Bare-faced cheek
of our naturists
A new documentary cannot hide the oddness of those who like
to strip, writes Allan Brown ( someone who doesn’t know all the facts!)
Perhaps you
weren’t aware of it but you, your friends and your family are “textiles”. You
live in the textile world, frequent textile shops, visit textile swimming
baths, think textile thoughts and view the world through textile-tinted
spectacles.
To explain: textile is the epithet used to describe those of us
who wear clothes by those — albeit a tiny minority — who lay bare a passion for
naturism, even in Scotland’s withering climate. This fact, along with a great
deal else, very little of it appetising, is revealed in a documentary this week
which studies the pastime formerly known as nudism.
Jinty Whitton practises naturism at home: “In Scotland you get
maybe only three months you can do it, so the rest of the time we either go
abroad or invite naturist friends round,” she says.
The programme discovers thriving naturist communities in
Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, North Berwick and Haddington. “We just close the
blinds, turn the heating up and chat away, just like textiles do at home. As
you see in the documentary, I’m quite busty and I find clothes physically
uncomfortable; bras irritate me. That doesn’t mean I’m having orgies every night,
like a lot of textiles think.”
As with most reports that deal with uncommon behaviour of a
quasi-sexual nature, such as foot fetishism, pole-dancing or wife-swapping, it
makes the usual bland pleas for broad-mindedness. Naturists, it argues, aren’t paedophiles
or perverts, they merely relish the whoosh of a stiff breeze against the
vitals. They are responsible and discreet. So why do the nasty textiles keep
looking at them in a strange way?
Why indeed. The 1,000-yard-stare strangeness of Scottish naturists
is revealed by the weakness of their arguments. Reasons advanced for the
advisability of habitual nakedness include the fact that it improves your
swimming, saves worrying over what to wear, is socially egalitarian and, quite
a troubling notion this, speeds up the courting ritual because it “lets you see
what you’re going to get before you get there”.
The director of the documentary, Carolyn Mills, 25, discovered
that if she wanted to chronicle the weirdos, she would have to join them.
“Within 10 minutes you forget you’re naked,” she says.
“The rule is that you have to maintain eye contact at all times,
so you concentrate more on what people are saying. I was quite a novelty
because I’m so young. Most naturists begin in their mid-fifties. I’ve been
asked to join quite a few of the swimming clubs I visited but I haven’t decided
if I will.”
Mills was hoping to capture the broad-minded positivity of the
Scottish naturist scene, but what comes across most is the frightful snobbery
of those who participate. As with real ale buffs, naturists seem very keen on
“real” people, a condition best achieved by flaunting that which should be
concealed or surgically removed.
Their vanity is evident in their oft-mentioned relief at no longer
having to be vain, which alerts us to how deeply the matter of appearance has
troubled them in the past. “Now I don’t have to worry if I’m six stone or 16
stone,” said one woman, whose worries about weighing six stone are clearly
unfounded.
If such notions aren’t frightening enough, the documentary
culminates in one of the most disturbing sights yet shown on television, a
naturist party. In a spooky basement, nudists dance to Tom Robinson’s 2-4-6-8
Motorway, wearing only masks.
It is absolutely terrifying, like a nightmare suffered by the
Duchess of Argyll after watching The Blair Witch Project. “A few of the
naturists were sensitive about having their identities revealed, so they
insisted on wearing the masks,” says Mills. “Some of their workmates don’t know
what they do at the weekends. Scotland is still so prudish.”
Thank the capaciously-clothed Lord that it is, if this lot are the
alternative. The expression in the eyes of poor Nora, clearly dragooned into
sharing her husband’s bizarre whims, will stay in the mind of the sensitive
viewer for days, as will several more corporeal sights.
Wearing The One-Buttoned Suit, is on STV on Thursday 6th
November 2003 at 11pm