Topless vs. Nude

I think it's interesting and strange that so many people treat the words 'topless' and 'nude' as if they mean the same thing, for women and girls. This is very common in movie reviews. Most of the time, what they call a female nude scene in a movie description turns out to be only a topless scene. I don't think these terms are the same at all, or even similar. Obviously, a girl can't get pregnant while wearing pants or shorts, nobody can get an STD, and there is no sanitation issue with chairseats. All the important stuff is covered up.

With so many of the controversial aspects of ordinary nudism out of the picture in a topless-only setting, common sense would tell me that this practice should be much more popular than it appears to be, outside of Europe. I wonder how many American women do this only indoors, or in backyards with privacy fences.

Do you guys personally know anybody who has radically different standards or house rules for female toplessness and complete nudity? I have an old friend who was brought up to think that way. We met in college and shared an apartment for two and a half years. During that time, I saw her bare chest almost every day, at least briefly, but I only saw her pussy one time, and that was on her wedding day (helping her get into her dress). She was very uncomfortable with full nudity, but she didn't mind putting on makeup or styling her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, with the door open, wearing nothing but panties. If I stopped to talk to her for a minute, she wouldn't cover her nipples or act embarrassed.

Within a year, she got comfortable enough with her body that she would do the same things in front of my boyfriend, who had moved in with us. She might even make a quick trip to the kitchen before putting on her bra, on a typical morning. He never did anything to make her feel uncomfortable. And she had already seen me naked hundreds of times.

Now that she is married with children who are no longer toddlers, her views on nudity have changed slightly. I get treated like family when I go over there to use their backyard pool (with my current boyfriend - different guy). Inside the privacy fence around the pool, the bikini tops are usually off. When everyone is in the house changing clothes before or after a swim, it isn't considered to be a big deal if we see each other naked. Nobody goes to any trouble to avoid it. But everybody is expected to put on something to cover their genital area (shorts, skirt, bikini bottom, whatever) before walking around the house or sitting down or having a lengthy chat with someone.

Unless it is mealtime or other guests are expected, clothing above the waist is always optional inside the house. The girls (and their brother) make more use of this freedom, but their mother will still show her chest sometimes, one way or another.

Her favorite top to wear around the house in the summer is a very loose-fitting, thin, white tank top, without a bra. (She owns several duplicates.) She is proud that she has kept the excess weight off over the years, and that top has nowhere to hide anything, even though it is at least one size too big. Every time she leans over far enough to pick something up, the front sags open enough to completely expose her small breasts. Sometimes you can see bare skin all the way down to her waist. She will wear that top in front of just about anybody, with confidence. She doesn't wear it away from home, of course, and wears it with a bra around her husband's older relatives.

The tank top is always worn with shorts and no shoes. It's very possible that some male visitors have seen her in this outfit and thought of her in a sexual way, but I don't think she gives that much thought. She knows that nothing is going to come of it. She is just being herself, in her own home, and she isn't ashamed of that.

I don't think there are any clothing-optional destinations within a reasonable driving distance of their house, so their freedom is limited to their own property, and mine. They don't know any other families that have the same house rules, now that the one like-minded grandmother has passed away. I don't have any house rules.

I know that all the regulars who post here prefer full nudity whenever possible, but I think this family's approach is an interesting compromise for people who have no desire to take off that last clothing item, for one reason or another. I don't know why it gets mentioned so seldom. It is a limited form of nudism, because you can't go out that way in public.

 

Hi,

as far as I understand your post, your friend goes around at home wearing the outfit she feels best with. So this is 100% ok for me! Nudism is nothing dogmatic I believe, it’s something about freedom, about personal freedom but also about mutual freedom. So I would never say: hey, it’s not good that you wear this shirt (cloth / bikini bottom / pareo / or what else), you better should get completely naked. No one should be urged to anything. I have friends who like to share nudity and other who prefer to have some rags on. So what? They’re all wonderful guys!

I know that there exist other definitions of nudism / naturalism than the one I have found for me. But this is nothing to quarrel about. I often say, I’m kind of a part time nudist, based on my own personal comfort and fun. So I don’t want to be blamed about going nude by the clothies, but on the other hand don’t want to be blamed by the nudies for wearing a pareo round my hips if I feel like.

