The Avengers Movie Sports Good Nude Scene

ON FRIDAY a long-awaited movie The Avengers made its debut in the US.  The film features a team of Marvel Comics superheroes including Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and others to do super battle with super villains. Samuel L. Jackson plays Nick Fury, the mastermind who brings them all together.

Nudists will be interested to know that there is actually a positive “nude” scene in this flick.  It happens when the Incredible Hulk returns to the form of humble alter-ego Dr. Bruce Banner (played by actor Mark Ruffalo). Given the Hulk’s mammoth size, when he shrinks back into Banner the mammoth trousers he’s wearing manage to fall off, leaving the Doctor nude within a pile of rubble.  It’s up to a janitor (played by Harry Dean Stanton who you may remember from the cult classic Repo Man) to rescue the superhero with a spare pair of jeans. 

The matter-of-fact way that a nude character and a custodian have a conversation about what’s just happened makes for a great lighthearted moment. But it also scores an ever-so-important victory for those who value the human body.  By juxtaposing Banner beneath rubble the movie keeps its PG rating. Somehow it also manages to make missing pants a part of life rather than a scandalous event or, worse, ignore the issue altogether by shrinking big clothes along with the creature.


While one of our Bare Platypus team watched it with his puggles over the weekend, that scene made for a very humorous moment when a seven year old boy seated next to their group took it in. As if talking about the family dog getting out and running down the street or a forgotten homework assignment he muttered aloud, “Uh oh. He’s naked.”


Imagine that. It’s possible to interject nudity in a movie without leaving anyone “traumatized” or “defiled.” Just one of the things that makes The Avengers a must-see this summer.

Make Your Second Home a Nudist Retreat

THIS WEEK the Wall Street Journal carried a story about the growing number of couples who are buying vacation homes within a short drive of their regular abodes.  Instead of making long flights or drives to traditional venues like Florida or Las Vegas many travelers opt for places in their home states to save gas and time.  With home prices low, the time to buy may be right too.

Bare Platypuses have never had the means to build and furnish more than one habitat at a time so we don’t know about this phenomenon first-hand.  But IF you’re thinking about owning a second home close by, why not consider locating it within a nudist resort OR optimize your retreat for naked time?

There are more than one hundred Nudist Facilities listed throughout the United States and Canada.  Many of these lease space for mobile homes and cottages.  They run the gamut from rustic to luxurious and everything in between.  Some are family-oriented, some are getaways for couples.  Depending on weather conditions they may be open all year or seasonal.

If solitude is your thing, why not get a vacation home that is either secluded enough to walk the grounds bare OR easily fenced to give you the privacy you need.  You may regularly live in a city high-rise, but you could then withdraw to a quiet naked place with just the right landscaping to add to the seclusion.  What’s more, by locating a resting roost that is off the beaten track, you may save enough money to pay for a hot tub or pool.

Make it a ritual to stay bare when you visit your vacation home.  Decorate it with framed nude prints.  The sky’s the limit when an open sky and a little privacy are all you need. 

What if you can’t afford to buy a second home of your own for a nudist getaway? Make friends with someone who can!

SPAStic: Why Ads with Swimwear?

IN THE local newspaper that comes every Sunday morning there’s a host of advertisements for pool and recreation companies.  One national warehouse chain is usually touting a sale on some model of spa or another.  Jacuzzi, Hot Spring, Sundance, and others tout the benefits of “hydrotherapy,” relaxation, massage, and the solitude that time in their tubs will bring.

The makers of these whirlpools usually offer quality family time as a plus of purchasing their products.  We see mom, dad, Johnnie, and Suzie soaking it up among the bubbles.  Sometimes we even see a grandmother or grandfather figure in there.  But you know what we always see too?  SWIMSUITS.  There are always straps showing on the shoulders of the ladies in the water.  The men inevitably wear brightly colored swim trunks so that there’s NO doubt they’re SUITably clothed beneath the surface.

The Bare Platypus team asks, If YOU had just spent $5,000 or more on a new hot tub for your backyard would YOU wear swim trunks in it?  When we have asked even non-nudists this question, they usually reply that if they were enjoying a private soak in their own basin they would do so au naturale.   And yet, week after week the advertisements come and go, but the swimsuits on the models remain.

