I originally stayed out of this topic for awhile to see what others would have to offer... I was thinking about the issue again this week, as the national AANR convention approaches this coming week in Oregon. It surely will be a discussed topic at the round tables.
So... I was surfing the vast information highway and found this interesting blog ...
I have to say this is one of the best written articles I've ever come across when trying to answer the original topic question....
Ryan
http://www.gymnophiliac.com/2007/05/generation-y.html#8670680919610116325Generation Y Originally I'd planned this as part of a marketing nudism series; but discussions elsewhere (and time constraints of late) made me decide to spin this off into its own topic. There's been quite a bit of hubbub around the nudist blogosphere recently which was spawned by an article about Solair's recent attempt to attract a more youthful demographic. This isn't a new concern for nudists - this is something that's long been absurd and gets discussed ad nauseum on fora and elsewhere. And as a representative of Generation Y*, I figure it's finally time to address this.
Anyway, the question at hand is this: why are nudist resorts dominated by baby boomers, and members of Generation Y and even Generation X are rarely seen?There's a human tendency to try to look for single factor explanations, and I've noticed a lot of the commentary so far tends to focus on one factor or another. I believe the reality of the matter though is that there are many factors at work here, and what follows is my best attempt to list them all.
*Since the definition is a tad fuzzy, here's mine: Generation Y was born between approximately 1977-1990ish, currently aged 18-30. Generation X is older, "Millennials" are in Junior High and High School. Baby Boomers should need no introduction. Also, As coincidence would have it, the current issue of Fortune magazine has a spot on
profile of Generation Y. Though it has nothing to do with nudism, it does do a good job of describing the generation and laying out some of the key differences between us and everyone who came before. It provides some insight into the way this generation thinks.
1. It's dominated by baby boomers.People hang out in their peer groups. Married couples tend to hang out with married couples. Single people hang out with single people. Senior citizens join senior citizen groups. Teenagers hang out with other teenagers, and college students hang out with other college students. And for the most part, these groups don't intermingle with one another. Think about it - in how many activities do you really see different generations hanging out with each other? I'm sure there must be some, but offhand I can't think of any.
From my own experience: I'm 24. I see my parents often, but I don't hang out with them. I certainly don't hang out with my grandparents. I don't have kids, I don't have a house. I don't care about the stock market. At this stage of my life, my social activities revolve around going to bars and meeting girls. When I go to swim nights or mingle with other nudists on the beach, everyone is quite friendly - but I simply don't have that much in common with them.
This is thoroughly a chicken and egg problem, but it is the biggest barrier to getting young people to participate - they don't already have anything to offer younger people, socially speaking. The problem is compounded when you realize that nudist resorts tailor their offerings to their primary audience, and essentially create retirement homes without clothes. Ask yourself "Why don't teenagers hang out at retirement homes?" and you'll have an answer as to why nudist resorts hold such little appeal. To appeal to young people you need to have young people around, and preferably have no old people around.
2. It's the economy, stupidThis is something I've pointed out many times and many ways on this blog, but it bears repeating. The barriers of entry to nudism are
huge. It requires a substantial commitment of both time and money
just to try it. It's very difficult for people who are simply curious and offers no way for people to just try it out on a whim. Baby boomers have the cash and time to fly to Florida and stay at a resort, or drive for a few hours to spend a weekend at the nearest club. Generation Y by and large doesn't - we're entering a weak economy in a globalized job market saddled with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt out of the gate. And when we do have the money, it's not appealing enough to justify the investment over everything else competing for our time and money.
3. IndividualismTom Mulhall, owner of Terra Cotta Inn in Palm Springs made a great point about this the other day. Teenagers love to go bowling; it's one of the few things they can do legally. But they don't join bowling leagues.
Nudists tend to be fixated on the "nude" aspect, but ignore the larger social context. If bowling leagues can't gain traction despite the popularity of the sport, what chance to formal nudist clubs have? The Nudist Travel blog expanded on this and described exactly what Solair is doing wrong - it's formal, it's regimented, and acts like a hierarchical organization.
What we have now is the largest generation gap since the dawn of Rock and Roll. There's just something about people under 30 that people over 30 can't seem to get. A lot of this new gap is driven by technology. People under 30 are digital natives - we don't know a world without cell phones, instant messaging and the web. We don't know what it's like to not be connected to our friends 24/7. We grew up with it, it's in our blood. People over 30... they might use these tools, but they're not really part of their culture.
It's more than just the technology though, because the technology has a ripple effect throughout everything else. We're more tolerant, more accepting, and almost totally free of many of the "isms" of the past. Race and ethnicity are non-issues. No one cares if you're gay. While there are still subcultures and groups we belong to, they're not really part of our self identity. Why? Because Generation Y is more self centered than any generation that came before. We're individualistic, and celebrate individualism. It's cool to be different. The idea of an in-group and out-group is fairly antiquated because we all live at the center of our own unique social network. They're flat, highly informal, constantly in flux, and vehicles for self expression.
The nudist world, by contrast, is built on clubs, memberships, and hierarchical regimented organizations. We're offering bowling leagues when all Generation Y really wants is bowling alleys.
4. It's not sexy.There's one thing that the hasn't changed in the last half century - kids want to be cool above all else. And there's just nothing cool about being a nudist.
