What can be done to attract younger people to the nudist lifestyle?
The Great Naked Debate is a new series that brings some of the top seven nudist bloggers together, offering you a different perspective in one place on a number of key naturist issues. For this third installment, 2 of our panelists are absent, probably because its now summer vacation time in the northern hemisphere. Nevertheless, the remaining five address a serious topic, one which has generated a lot of polemic recently, and one which can’t be answered in just one sentence. Tom Mulhall of the Terra Cotta Inn provided us with the question:
What can be done to attract younger people to the nudist lifestyle?
[You can click on blog names to visit participating sites.]
Nudist Day
The usual definition of “young nudist” includes anyone under 35, but I don’t think we can regard them as a whole. What’s interesting for someone who’s 20 isn’t necessarily the same as someone over 30, thus different strategies are needed. Young professionals could find the current offering of luxury clubs more than satisfactory as they’ll be seeking relaxation more than anything else, while those in their early twenties are more likely to be looking for excitement, aka wild parties, something which isn’t always compatible with naturism. However, a large percentage of youth are active in sports, and perhaps that’s one of the angles we should be concentrating on: promoting nude sports, starting with hiking.
The current efforts to support young nudist associations within universities and colleges is a step in the right direction and should be enhanced. Such organizations need places to go on outings, thus nudist clubs have an interest in encouraging them to visit, either by offering deep discounts or waving grounds fees, for example. These are their customers for the future. Reaching-out to young people is half the job, thus it’s critical that more be done to promote the lifestyle where the younger generation congregates. For instance, the internet via Youtube and Myspace, among others, and positive ads in the magazines they read. There’s an investment to make, obviously, but if you don’t make it, the lifestyle risks dying-out with its rapidly aging practitioners!
Diary of a Nudist
This topic has already been discussed in great depth among the nudist bloggers. I happen to feel that it’s not so much a matter of age vs. youth, but a matter of venue. Upscale nude resorts and cruises are more popular than ever. Haulover beach attracts over a million visitors every year. Despite these successes, landed nudist membership clubs are on the decline, It’s not unlike the decline of drive-in movies, which once thrived, but became more profitable to sell for the value of the land than to operate. Just recently there were two stories in the news, one about a Canadian resort that was for sale but nobody within the nudist community could afford to purchase, and another about an Arizona resort that was adding 114 time share units on the property. People want to be catered to.
Naturist Journal
I don’t believe there is any one thing we can do to bring young people to the nudist way of life. The same question is often asked about how to make nudism more appealing to women. I think there are a number of approaches that need to be taken. We have to look at issues of Marketing, culture, economics, and probably more. Are we advertising in the right places? Are we doing enough public services to raise general awareness (beach cleanups, charity work, “Nudists shed clothes for the homeless”)? If nudity wasn’t an issue, would young people join our clubs in the first place? Is the vibe not quite right for them? For some local clubs may not be affordable. We simply can’t be complacent, we need to be looking at all of these areas and making continual improvements.
Gymnophiliac
Not too long ago, I posted to my blog the reasons I felt Generation Y (as well as Gen X and Millennial) don’t participate in nudism. Part of it is a consequence of age, and part of it is a culture shift with the newer generation. I didn’t provide any concrete solutions there though (other than those implied by listing the issues) in large part because I’m not sure there are solutions.
A lot of it comes down to how you’re thinking of the “nudist lifestyle”. If the question is how do we get them to start going to AANR/TNS affiliated venues, the answer is probably “you can’t”. As they exist now, they just don’t offer anything to younger people. Many resorts (those I’ve visited, and many others that I’ve read reviews of) seem like throwbacks to the 1950’s, and consequently hold little appeal to someone growing up in the 21st century.
On the other hand, if the “nudist lifestyle” has less to do with “organized nudism” than it does with simply “social nudity”, then it’s a completely different story. This generation is (generally) a lot more liberally minded towards nudity than their parents - they’re not shocked to see it, and they don’t see anything innately wrong with being nude or being seen nude. Informal activities like skinny dipping are pretty common, and nudity in general isn’t exactly rare on college campuses. I suspect that the future of nudism lies more in that kind of thing than in commercial resorts. The best thing we could do to grow nudism and encourage participation of younger people is work towards creating more clothing optional public lands, that don’t require memberships to use.