I have some friends I took on the way to nudism, at least in holiday settings. But this never happened by telling them that they have to get nude, but by tolerating the way they wanted to stay and finally they tried out by their own impulse.

The other thing, why some people tell someone nude who is still wearing pants or something, I honestly cannot answer. Maybe it depends on the circumstances. On a beach a girl wearing a bikini bottom might count as clothed. But in a mall the same girl might count as pretty naked ;-)

But probably it depends most on the onlooker’s background: you go naked often yourself, so you know about ‘real’ nudity. Someone who has nudity not on his palette of personal behavior might think someone who wears not so much already is kind of naked.

Anyway, have a nice weekend!

Take care!

 

People in America have issues with exposed skin from the waist up whereas people in Europe do not - it is not abnormal or strange to see a topless female in Europe, it is common place. Women in Europe dress like women and were nice shoes which is also very pleasant so it is society and the culture that one is in and exposed to that brings this "confidence" in one's body. My wife, since the day I met her, parades around the house naked when we are alone ... she still does at age 58, but when others are around or even at the pool or beach she is very prudish. Its the comfort zone and the society that one lives in as I see it.

 

It perfectly fits her personality, which is calm, non-assertive, and smart. Technically, she is fully dressed during a typical visit, but you aren't going to leave there without seeing everything she wants to show.

My boyfriend and I used to be the only people outside the immediate family that got to participate in their topless pool sessions, but now the oldest daughter has a serious boyfriend that is old enough to be included.

In the apartment we shared, I showed more than she did, and more often, but we never talked about it. That was mutual freedom at its best.

The way I see it, anytime you are wearing something that you could never wear on a public sidewalk without going to jail, it can be considered a form of nudism. I don't know what else to call it.

I'm very part time, in terms of doing it around anyone other than my boyfriend. It's more fun for me do to if I haven't done it for a while. That makes it feel like a special privilege.

My friend and her husband are quite progressive and liberal, considering the local culture where they live now, and where they grew up. Probably, most of their neighbors would have reported them to the Department of Social Services a long time ago, if they had realized that their teenage son was being allowed to see his sisters' breasts on a regular basis, after they were all beyond the age of puberty. Those neighbors would assume that this has had some kind of terrible, sexually harmful effect on him. Not true at all. Like most normal and mentally healthy young men, he doesn't find his sisters or his mother to be sexy at all. He likes other girls; mostly the ones who show interest in him.

The oldest sister is now at a point where she has no problem with nudity in a variety of situations.

In some ways, the American South has gotten more prudish than it used to be. My grandparents' generation grew up mostly in tiny houses where privacy within the family was impossible. They accepted this as a fact of life. It wasn't a problem. Now that the houses are larger and families are smaller, family nudity has become controversial. People don't seem to know how things used to be done.

It is from reading about different attitudes in Europe, going all the way back to the days of ancient Greece and Rome, that I began to open my mind to different ways of thinking about such things.

 

It's sad that the coin called nudity has developed a very ugly side - it has always had two sides, but they were of equal shine in the past... Whereas advertising and media are showing lots of nudity in public, equalling it with sex and degrading it to a factor of increasing sales and profit, natural and innocent nudity in private and among families has become something notorious and obnoxious in the eyes of mainstream society.

Cases of abuse have become increasingly public in the media in recent times, too, making it more and more difficult to pursue a nudist family lifestyle. People are suspicious when coming to know about something not "normal" in their eyes - and while it's perfectly normal and natural for us nudists/naturists to live our life as naked as we wish to, according to our own rules of comfort, the mainstream is just waiting to point fingers at us, calling us "perverts" or report us to authorities.

This is sad... very sad only.

Wiggling bare toes,

~*Ganesha*~

 

I had a previous post on a similar topic.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=7053695#post7053695

I've never been shy about being topless or nude around other girls. Not that we ran around naked, but we saw each other on occasion. Around guys it has to be a lover. When I was younger I'd get drunk and my clothes would come off in group settings (parties), but that wasn't the highlight of my life (although I thought so at the time).

