This is an appreciation post for a naturist website that has been advocating for some thirteen years now. I started my blog and Twitter account in 2011, and in the time since, I’ve seen a lot of terrific growth in online naturism portals, platforms, and podcasts. Clothes Free Life has held steady over the years even as it has transitioned through several hosting / platform modifications managed by its founder, Earl, to not only direct readers to naturist content elsewhere on the web, but also provide users with new site-specific content. The site description reads as follows: “Clothes Free Life is a naturism and clothes free living content hub. More than just a blog or an online community we are dedicated to normalizing naturism and promoting clothes free living by ordinary people for body acceptance, non-sexual nudity and bare body freedom from social stigma. Gymnosophy for a new generation and a new century – nu Gymnosophy.”
Clothes Free Life is up-front with its mission and vision statements!
Our mission bringing life to naturism’s ideals and nudism practice.
Our vision is to see the normalization of naturism and clothes free living so those who choose to practice a clothes free life can be free to do so without social stigma.
From the beginning, Earl has hosted book reviews, author interviews, poetry contests, and similar content that directly engages naturist readers. He chose my first novel Co-ed Naked Philosophy as the inaugural book club title for his site in 2013, which is how I learned about the site and Earl’s work. In more recent years, he has begun providing content that is the outcome of his own research as a subject matter expert on the African experience and naturism: social nudism in African societies both before and after European colonialism, African and African American naturist pioneers and organizations, African diaspora naturist art and literature, and more. This kind of content is vital for naturism’s continued growth and acceptance worldwide. We all need to know about contexts for social nudity that have existed always, all around the globe, long before German FKK. With the goal of elevating the voices of marginalized people, Earl is also clear on calling out performative inclusion and other kinds of misguided approaches to the critical issue of diversity in naturism – here is an excellent recent example – and celebrating the push to decolonize naturism (post by collaborator wayne).
The current site includes myriad drop-down menus such as naturist living guides (hiking, nude 5Ks, etc.), naturist reviews (books, apps, websites, etc.), nudie foodie, magazine (arts & culture, naturist life, newsfeed, voices, etc.) and a searchable naturism directory. There are also help docs, including a writer and contributor guide for anyone who may be interested in content collaboration. For greater functionality, some content has migrated to the hub’s sub sites, including the Naturist Movie Database, the Naturism Wiki, the Shop Naturism store, and archived episodes of early podcast collaborations such as the excellent “naked soul reflections” with Hontouni Heart, now on YouTube.
The site has been garnering impressive statistics: “Since it launched as a blog in 2012 it has grown to average : 1000 daily page views, 85,000 Monthly Unique Visitors and 380,000 Monthly Page views. The site has over 11000 posts In 60 different categories which have been viewed 1,700,000 times shared over 3500 times, by over 2500 visitors who have made over 5400 comments. We have a vast set of resources that you may want to explore we invite you to view our welcome page for a tour of everything that is available.” Collaborating with naturist business owners, the site is currently supporting rowan brand vegan skincare products.
In its different iterations over the years, Clothes Free Life has expanded in both content and format. The site is free and available to all, so if you haven’t explored it yet, or would like to revisit, take a look! If you would like to support Clothes Free Life’s mission and content, please feel free to donate. My appreciation to Earl and his collaborators for their years of hard work promoting naturism, especially from perspectives not often available or acknowledged on other sites. Clothes Free Life does the vital work of showing, documenting, and proving that naturism is for all of us.