But what's cool in the 21st century? Well, as a rule of thumb, being cool is synonymous with being sexy. Every marketer on the face of the Earth that wants to reach the youth demographic tries to make their products sexy. BMW? Sexy. The iPod? Sexy. Coke and Pepsi? Sexy. Concerts? Dripping with sexuality. MTV? 24/7 sex appeal. You get the idea.But nudists - they're so hung up on being nonsexual thing that they deliberately try to make their "product" look as un-sexy as possible. Given that, is it really surprising it only attracts people who've lost interest in sex?
I don't think I've ever read an article about nudism where a defender didn't call it "Family Friendly".
I challenge you to find a nudist magazine, brochure, or web site that doesn't have the phrase "Family Friendly" plastered all over nearly every page. As I've noted before, this is a quasi-orwellian phrase invented by the religious right to be synonymous with their anti-sexual notion of morality. But family friendly also means something else, at least in the minds of Generation Y and Millennials.
Family Friendly = Lame. Think about it - when was the last time you knew teenagers or 20 somethings to be interested in doing something described as "family friendly"?
These are new adults for whom the freedom to do previously forbidden or taboo "adult" things is still novel and exciting. They don't have kids, and an atmosphere designed to be "safe" for young kids simply doesn't appeal to young adults. They like sexy, they like edgy, they like all sorts of things that you wouldn't want to expose a nine year old to. And when those things aren't present, they're less than enthused.If we want to attract young people, nudism has to be sexy. It needs to have energy, atmosphere, and most importantly girls. The first question I get when I've invited friends to try out the nude beach with me is "Will there be girls?" - and any interest wanes pretty quickly when I reveal that any there are will be likely be twice our age.
When I've spoken to girls my age about this, the object is different but has the same root. They're not worried that nudism is sexualized. Think about it - girls today wear thong bikinis, flash their boobs at parties, and think nothing of bare midriffs. Does it seem like they're body shy? Of course not - but the reason they do these things is because girls like to feel sexy and that stuff makes them feel sexy.
Nudists send out the message "Try nudism! It's not sexy! And it's okay if you're ugly!"
Nude recreation can be sexy without being sexual. The problem I've found is that a lot of older people see sex in a black and white way: it's either completely asexual, or people are having an orgy on the beach. Generation Y has a much more fine grained (and frankly, more mature) view of sexuality. The problem isn't that they can't separate nudity from sex; quite the contrary, they grasp it far more intuitively than many of their baby boomer parents.
The problem that older generation nudists try to scrub sex from everything, and that's a turn off.
5. It's boring.Kind of reiterating my first point, but 20-somethings have energy. College students more so. And teenagers never sit still.
Sunbathing isn't fun. Neither is sitting in a hot tub. Or any "sport" that mostly involves standing around (I'm looking at you, shuffleboard). Swimming can be, but pools at resorts are rarely well suited for rambunctious games.
"Come to our resort, where you'll have the chance to sit around all day and do nothing!" just doesn't work.
6. If it's not on Google, it doesn't exist.Another biggy; our internet presence sucks (something which I've commented on time and again). A lot of the reason it sucks is because of "nudist porn" and the co-opting of our terms. But we have to realize that we're not going to reach them anywhere else. Seriously. I have no clue how anyone would ever find out anything about nudism if not for the web - I don't know how people did it 20 years ago. The web is our point of contact with Generation Y and Millennials; you're not going to reach them on any other medium.
The thing about this point is that it's the easiest to change, it just takes some initiative, know how, and fifteen minutes on the part of nudists across the web. If you run a resort, look into an Adwords campaign. If you're hosting an event, advertise it on craigslist. Create a Myspace page for your group or organization. Create a web page or blog where you talk about being a nudist, and give link love to nudist sites you like. It'll help exponentially.
7. It's NOT the religious right.Not culturally anyway. Basically, I just write off 25% of the country as f'in insane and not worth the effort. Most people who aren't the religious right also think they're insane. They do have influence as a voting block; but not socially. The religious right, for all their bitching, have lost every fight they've fought. Homosexuality is more accepted now than ever, with full marriage rights just around the corner. Porn has gone mainstream. People use naughty words on TV. Etc.
Pay close attention to these uproars the religious right causes. For every person who goes "OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" at the site of Janet Jackson's nipple, there's another one who doesn't care. For every person who freaks out at nudity, there's people who see it as free speech. We're easily talking about 30-40% of the population here, maybe more. Yeah, the "religious right" is a problem if we're trying to attract young people that are only willing to get naked for the rapture... but that doesn't stop us from attracting the other 75% who think that idea is as stupid as I do.
Now, the negative effect that they do have is over the legal environment. Television and movie censorship has yet to be eliminated entirely, and they're the main reason why. They're the ones who fight to close nude beaches, raise uproars about new venues, and keep skinny dipping and public nudity illegal in most of the country. In short, they create an environment in this country that makes experimenting with social nudity all but impossible; and it's hard to make take the "next step" of going to a resort without taking that "first step" of trying it on your own.
In conclusionI think the bottom line is that the kind of organized nudism represented by AANR and similar organizations just doesn't have much to offer Generation Y, for the reasons outlines above, and whether or not they'll get into it in greater numbers as they grow up remains to be seen. I actually agree with what
Nudiarist said at the end of his post; the future of nudism lies more in beaches and clothing optional public lands than in resorts and clubs. The best way to get more young people into it is by making sure they have the chance to try it on their own terms.