We have some property with a forested area that has a clearing. I've gone out there naked before. I enjoy the sensation and it helps avoid tan lines!

 

Things are like that in the UK.

 

What happens when an unexpected guest shows up at the door? Does he get a free show, or does he have to stand out there and be ignored while everybody scrambles around to put on clothes? If the sisters are hot, I'm sure the brother gets plenty of drop-in visits from friends.

 

I haven't been there when an unexpected male visitor showed up, but I think the females keep some kind of top handy, so they can cover up on short notice.

Whatever they do, I can assure you that guys from the neighborhood don't get a free show just for showing up. The oldest daughter might be willing, but her mother would never allow it.

 

I call it the "clothing-optional way of life."

A good friend of mine adopted the same lifestyle at home. She didn't really consider herself a nudist because she didn't frequent nudist resorts or beaches; she just kept it all at home. She had a backyard with a pool and enclosed fence. And my friend spent a lot of her spare time nude in her backyard, gardening or skinny-dipping.
She had a sarong or a large towel she'd leave hanging by the back door, so she could cover up or get naked as she walked in and out of the house. Her daughter would join her; opting to just wear a towel around her hips inside the house before walking out to the pool, so she was topless a lot and nude in the backyard. Her stepbrother didn't really like that but the ladies got the last word on nudity at home. Occasionally a friend or classmate of the daughter would drop by. If she wanted to join, the parents were called first to get permission. They were never nude or topless in front of strangers; if they were in the backyard and someone showed up they'd grab a sarong or towel.

When I was married I had a bit of a C/O lifestyle too; but with more nudity. I had a hanger by the front door with shorts, a dress and t-shirt readily available. If someone came knocking while we were nude at home, we'd crack the door open and poke our heads out, standing behind the door. Depending on the visitor, we'd then grab an item of clothing from the hanger before letting the person in. My wife's item of choice was a long t-shirt or a loose-fitting sundress; mine was just loose fitting shorts. Depending on who was knocking: we'd go for those items, or we might just ask the person to wait while we went to the bedroom to put on a full set of clothes - but that rarely happened. It was readily apparent to visitors that we were nude aside from those loose fitting garments, but we had few visitors and they usually knew about our chosen way of life.
For some people, who really "got us", we didn't bother covering up. My MIL for example had given us her "ok" to be nude around her. So when she came knocking my wife would let her in nude and just stay naked. My MIL even went nude herself on occasion while staying over. Our niece got permission from her parents to be nude when she visited. So after she got dropped off she'd go join my daughter for a nude weekend with us.

Some people, perhaps a bit more "committed" nudists, make it a point to be nude much more often, if not all the time. But there are other ways of having a clothefree philosophy and practicing it.

 

Attitudes change! When i was young (under 10) i would often take my clothes off, simply because it felt nicer, my parents used to despair of me & constantly told me to get dressed! They were so Victorian, until he was in his 80s & dying, I had never seen my dad naked! can you believe that? My mum had so many hang-ups, but somehow i rebelled. I was the girl who would get naked at parties for a dare, i was quite a promiscuous teenager, then somewhere along the line i grew up! by the time i was 21 I no longer felt so relaxed about being naked. The funny thing was, all this nudity was done indoors! I had been skinny-dipping a couple of times when i was a student, but until i met Phil, my husband, in 1982, I had only gone topless on beaches and that was only because my boobs were so small i saw no point in putting them in a bikini top! Phil introduced me to naturism (he was a dyed in the wool naturist back then & still is now), i totally embraced the concept of swimming & sunbathing nude on beaches. I even found myself enjoying going to CO saunas! The notion of social nudity has it's merits, once you get the idea, it seems pointless to be coy about one's body.
Since being with Phil, i have not felt a jot of anxiety or jealousy when any of my female friends have come round & he has been naked in their presence, likewise i am at ease being naked in the presence of most of out friends. I don't ram it down their throats, but if they come round & I am sunning myself in the back garden then they have to take me as they find me! We have one particular couple we like to sunbathe naked with & it's fair to say that there is no part of our anatomies that we have not seen or exposed! it's really quite relaxing being able to feel so comfortable with others in such a state of undress!