Nude & Natural Magazine Naturism is the Way. |
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Nude & Natural Magazine Naturism is the Way. |
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IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE how important the Internet has become to naturism. Not that long ago that there was no Internet, at least not as we know it today. But from the beginning, naturists recognized the value in using emerging technology to share information with like-minded folks about nude recreation developments and opportunities. N’s predecessor Clothed with the Sun was reporting on naturists’ love of computer technology way back in 1982!
Naturism on the Internet began as text-only messages and static files where those in the know could find or post site reports and directions, or even find others for online conversation. Back then you needed a little computer savvy to get around; there were no point-and-click interfaces.
To get a little perspective on our online beginnings, I looked up a few of the folks who helped start it all. Michael Corbin has hosted the On-Line Naturist Club for a decade or more, and Charles Perkins established the rec.nude newsgroup on Usenet. I dispatched each a series of questions, appropriately by e-mail, to gain some insight.
My first interview was with Michael Corbin of the On-Line Naturist Club.
NIFOC: When did you first start your On-Line Naturist Club?
Corbin: I took it over from Veal Johnson, who started it on American PeopleLink, a.k.a. PLINK, back about 1984. A year or so after I took over, PLINK went belly-up, so I moved it to Delphi™. This was about 1990 or ‘91. I kept it going because it had a lot of people using it in its heyday.
NIFOC: What brought you to Delphi?
Corbin: Necessity. It was the only service that would have us in 1990. CompuServe™ already had a nudist/ naturist presence, but it was relegated to the human sexuality section; otherwise they didn’t want to talk to me. America Online™, the Source [later bought by CompuServe], everybody else I talked to wanted no part of it. Delphi was willing to sell me a forum for a $40 sign-up fee and didn’t require me to put it in a sexuality ghetto.
NIFOC: How would you compare your online club with other services that exist now or have existed in the past?
Corbin: At one time OLNC was one of the most active and largest online services for naturists. As the Web proliferated and other sites and services became available, it dropped off. With changes in Delphi management and policies over the last three or four years, the OLNC has now died. There are several other naturist forums on Delphi, but changes of late appear to have killed them all.
NIFOC: What did you find most rewarding in moderating the On-Line Naturist Club? What were the most frustrating or difficult aspects?
Corbin: Most rewarding was getting to meet a lot of wonderful people, and seeing them use the club to exchange information back in the early days, when very few people were connected to the Internet. The real heyday of the PLINK/Delphi online naturists was before the Web was started and just as it was beginning to take off. It is sometimes hard to remember way back in the dark ages, say pre-1995.
NIFOC: Where do you see your club going in the future?
Corbin: It has died peacefully. There are so many more resources online now elsewhere.
SOME THINGS have not changed. In the early days it was hard to find a host willing to deal with the topic of naturism, even in a text-only forum. That problem still exists today, with Web hosts who refuse naturist material especially if it contains any nude images.
The changes at Delphi alluded to by Corbin are associated with changes in the American economy. Faced with a decline in advertising dollars, Delphi, which was at one time a subscription service that later offered free access to its message boards, started to again charge a small fee each month for limited access. Many people simply fled to other services that were still free, or limited themselves to what they were already paying for.
My next interview was with Charles Perkins. Charles, a Naturist Action Committee area representative, was responsible for chartering the rec.nude newsgroup on Usenet.
NIFOC: When and why did you establish this newsgroup?
Perkins: I guess it was about 1982 or so. I noticed that a lot of newsgroups were discussing recreational choices and philosophical questions, so net.rec.nude (as it was originally called) was a natural addition to the existing newsgroups.
NIFOC: What was Usenet like in those days?
Perkins: There was no Internet; all communication was by dial-up. There was continuous innovation to get the best compression and incremental updates for the newsgroups. Most sites carried all the newsgroups, and some ambitious people tried to read them all. I myself read many newsgroups. It was the closest we had to worldwide chat, and the whole concept was very new. There wasn’t much filtering, so if someone wanted to contribute a lot of garbage to a newsgroup discussion they could just do so. However, there was peer pressure, and the average user had some sort of technical background, so one could usually imagine good intentions from the other person.