We are not suggesting that readers should see a full-frontal display of nudity in these advertisements.  We’re just wondering why they couldn’t leave the straps off the ladies’ swimwear, leave the trunks off the men, but let the bubbles in the water keep things discreet.  Maybe sit a kid’s bare bum on the edge of the tub once in a while to denote that you can finally skinny dip if you buy your own tub?

Swimsuits to sell spas? We don’t get it. But maybe the Madison Avenue advertising companies know something we don’t.

5/2/12  Update:  We neglected to provide an example of what we're talking about, so here's one from Recreational Factory Warehouse .  Example #2 comes from Hot Spring spas.  Let the animation script play and you'll see multiple pics demonstrating the point.  

9/2/13 Update: In today's blog we talk about finding one spa installation company that "gets" naked. click here

Our College Nudist Couple Revisited

LAST MONTH we reported on A College Student's First Nudist Experience  .  We explained in that post that one of the Bare Platypus “puggles” was raised a nudist since a baby, is now of college age, and invited the guy she’s dating for an evening trip to the local nudist club.  We finished by noting that the young man who had given nudism a try for the first time wanted to return.  We wrote that they were planning a trip back to the nudist club.  Yesterday was their day.


This time, no sooner had our young couple parked their car than our second-visit-guy was completely out of his clothes and wore no towel either.  He stayed completely naked during the entire visit.  This was a day trip so our couple could do more activities including holding a ping pong “tournament” that lasted the better part of an hour!  They swam, soaked in the hot tub, and had a picnic lunch on the lakefront beach suited to an undergraduate’s budget: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  The weather stayed sunny so they worked on their all over tans.


The two most significant developments to report came when it was time to leave after a great day.  First, he told our platypus “You’ve CONVERTED me!”  Second?  Our convert wanted to ride home naked! They didn’t because of some additional errands to run. But we understand how our young convert felt. 

We really do.

Update: Our college students return to the nudist club yet again... this time for a picnic with Ms. Platypus's family... in Threepeat .

Insist on This If you Wish to Resist Clothes

TIME SHARE sales and pitchmen aren’t as big these days as they once were. In their heyday we knew of a nudist with a great way of dealing with these high pressure salespeople.  Whenever our acquaintance received a letter or postcard in the mail offering some prize just for touring the latest facility he would visit and display genuine interest.  He would even listen to the extended talk about the investment potential of the condo in question and listen to the financing options available.  He rarely interrupted salespeople going through their spiel. 

Only when asked, “What do you think?” did our fellow nudist deliver the kicker: “Your place looks great, but I didn’t see any facilities for nude swimming and sunbathing.  If you have them, I would love to see them.  If not, I’m afraid this won’t do.”  This man noted that he never received a “yes, we have that” response, though he did get a lot of bewildered looks as he collected his door prizes.  “Had they ever had something for a nudist, I probably would have bought,” he confided.

As nudists who want to see more accommodations for nudists, there are some things that we can do to put the issue out to travel providers.  It doesn’t have to cost any money to put a thought into their heads:

• When you stop at state welcome centers on interstate highways, ASK about the availability of nudist parks in the state you’re visiting.  Believe it or not, Bare Platypus team members have provided lists of nudist clubs to welcome center staff who have received inquiries in the past and want to be prepared.  Asking sends a message that nude tourism is important;

• When you stay in a hotel or motel adjacent to a town with a nudist club, let the front desk know that the availability of the nudist club brought you to the area during check out.  Doing this creates allies for the nudist club within the local Chamber of Commerce;

• Subscribe to some travel and tourism feeds on TWITTER.  At opportune times, answer questions such as “what would get you to plan travel here?” with a note about the importance of nude venues to you;

• When you visit a nudist beach or park, make a point of letting the gas station where you fill your tank, and the restaurant where you fill your plate, know what brought them your business. 

Just think.  The folks you speak with will not know your name or "out" you as a nudist for bringing these subjects up.  But it will make a difference. 

