In an interesting development, it would appear security CCTV cameras are being considered for a number of Sunshine Coast, Queensland beaches, including unofficial CO beach Alexandria Bay at Noosa. Safety is being cited as the primary reason in this Sunshine Coast Daily article, since A-Bay is not patrolled by Surf Lifesaving Qld and has claimed 3 lives since 2003.

Apparently it can be quite a busy beach on weekends, but it’s remoteness combined with the cost of patrols does make for an unfortunate conundrum – video footage of nudists, or potentially saving lives?

As noted in the article:

Surf Life Saving Queensland does not need public approval to install the cameras. “We would liaise with the public and locals have a pretty good relationship with the local surf club,” Mr Purchase said.

There are lots of views of this, and we’re not going to wade in – just remember that security cameras on ANY beach will raise concerns about privacy, particularly if privacy is sacrificed in the name of safety/security/saving lives.

The Thoughtful Naturist made an interesting comparison of feminism and naturism in this article, noting that:

Feminists have much in common with the naturist view of life, i.e. they work to end prejudice, prejudice that has resulted from a non thinking upbringing. It is beyond belief that any argument can be strongly held that women should be shown to be less than men, equally, it is beyond belief that anyone should snigger at simple nudity. Yet they do.

Check out the article, it’s only a short read, but thought-provoking and interesting nonetheless.

We received this email quite a while back, but we get contacted by so many “interest groups” that are actually spam or other scam, we dutifully took no notice!! But this spam wouldn’t go away, it kept asking us to fill out their survey!!

Turns out it is probably genuine – a naturist holiday survey is being done out of the Cyprus University of Technology, and they are looking for people to complete their questionnaire. We just completed it, nothing too stressful in there – if it’s a scam, we couldn’t see it!!

Here’s the email, with link – if you are interested, click the link and fill it out!!

Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope this message finds you well. Earlier this year I contacted you regarding my intention to carry out research on naturism tourism. Even though I have not heard from you, I would like to inform you that the questionnaire has been prepared, following consultation with a number of international naturist organisations. The questionnaire has now taken the form of an electronic survey which can be found in the following link:
www.cut.ac.cy/staff/k.andriotis/survey/

In this link you can find an English and a French version of the questionnaire.

A number of well-respected naturist organisations have already agreed to participate in this survey. I would therefore be grateful if you would consider facilitating this research by informing your members about this survey and circulate the above link. The survey is quite simple and takes only a few minutes to complete. Given its content, I hope you might find it interesting!

Thank you very much for your time and please do not hesitate to contact me if you require further information regarding this project.

Kindest regards
Dr Dimitrios P. Stergiou

Yup, it would seem that Ron Humphrey has somehow managed to land himself a spot on the Surf Coast Shire Council, at least until the next round of elections in November 2012 – given it wasn’t the Surf Coast residents that voted him in this time, but a somewhat eyebrow-raising countback using preference votes from the last election, we suspect he won’t make it past the next elections!

Congratulations Ron, on the unlikely chance you read this site – enjoy your time back in the council chambers while you have it. Our only advice would be for you to focus on the really pressing issues that concern the residents in the Surf Coast Shire, if you want ANY chance of being voted back in at the next elections!! You know how well your last attempt at closing our beaches went, but we’re always happy to sit down and have a chat about the ways the council can help make the beaches a better place for all users – if you want to talk about replacing the toilet block, putting in better lighting and fencing, and establishing council patrols of the Dunes, just let us know!! And we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on things, as we head into another summer of popular beach use!

The nudist community supports safe beaches for all users, and works actively with local and state representatives to do our part in support! And our advice to beach users remains unchanged – appropriate behaviour on the beaches and no going in the dunes, and there’ll be no reason to associate nudists with any issues.

Update: Ron’s return to the Surf Coast Shire Council is already with controversy, as it would appear he’s got a little conflict of interest going on – others have advised Ron that being a councillor and remaining president of the Surf Coast Community Ratepayers Association could be problematic!! Not for Ron though, he’s got it under control – be interesting to see if he manages to hold onto both positions!!

Here’s the article from today’s Surf Coast Times, if you are interested!

One of the topics of discussion amongst nudist communities has always been the concern over declining numbers – less people joining the clubs/resorts, less people joining the associations, less people attending the organised meets like swim nights, etc. But it would appear that nudist numbers aren’t necessarily declining, just the number of people who actually think of themselves as nudists!!

Yes, it’s an argument in semantics, but it would appear there are thousands (perhaps millions) of people out there that prefer to stay nude after their morning shower, or think nothing of pottering around their garden nude on a nice day, or go topless at beaches without second thought if the mood takes them and others are doing it! Are these people nudists? Who knows – the real and better question is, should we really care??

The reality is that the nudist community (as it stands) is actually succumbing to the new cultural design driven by social media, which suggests that anyone can be interested in anything, and not worry about a “title” that goes with it. People, particularly the younger 18-35 crowd, are more likely to admit their positive view of being nude by joining a Facebook group than directly telling their friends. There seems to be something “safe” about admitting your nude views from the comfort of your keyboard!

The challenge therefore is for the nudists with more traditional views – these people generally believe that being a nudist is very different to being a person who simply likes to be nude without the title. Can you see where we’re going here??

Of course, we’ve got examples of this new phenomenon – if you type “nude” into Facebook, you’ll get about 6,800 results!! Some of the examples from the first few pages include:

• Nude Beaches – over 4500 members
• Risky Nude Dash – over 241000 people!!
• Things to do nude – 1500 members
• Nude on the beach – over 5000 members
• Nude Revolution – around 1500 members, and associated with Vita Nuda
• Nudist – a group with over 2000 members
• Nudism – a group with over 3700 members
• Being Naked – another group, with over 13000 members!!

Interestingly, “naturism” as a search term does not result in many hits on Facebook (only 103), so perhaps the terminology is part of the challenge?? It would seem there are more than enough people interested in being nude for non-sexual reasons, so do we care if they call themselves nudists or not??

In related news, the social experiment that was Skinbook seems to have finally died, in quite a bitter way! There are a few articles around the place if you Google for them, but a couple we found can be read here and here. What did Skinbook do wrong?? Well, that’s open to conjecture and heated discussion – it certainly didn’t help that their own arbitrary (and usually subjective) membership approval process alienated many real nudists!! And some of the comments made by the founders in interviews certainly didn’t help their cause, highlighting their own hypocrisy and bias. The Skinbook experiment seems to have highlighted that people don’t like being put in defined boxes, least of all nudists!!

What does all this mean for the concept of “nudism”?? Will nudism continue to be a formally defined and practised lifestyle choice? Or will we reach a point in society where there will be a difference between being a nudist, and simply being someone who likes to be nude in specific circumstances?? Time will tell!

As a side note, Facebook has pages for Australian Nudists, Campbells Cove, Sunnyside North, Point Impossible Beach and Southside Beach, so check them out!!

(BTW, apparently the movie “Act Naturally” is due to start soon?? Anyone know anything about this? They have a Facebook page and website to check out)