and work on the set of a nude yoga DVD. Another blog reader has said that he sits in his office at work nude all the time, but that’s not in an office where he really interacts with people. So I’m asking, if nudity weren’t a problem at your job, would you do it? I for one am actually not sure.

Something that I’ve pondered from time to time, especially at times socialising with my nudie mates, is whether I would be comfortable nude in a mixed setting? I think I would. I’ve been nude on the beach many many times with women there, but they aren’t in my group generally, although there have been times when a friend has had a female friend there who has been nude.

I’m not sure what the atmosphere would be like at one of our social gatherings if there was a woman or women there. It would certainly change things but since they aren’t sexual in nature, after a little while it would be perfectly normal.

Nude camping a couple of weeks ago there were obviously nude women around. I don’t know that I really needed to see the woman with her husband face down in her vagina near the river, but that was probably because neither of them were physically attractive to me.

 Loading ...

Friday night saw the Sydney Skinnydipping group that I started on facebook meet for another dip at Clovelly beach at 11pm. It may well be one of the last times we get to dip because the unpredictable weather we’ve had all summer is still erratic but at a cooler level. The most we’ve managed is 10 people a couple of weeks ago and Friday night we had 7.

In a couple of weeks I’m going for a weekend of nude camping at a place called River Island, which has some nice bushland to explore nude and a river to swim in as well as the pools. Fingers crossed for some nice weather.

It’s nearly 10pm here and I’ve just got home from the movies seeing “The Blind Side”. I cried. I cry easily in movies and television shows, even commercials have been known to bring me undone. But it’s time for me to go to bed and sleep so that I can get my sorry arse out of bed to go to the gym. I’ve been relatively motivated for the last week so I’m running with it. Tomorrow is legs and shoulders. Damn squats and lunges hurt.

Enjoy this video of the Spencer Tunick shoot.

Over the years I’ve heard some good things about Helsinki. Sadly it’s not somewhere I’ve managed to see yet, but given I haven’t travelled anywhere near as much as I would like, that’s no surprise. Wandering around the world wide web during my lunch today I stumbled across this gem, called Yrjonkadun Uimahalli from the 1920′s tucked away in Helsinki and for the nudists amongst us, it’s hanging on dearly to it’s old fashioned ways.

Over four floors, this pool is open on separate days for different genders and up until recently, nude swimming was mandatory, not optional. If you dared wear swimwear you used to be escorted out of the premises. Now they are a little more relaxed but from what I can find online, nudity is still the preferred choice!

You can hire a personal change room or a private cabin with bathrobe, sauna seat cover and bed, where you can relax and soak up the “Serene Roman baths atmosphere” while you order from the cafe menu. Sounds pretty darned good to me!

What comes to mind after a long hot day in the office and a gruelling aerial silks class when you can tell summer isn’t far off being over? Getting a bunch of friends together and having a skinnydip in one of Sydney’s beautiful harbour locations of course.

The Skinnydipping Sydney facebook group is starting to gain a bit of momentum and last night, thanks to the balmy weather, we had 10 guys turn up. We swam and chatted and laughed for close to 45 minutes before packing up and heading home. We’re going to have to mix up the locations or it’s only a matter of time before we get busted. 

It’s quite funny when newcomers are trying to work out, in the dark, whether the people they can see swimming around and jumping off the pontoons are the people they are actually supposed to be meeting. It would be a bit awkward to turn up, strip off and swim over to a group of people that aren’t expecting naked company. 

Here’s a Sky News video of yesterday’s shoot at the Opera House. I really can’t wait to see the finished shot.

This morning at 4am I arrived at the Sydney Opera House, expecting Sydney to be all cynical (a bit like me perhaps) and to have not shown up for the Spencer Tunick photo shoot. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out, a couple of hours later as I walked up the steps of the iconic building, to realise that 5,200 people had turned out of all kinds of body shapes, sizes, ages, genders and sexualities.

The organisers expected 2,500 people so we more than doubled their expectations and it was an amazing and liberating experience. Some would say that my nude body doesn’t need any more liberating, but to have over 5,000 other naked bodies around me was fantastic. Some have said it felt tribal and completely non-judgemental and I would have to agree. They guys would probably argue that the cold weather was doing nothing to help a lot of us and that’s true too, but we were all in the same boat.

It was quite an emotional moment when I realised that, even though this was a Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras event, about 50% of participants were straight (my estimation) and that not a single one of them was concerned about being nude with gays and lesbians. Most people were nervous, some were not. I couldn’t help but think, how many friends were seeing each other nude for the first time? How many people were running into acquaintances unexpectedly at their most vulnerable and how many of them might be more confident in their bodies after the experience.

I’ll happily admit there were people I knew there that I’d been curious to see nude and now I’ve ticked that curiosity off. It’s human nature to have a look I think. I’m glad I took the plunge and joined in. It’s a once in a lifetime experience and I loved it.

Yesterday saw the media gathering for Spencer Tunick’s photoshoot which is part of the Mardi Gras. Next monday morning, 3000 people will cover the opera house steps and inside the main auditorium for one of his famous installations.

I was invited to the media launch yesterday but couldn’t make it because of work. They had two nude models lying on tables with sushi for the masses to eat. The local news reports of course made jokes about wasabi. I can’t wait to do this on monday morning. That is, if the shoot goes ahead. At the time of the launch yesterday, Tunick who had just flown in, was without luggage, or cameras thanks to the services of Qantas that has lost it all.

Previously I’ve shown you the photos of the Dieux Du Stade calendar guys and the annual nude rugby match on the beach in New Zealand. Now I bring you this bunch of photos of a very real looking match of Rugby. I don’t have any details on where it is but judging by the dirt and grass stains on the guys bodies, they are playing for real. They certainly aren’t shy about physical contact with another nude man. Liberated footballers? It’s a rare thing, but a nice one.

When you think about nudism there are certain countries and regions that come to mind. Places like Germany are renowned for having nude sections in city parks, and a very liberal attitude towards stripping off. Australia’s climate is perceived to be suitable for year round nudity (it’s not). Alaska is not somewhere that I would imagine has a great nudist movement. The northern European countries have a strong nude sauna culture despite their wintry conditions.

Roaming the profiles on Hangoutnude, as I do, it struck me just how many people in the UK are nudists. I would say they are over represented in terms of percentage of profiles, especially for an area with weather so conducive to rugging up and staying warm and also not having the culture of saunas to fall back on.

London has nude night club nights like Club Starkers and Naked and a host of others, there are nude swim clubs, the bathing pavilion at Hampstead Heath is packed with naked sunbathers within it’s walls on a nice summer day. How has this come about? Why is there such a popularity with nudism in a cold country like Britain? I think it’s great but haven’t got my head around it.