OPINION: For many New Zealanders, having a child around a group of naked adults feels totally inappropriate. But Auckland-based Alice DeWet is passionate about getting families into naturist spaces, including her own 7-year-old son.
Now 42 years old, president of the New Zealand Naturist Federation, and secretary of the Auckland Outdoor Naturist club, Alice’s foray into naturist clubs came easily to her.
She visited her first one while living in South Africa 16 years ago, because “I’ve always just sort of been a naturist. It’s just I never knew that there was something called naturism.”
She still loves being naked at home with her husband of 19 years (who’s also a naturist) and her son, but says the clubs have an extra appeal because she gets to meet people she has something in common with.
They’re also important because, “when we had our son, to me, it was quite important that he not only sees us naked, but goes through a community setup where everyone is naked to kind of understand that there’s nothing strange about it.”
In New Zealand, naturists can be stereotyped as hypersexual exhibitionists or far-left hippies — views that could be seen to stand in opposition to the more relaxed attitudes of many European countries.
Yet if you were to visit one of the dozen or so naturist clubs dotted around the country, you’d find them frequented by people who, yes, may be strutting around in various stages of undress, but also have totally normal jobs, lives, and perspectives on the world.
Naturally, there’s still measures in place to keep these environments feeling safe. New members generally need to make an appointment to visit, fill out an application, wear wristbands, and behaviour is loosely monitored to make sure everyone’s using the space as it’s intended.
That’s why Alice says “I personally think my son is far safer at a naturist club, ironically, than probably anywhere else, because at the clubs people really look out for each other, especially with the children. So if there’s any strange person there, someone would be on to them.”
However, she says “I’m quite selective of the nudist beaches we go to because the thing is with a beach, because it’s a public space, you obviously can’t control who goes there.”
Wherever they are, her son always has the option to decide for himself whether he wants to be clothed or not, though it sounds like the main thing that makes him want to get dressed is the cold New Zealand weather.
“I’ve known a lot of naturists who had kids who grew up in the naturist community. And once they hit puberty or a little bit older, they get self-conscious and body-conscious. So some of them decide not to come to the club any more, and they may come back years later. Others tend to stick around through their puberty years,” said Alice.
She hopes that her son’s presence in these environments during his key developmental years “just gives him that bit of self-confidence.”
While there’s limited research on the benefits of children growing up as naturists, it’s common for adults to speak highly of how naturism showed them what normal bodies look like outside the photoshopped bodies on social media that somehow all look the same. This has helped many people, myself included, to accept and love their own bodies more.
The big fear people have about children in these spaces is that there’s a sexual undercurrent running through the environment, but when asked about the intersection between sex and naturism, Alice says, “naturists are quite cautious of being put in the same category as it being a sexual thing.”
“When I go to a naturist camp, I don’t think about anything sexual.”
While it may be hard for some people to understand until they experience it for themselves, this is another reason why this space could be so monumental for children.
In a world where bodies are constantly being sexualised (often nonconsensually), naturism can help to remove those sexual connotations so we can view our own bodies and those of others as they are, without externally imposed connotations.
In time, I believe that there will be more research done around these spaces, but for now, we have the stories of Alice and her family to learn from and perhaps inspire us to find our own sources of freedom and confidence, whether that be naturism or something else.
