This post has to do with the movie "Now and Then" (1995), which is one of the movies recommended by the "Naturist Guide to the Movies" website (but I thought it would be best to start a new thread). The description on that website says "Girls discover a group of boys skinnydipping and take their clothes. The boys are seen running naked after the girls to get their clothes back." That is all accurate, but when I watched the movie, I didn't at all find it to be a case of innocent, wholesome nudity in film.
Or, to be more precise, I did find that the first part of the scene to be quite innocent, when the girls are hiding and watching the boys skinny-dipping. But the second part of the scene, when the girls are riding away with the boys' clothes and the boys are running after them, seemed to me to be, well, I guess "prurient" is the best word.
Have any of you seen that movie, or some similar? And if so (or even if not), do you think that "Naturist Guide to the Movies" is wrong to recommend that movie, or do you think I'm just overreacting?
Note: I saw that movies several months ago, but it was brought to mind tonight by something vaguely similar ... This evening I was reading a message forum about sleeping naked. Generally very clean and non-sexual, but one story I read did give me pause:
- This guy told how on his 17th birthday, his friends came into his room early, woke him up and "kidnapped" him. The thing is, they were planning to take him out to breakfast in just his underwear, but when they discovered that he was already completely naked (because that's how he sleeps), they made a little change of plan and took him (forcefully) to the restaurant without even letting him put his underwear on.
I said before that the story gave me pause. Actually, I should say I felt aroused, as though I had been reading something pornographic.
This also brings me to a little side-question I'd like your opinion on. Is it, well, "normal" for me to be so aroused by a story like that (given the fact that the person being kidnapped naked is a guy)?
I haven't seen that movie, so I can't comment, but from your description, it does sound wholly innocent.
As for your getting aroused at the story about the boy being kidnapped for a nude breakfast, are you just beginning to explore naturism? If so, your arousal is probably an understandable reaction. A little self-reconditioning may be in order, as I did when I was exploring naturism 6-7 years ago. After I studied the scriptures, I began to go nude in my own apartment, then deliberately sought out nudist photography and other non-erotic nude pictures. If erections happened, and they sometimes did, I just let them be. It didn't take long for my body to learn the difference between erotic nudity and other nudity.
Initially when I read the response by "Anudymous", I wasn't going to bother responding to it, because it found it to be presumptuous and condescending.
But after thinking about it a little more, it occurred to me that it would be worthwhile to at least comment on the first part of it, because it helps to illustrates the problem I see with the movie-recommendation (i.e. the one on "Naturist Guide to the Movies"), namely legalism:
>> I haven't seen that movie, so I can't comment, but from your description, it does sound wholly innocent.
Anudymous refers to my "description" of the movie, but is clearly disregarding the part of my description where I said the scene is "prurient". It seems to me that Anudymous is basically ignoring anything to do with the tone of the scene -- and I suspect that the "Naturist Guide to the Movies" people may have done that as well.
(Although, to be fair, an alternative explanation is that Anudymous was inadvertently setting up a straw-man argument. What I mean is, perhaps Anudymous thought that I was using the same kind of legalism but in reverse, i.e. that I was claiming that any scene showing naked boys running to get there clothes back would automatically be prurient. If so, then it's just an honest mistake.)
"Anudymous" was me; I apologize for forgetting to "sign my name," and I sincerely regret coming across as condescending. In no way was I implying that you were being legalistic, nor was I trying to be legalistic in reverse.
As for my remark that "from your description, it sounds wholly innocent", I meant just that: your description did not include anything that I thought would appear prurient on a movie screen. Nor did I see any comment from you about the tone of that scene. I do know that sometimes moviemakers, by acting direction, lighting and other means, will bring erotic interest to scenes that might not otherwise have any; was that the case here?
However, your description of getting aroused at a story that involved a form of involuntary nudity suggests one of two things to me: Either you are new to the concept of naturism and still have difficulty disassociating nudity with sex, or this particular kind of involuntary nudity is an "arousing" concept for you. If neither of these is true, please forgive any "presumption;" I'm merely stating things as they appear to me. If the first is true, it's very common and completely understandable. But if the second is, it's neither quite normal nor particularly common. I'm sorry if that offends you, but it's how I see things based on what you said in your first post, and I think a lot of folks here would see them similarly.
Again, I apologize for coming across as condescending or presumptuous. That was not my intention at all.
It occurred to me tonight that I should check this thread to see if anyone had posted here in that last couple months, either to agree or to disagree with what jochanaan said to me. (Mostly I was interested in whether anyone had disagreed.)
As nobody has, I guess I should "leave it at that".