Nude Attitudes Reveal Raw Racism

WE HAVE neglected to write on this specific subject until now, but it is long overdue.  Stated plainly, a person’s attitudes towards nudity often reveal an underlying racism that ticks us off.  We’re not up to completing coherent paragraphs this Sunday afternoon, so we’ll give you a bulleted list that we hope expresses what we’re talking about:

• As kids we could all ogle the naked bodies of the natives in National Geographic magazine, but naturist magazines can’t be sold on the newsstand (unless they’re in the XXX adult section) because they have naked CAUCASIAN people.  Nudity is, apparently, only fitting for people of ethnicity whom we expect to be naked “savages.”
• Pictures of breast feeding infants are okay if the infants are “tribal” but Facebook bans North American moms from posting breast feeding photos?
• Kids raised in the Amazon jungle who romp and swim naked? A protected (expected) “culture.”  Kids raised in Arizona running around or swimming naked? “In deepest danger."
• Aborigines naked in the Australian Outback may be filmed, studied, interviewed.  They’re on “Walkabout.”  Nudists on a beach in Queensland, Australia may need to be locked up.  They’re “perverted.” 

• Take a picture of a naked child in the jungles of South America and you’re an anthropologist.  Take a picture of a naked child in North America and you’re a child pornographer.

• A Soviet dissident who has physically harmed no person and done nothing other than writing about the gulags gets sent to a gulag and we demand his freedom from the oppressive communist regime. A British Royal Marine retires from service and decides to walk rural roads of the UK naked (physically harming no person) and the UK locks him up for 4+ years going on indefinitely.  That’s not deemed oppressive or excessive by authorities.

• Men go hunting buck naked in the African bush and velds, throwing spears or shooting arrows at a bloody animal soon-to-be carcass. That’s filmed in vivid detail for the Learning channel.  The Learning channel visits a nudist park and everyone is carefully pixilated to avoid causing "offense" to the viewer.

In the opinion of the Bare Platypus, these examples demonstrate a kind of thinking that is more degrading than anything we can imagine.  It’s the thinking that says, “When the people of a given race stay in the category and clothes that are expected of them (savage red man or black woman versus enlightened civilized white family) then no harm, no foul.  But when people don’t stay “in their place” we’ll cry obscene!

Shouldn’t one person with no clothes and another person with no clothes be the ultimate example of equality?

 

05/08/12 Update: Bare Platypus is not the first to raise this issue.  Click HERE for an online discussion from 2005 with similar themes.

No Butts About It. We Like Them Bare!

BUMS, BOTTOMS, butts, buttocks, derrieres, culs, tushes, tails, and traseros.  However you say it, in any language, we like them.  And we like them bare when possible.

Lest you think there’s something illicit in all this, we’ll be straight about saying that we like naked heineys.  Including those of cute little babies crawling bare on the bearskin rugs… complete with all their dimples and creases.  We’ve also written before that we smiled every time we saw the original Coppertone advertisement with the little girl in pigtails blushing while a terrier’s tug on her bikini bottoms showed us her pale cheeks.

We’re an equal opportunity admirer. Male or female, younger or older, we don’t care: they look better bare!  What about those of us who “sag” or show cellulite?  We may not be in our prime, but do our nalgas look any better crammed into a lycra swimsuit or in pants hitched too high with whales printed on them?  Didn’t think so.

Some will dismiss this as mere fetish but they don’t understand.  Your Platypusses’ admiration comes from that place in the heart and mind that inspires awe when looking at a prairie sky, a Frank Lloyd Wright building, an Ansel Adams photograph of Yosemite, or a classic Duisenberg automobile.

One of our Bare Platypus staff has remarked that if he makes it to heaven, he’s going to be sure to compliment Almighty God on the form, functionality, and fittingness of the human posterior and he genuinely, sincerely, means that with no suggestion of sacrilege.

Regrettably, most of society’s customs mean that our bums are usually covered, not bare.  But many within the naturist community are of kindred mind with the Platypus.  We have seen your twitter icons, your avatars, and your profiles.

We know you understand.