NIFOC: Were there many naturists interacting in rec.nude in those days? How does it compare to today’s traffic?
Perkins: I don’t know about today, but then there was always a lively discussion. Occasionally there was some jerk who would drop in and tell us about how we were going to hell, but not often. Then there were those who would purposefully try to make unpopular points, mostly for self-aggrandizement. That happened on every other newsgroup, too, as far as I know, even the technical ones.
NIFOC: Were users mostly computer professionals, or was there a broader variety of people?
Perkins: A large segment of the population had a technical background, but by no means everyone. The price of admission was a keyboard and management that was enlightened enough to permit the importation of non-work-related materials. However, that barrier to universal freedom did help to keep out quite a bit of the garbage.
NIFOC: Did you find it necessary to moderate the newsgroup after it was established?
Perkins: The newsgroup ran itself, and after just a few years I could no longer keep up with every article that came out. I never did any moderation, but for a long time I followed every discussion.
NIFOC: How did rec.nude change after major online content providers made newsgroups available to their subscribers?
Perkins: Most of this was after my time. I remember when Fidonet merged with Usenet. Fidonet users were satirized as clueless, much as America Online users were in later years. I also remember that as new populations were added, there was always a new period of education to make sure that participants knew that they weren’t going to get much erotic stimulation from the newsgroup.
NIFOC: Do you see a future for rec.nude and Usenet in general, or do you think it’s passé in a Web environment?
Perkins: I think the future is two-way interactive multiparty video, which will come online more rapidly once we all get used to having 55+ Mb/sec wireless connectivity from most urban areas. It seems to me that Usenet will not grow as rapidly as the rest of the online collaborative environment, but I must point out that I am not presently involved.
NIFOC: What would you do to change rec.nude if you could?
Perkins: What I would like is to help build a network of interested naturists and their Web pages. There isn’t any technical barrier to doing this, but I just haven’t had time myself to be involved.
I think that we’re never going to get anywhere as it is. We’re losing ground, because the majority view is never challenged in the news media or the entertainment industry. We have to get some public visibility for our cause. In the absence of visibility, our opponents effectively get away with assuming that their viewpoint is shared by the average American. After enough years of this, their assumption becomes, unfortunately, true. Every one of us should stand up and make it known that we do not wish for those implicit assumptions to be part of the American mindset.
I don’t see the spirit or the mission in today’s naturism. In fact, it seems so much more defensive and parochial than ever before.
CHARLES OFFERS some interesting insights into the future of online naturism. Already we are beginning to see the start of point-to-point video conferencing, the high end of which is mostly limited to commercial applications due to its overall cost. But with things such as Web cameras and programs such as CUseeME already in use, we cannot be all that far behind in quality real-time video communications. The question remains whether the average person is ready to talk face to face with his or her unclad naturist neighbor.
In the last edition of NIFOC I reported on the exchange of child pornography on the Internet and the blurred lines naturists must sometimes deal with. In July [2002], Canadian officials began calling for a ban on photographing children at nudist clubs. Often these images are taken without the permission of the club, or at various free beaches. In the United States, courts have found that simple nude images of children are not illegal and clearly recognize the problem lies with the consumer and not the photographer. The Canadian government would do well to consider this. Sadly, some clubs may also have to review their photography policies.
| DENNIS KIRKPATRICK is addicted to his computer and the online medium. When his hard drive recently crashed he was found sitting with a dazed stare in front of a TV set consuming afternoon soap operas. Since then, the crisis has passed—but will Vickie ever shake that split personality thing? And what about Erica, Luke, Laura? Editions of NIFOC can be found at the author’s Web site at www.sunclad.com/nifoc. Comments welcome by e-mail at nifoc@sunclad.com. |
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