One Friday morning, guests pulled off the dirt road that separates the Everglades from the rustic, 40-acre resort.
This year, 140 young nudists showed up for a free weekend on the grass-and-sand grounds of Sunsport Gardens, including a "midnight skinny dip and blacklight party." He founded the Florida Young Naturists, opened a Facebook account and organized the first Spring Break Bash at Sunsport Gardens for people under 30. "I wanted to bring people my own age in to see what it was about." "I thought, 'This is ridiculous,'" he said. Robbe White, 27 years old, attended a winter festival at Sunsport Gardens in 2009 and was one of a handful of people younger than 35. "It took a group of young nudists to do it on their own." "We've been looking for years to reach out to that demographic and it's been a lot of brick walls," Mr. Vita Nuda organizes most of the young people who attend Nudepalooza each fall at the Cypress Cove Nudist Resort and Spa in Kissimmee, Fla., said resort owner Ted Hadley. Florida Young Naturists, Vita Nuda and other young nudist groups have since formed. So the AANR and the Naturist Society have asked their younger members to reach out to their peers and think of ways to make them feel that undressing in front of strangers is wonderful. Mostly, though, youngsters appear not to be eager to socialize regularly with folks the age of their grandparents. Some older nudists complain that younger ones keep them up with late-night cavorting. One reason: Private nudist clubs tend to be geared toward retirees. Young people have largely turned their backs on nudist camps, favoring instead public nudist spots like Hippie Hollow in Austin, Texas, Baker Beach in San Francisco or Haulover Beach in Miami, a "clothing optional" stretch of sand at the city's northern edge.
There are more than 250 today, plus cruises and other events making up a $440 million business, says the American Association for Nude Recreation.īut AANR and Naturist Society membership stopped growing years ago, mainly because many people now in their twenties and thirties don't appear interested in joining. Nudist resorts sprang up across the country. Sexy Las Vegas Field Trip for Senior Citizens.Traveling Back in Time While Touring Bhutan.They were Anna Jenkins (Student), Laura Milne (Solicitor and Employment Law specialist), Amy Dunn (Teacher), Denise Horsely (Dancer), Gemma Vittie (Car Saleswoman), Qlaudia Kelk (Mum), Dawn Hunter (Student), Natasha Crook (Model), Lucinda Richardson (Dental Student), Jo (Singer and Beautician) and Dalia Tweedy (Care Worker). The competition was won on 25 November 2008 by Shona Collins of London.Īside from Shona, the final 12 contestants came from diverse backgrounds.
The lady crowned Miss Naked Beauty 2008 won the chance to write a magazine column about beauty, become the face of a new modelling agency and be a part of the 2009 series of Gok Wan's other show, How to Look Good Naked. The show sought a "natural-beauty campaigner" in the winner of the show. Despite its name, the show only features brief nudity (mostly bare breasts), and should not be confused with nude pageants, such as Miss Exotic World.
Meanwhile, the programme also progressed as a pageant, eliminating contestants in typical reality TV style, down to five finalists. In subsequent episodes, various issues were explored such as body image, plastic surgery, self-esteem, modern versus Renaissance and earlier notions of beauty, eating disorders, over-reliance on makeup, the fashion industry. In the first episode, hundreds of remaining applicants were whittled down to just twelve finalists, by a panel of judges composed of fashion stylist Gok Wan, musician Myleene Klass, magazine editor James Brown, journalist Kathryn Flett and musician, actress and TV presenter Mica Paris. The focus of the program is on natural and diverse beauty, as opposed to surgically "enhanced" and conformist concepts of beauty.
Some 7000 women applied to become the "ultimate 21st century beauty queen". The show, presented by Gok Wan and Myleene Klass, was conceived as a radical "reality" take on beauty pageants. Miss Naked Beauty is a short-lived, six-episode reality television show produced by Maverick Television, aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.