Introduction:
It has been quite a few years since we visited Robert Graves’ poem, The Naked and The Nude. The entire poem is posted here immediately following this introduction. Graves, the poet, paved the pathway that continues to divide the clothes free community today: Are you naked? Are you nude? Which label best identifies you?
Graves understood nude as being without clothes. He felt that naked, although also without clothes, as being similar to “vulnerable.”
Generations of society have interpreted “naked” as being involuntary and “nude” as being voluntary. For example, a communal shower is mandatory following a required physical education class. It is part of the class routine. As a result, while showering, the entire class is naked. It is an involuntary action as the goal is personal hygiene.
A typical Sunday afternoon activity for a group of friends is to go skinny-dipping. While swimming or lounging in the sun afterwards, everyone is nude. After all, it was a voluntary choice to go skinny-dipping with friends. The end result is to have fun and relax together.
The two images of the Shoneye twins above, Daniel and Darren, feature them both without a piece of clothing on their body. The determination of whether they are naked or nude depends to their intent and the interpretation of the person viewing the photograph. Both twins publicly acknowledge being bare practitioners (same gender loving and body and clothes freedom enthusiasts. I am unaware of either of them, privately or publicly, ever disclosing a preference for naked or nude in describing themselves.
The Naked and The Nude
by Robert Graves
(1895 – 1985)
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!
Summary
Robert Graves poem, The Naked and The Nude, presents to all of us with the reality that within our very own culture of body and clothes freedom the debate over naked and nude is all consuming for many of our people. The same applies to the conflict between those who consider themselves naturist and those who consider themselves nudist.
In the minds of many, the differing labels are practically synonymous – identical. The subtle definitions may evolve over the years but in essence the meaning of each word remains consistent. ReNude Pride utilizes “bare practitioner” as well as “body and clothes freedom” whenever possible in order to distance itself from entanglement with proponents of the different persuasions.
Take care and stay bare!
Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride
Author’s Note: The next post entry for here is planned for Sunday, March 13, 2022, and the proposed topic is: “USA Goes DST!”
ReNude Pride: Guys Without Boxers! 