Summer, sun, sea, and beach plus holidays. When all these elements come together the result is the kind of freedom I've been yearning for all year. Every year since I started being able to travel to the sea... Of course, it's understood that I lived somewhere other than where there's a sea!
The first time I traveled to the seaside I was old enough, I was almost 18 and I went with my mum, haha. Before that, all my holidays were in the country, in the place where I grew up and I loved it, I was devastated by the desire to go there, but...
But I was hearing more and more stories about the sea. As I had never seen the sea, and I didn't know what it meant and what the difference was between different stretches covered by water, I wasn't too curious to see it, but...
I went to the high school where many rich young people were colleagues of mine!
Of course, each of us lived somewhere there were richer people, that's life, but there was a difference here, with me. I was born and spent my childhood and youth in a communist country, in the communist bloc captured by the USSR in Eastern Europe after the end of World War II, where theoretically and ideologically everyone was equal, so there were no richer and poorer people, but...
This was (and is) one of the great lies of the communist ideology!
Wealth existed in the ruling class but it was not exposed for others to see, it was obvious and we, the ordinary ones, learned something from what the children, our schoolmates, said about their lives, their homes, and their holidays. Their seaside holidays!
My family was not wealthy, on the contrary, it was below average. A trip to the seaside was not an option, but...
In the last year of high school, I got quite seriously ill, I spent a long time in the hospital and my desperate mother promised me that if I would fight with all my strength against my illness and get well, then we would go on holiday by the sea!
I overcame my illness and so began my friendship with the sea in the 70s of the last century.
The first time I went to the seaside with my mum, and I was no longer a child. That's what made me leave my mum after the first few days, on her beach umbrella, and start exploring the more hidden parts of the resort. The biggest and most known Black Sea resort in Romania is Mamaia (it can be translated as a kind of grandmother).
By chance, I discovered a secluded place on the beach, surrounded by a precarious reed fence, and inside, naked people sunbathing and more, that is, they were gathered in small groups and chatting, or walking, or reading... Women, men of all ages, and children.
It was shocking for me, who was just getting used to the sea and the atmosphere there. Of course, I left there quickly. It was an exclusive place and what excluded you was the fact that you were wearing a swimsuit!
I couldn't stay away from that place and I started to frequent it, befriended the people there and forgot about... my mother (only during holidays, of course).
It wasn't easy, because practising nudism meant following certain rules and codes that you have to learn over time.
I have found someone who says better than me about these codes and I agree that this is the case...
The nudity code at the beach was born of its own accord, spontaneously, as an informal group's need to defend itself from intruders. The behavioral code on a nude beach is very complex, and as a man, an erection disqualifies you and makes you the laughingstock of the colony.
Beyond these cases of priapism, there is also the complex code of looks. Strict staring is aggression, which will quickly be penalized by the reproachful and scornful stares of others. This is because the stripping of the body has been accompanied by its compulsory desexualization. The naked body at the beach demands indifference. Source - How nudism came into fashion in Romania and around the world
I declare, therefore, that I have done this "sport", nudism, starting with this incident in the 70s, a few years after, when I traveled to the seaside alone.
What did nudism mean to me?
Freedom, first of all. The feeling of freedom, because freedom couldn't exist then, and even the feeling of freedom was rare!
I did not then associate nudism with German and Nordic naturalism, i.e. communion with nature, no!
I associated nudism with the French model, the spirit of the Côte d'Azur, of the beauty of the human body without concealments and shame (although I was a young man brought up in the spirit of shame and complexes). I certainly wanted to confront my complex of being an ultimately uneducated man, and I think I succeeded.
I was very young at the time and it was easier for me to cross some fences, if I had been more mature I probably wouldn't have "jumped the fence".
It was a great experience and I recommend anyone who has doubts to give it a try. After all, what's to lose?
After a few years of allowing myself this "freedom", after having a wife and a child, I abandoned nudism altogether, but I still went for many years to the exclusive seaside in a place called Vama Veche, a fishing village where there is a communion between nudists and those who did not practice this way of exposing oneself to the sun, water, sand, and people. Communion was as natural as nudism. That was until 1990 when the place was reclaimed and occupied by what was called a new hippie movement. All sort of freedom through music, alcohol, and drugs... and a lot of filth, so it was "Goodbye, Vama Veche!
In the 70s and after, it was impossible to photograph, so the photos in this blog are from the 90s, in Vama Veche. Photographs that I have used in other stories about that time and place are the only photographs that can support some tired memories with images.
Thanks to one of the topics recommended by @galenkp in Weekend-Engagement topics: WEEK 213
What are your thoughts on nudists and naturism? Have you ever done it, would you, and if so why, and if not why not?
I remembered this part of my life which was very enjoyable and unrepeatable. Thanks for that!
Greetings from a nudist in the meantime "covered"... nearly 40 years ago.
Time flies, doesn't it?
