Nudist Pageants
Nudist beauty pageants are often frowned upon by naturists as they are often seen as a form of exploitation of women. Nevertheless, they were a part of organised naturism for a long time, and continue to be organised in some resorts and clubs. This group provides a platform for the exchange of views on beauty pageants. Pictures or videos of pageants are also welcome.
- created by like2bnude
"Beauty" contests
Return to DiscussionsAt one time the so called, for lack of a better word, "beauty" contests were quite popular at various resorts and clubs, in Europe, north America, then they seemed to have dropped from the activities. Remember back in the 60's they were regularly held at the resorts' gala/sports days. At our resort these days, we have best overall tan, etc. competions.
I will guess most competitions like these have gone away in recent times due to the difficulty in avoiding an air of physical favoritism in the nudist communities, with most of the nudists involved having learned to embrace a more appropriate view of our bare communities. With judges ogling nude contestants for what they consider to be the best body on display -- in a now much more enlightened world, one moving away from an unrealistic, unhealthy, Barbie&Ken, body-shaming mentality -- the job of the judges who are trying to choose which of these bodies has this or that that's physically better than the others, it subjects nudists to a level of objectification we have come to know isn't right. Being how you are instead of a piece of flesh to be assessed and visually prodded by some arbitrary panel taxed with judging what's good about your outsides rather than your heart and soul, it goes against most everything the evolved nudist has come to understand about the nature of being natural. Body acceptance and letting everyone see us for our real selves, instead of only what can been seen from the exterior, that is the naked way.
Besides that, in America at least, beauty pageants are a throwback to an earlier time, a male-dominated era when women were to be seen and not heard, to be cook in the kitchen and slut in the bedroom, to have no opinion that should be heard or that matters, a mostly (and gladly) bygone time for most families and regions, well before the idea of equality among the sexes began to become more accepted. If you dare, take a look into the perverse nature of what is found today in child beauty pageants, with it's blatant sexualization of toddlers through make-up and suggestive outfits, children who haven't begun puberty going through elective plastic surgery to even be considered competitive, parents pushing their kids to dance provocatively with an adoring audience of adults smiling and clapping for their favorite little dreamboat. It shows all one needs to see to know this kind of competition should be put to rest permanently. Many of the adult pageants that still take place have thankfully moved away from swimsuit competitions and other strictly-visual assessment. And the promoters and sponsors of these events like to call them 'scholarship-driven', but it takes very little digging into the numbers to find that they are little more than barely-veiled profiteering and advertisement-selling ventures. Very little money ever reaches the bank accounts or prospective colleges of the contestants involved. Beauty pageants aren't very pretty - in truth they lay bare a whole lot of the ugliness in us.
back years ago before bell acres when textiles one weekend they decided to hold a beauty contest except it was the men who were put on display my wife at the time signed me up even , everything there centered around the pool area and we just paraded around the pool a few times and others voted . no i didn't win but it was harmless fun and to me i wish the contest for both guys and gals would return as harmless fun , sadly people take things now days to serious .
Sometimes we true nudists forget that the simple & pure pleasure of just being bare needs to remain at the top of our list for the reasons behind why we partake of social nudism, and if it's in the form a parade of strutting bodies conga-lining around the pool and the voting up or down as to who's the 'prettiest' or in some instances, the 'most manly', the damage to the cause of nudism is surely minimal. My last post took a serious glimpse into the larger picture, looking at where beauty pageants came from and how far some versions of them have gone, devolving into a prurient facsimile of what such affairs may have at some point been or what they were originally intended to be.
Sending out a positive message to the rest of the world, all the while never forgetting how much of the clothed world often sees nudism - as little more than a way to get naked and get jiggy with each other - it becomes difficult to keep the bare message wholesome due to the sexual aura that often gets the main attention as the healthy aura is pushed into the background and ignored. The sex sells and the up-with-bare-people part of the story gets buried in the sleaze element. Taking things too seriously has its place when it's the future of our movement at stake. With their acceptance of the sexual component, nude beauty pageants may work fine at adult nudist and CO venues, but I can see no place for that blatantly objectifying activity where all ages are encouraged to venture.
Back in the day have seen and been involved in many "beauty" contests.. Mostly harmless fun and the beauty of it was the courage to join in and participate. , Personality confidence and humor won just as many times as physical beauty...No one felt "judged" negatively at least in my experience.
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i remember back in the mid 70's i saw a nudist movie at the drive in theater it was supposedly made at a real nudist camp in Indiana . i remember the camp owner was sorta kooky but they did had a beauty pageant and if not mistaking not only men , women but teens . i was really interested in the nudist lifestyle and would buy nudist magazines at the adult bookstores sadly they should have been sold at regular bookstores but i was at least happy to find them. sadly also was the fact that nudism before the mid 80's was a couples or family thing not for singles as i really wished to participate .