That said, if I were to build a commercial venue and wanted to cater to younger people, here’s how I’d do it. I’d build it as close as I could to a population center, so as to make it as convenient to get to as possible. I’d keep the entrance costs minimal. I would look at what younger people are doing with their clothes on, and then provide opportunity to do it with their clothes off. I’d keep a fully stocked bar and try to create the typical “bar scene” on Friday and Saturday nights. I’d make sure that if someone wanted a “Skim milk double shot Latte” I could fill the order. I’d host Wii Sports tournaments and poker tournaments. I’d get live music and real DJ’s. The challenge, simply, is to create a place that the target audience would go to if it wasn’t nudist. The nudity would be a bonus, not the selling point, and certainly not the *only* selling point.
There’d be two keys to success in attracting young people to my venue. Attracting single girls and limiting it to 18ish-35ish only. The former is the most challenging, but also the most important. The lack of single, 20-something girls is the most often cited reason why my friends don’t accompany me to the nude beach - they’re rather go one where there are girls present. By a similar token, they don’t want to hang around people their parents age or young kids. The presence of such significantly changes the atmosphere and makes it less appealing.
Tom Mulhall
Nudist clubs need to change with the times. First, stop charging annual memberships. Charge per visit. Young people don’t want to join clubs. Next, stop putting out negative pr’s from clubs that are dying out. Recently, the AP wire service carried an article about a nudist club where members were over 55 and they had a picture of their membership chairman in his 70’s. That just destroyed all the hard work that resorts like us and other clubs do to get younger members.
Other things that need to be done to attract younger members. AANR just did a pr about the top 10 nude beaches that was in USA Today. That was excellent as many young people start at a beach first as they are poorer. They then go to resorts when they want more luxury. Next, AANR and TNS need to work to get more nude beaches recognized as official beaches just like Haulover in Florida. Next, use photos of young, baby boomers, and older people in pr and advertising. Not just old people and families with kids. Next, stop promoting nudism is just for families. Promote, nudism for couples. One of the biggest turn-offs for younger people is going to a nudist campground where there are lots of young kids and teenagers.
Next, nudist clubs need to allow women to go topless. Many young women are very insecure with being completely nude. Normally within 15 minutes at a nudist resort, the bottoms are off. But, if a young woman was told she had to go nude immediately, she would never have visited a nudist resort. Finally start promoting nudist parks and resorts as a fun place to go on a date. Nudism is fun, and that has to be promoted.
USAnudist
We are faced with having to deal with many varied interests. What attracts a 20 year-old college student will not be the same for a 30 year-old with a career and children. The common mode of contact would obviously be the Internet.
A recent survey of political advertising methods indicated that young people rarely read newspapers or watch the evening news on TV. To reach this group, we need to focus on places like Facebook, My Space, YouTube, and IM networking among their peers. This group would rather send text messages and IM to each other than talk. To get the message to them, we need viral videos and websites that get the attention within these networks. Once they discover it, if it piques their interest, it will spread rapidly to IMs and Cell phones.
In the case of the older “youth”, they are often faced with the pressures of meeting the daily requirements of making a living, high rent or house payments, car payments, and many other influences that take away from personal enjoyment time. For this group, we must present nude recreation as a valuable tool to cope with all these pressures, an enjoyable use of their time, and a fun place to go… without adding to the pressure with high membership and usage fees
The married members of this age group are often learning to cope with parenting, including scheduling multiple people in varied locations. They often don’t spend a lot of time together as a family because of all these activities. For this group, an important incentive would be low-priced access to a place where both the parents and children have activities planned or available to them. Clubs should provide organized activities and playgrounds for the children in an environment where the parents don’t have to be concerned about their safety.
Free day-use passes, internet coupons, and other financial incentives could be coupled with IM & texting campaigns, social networking sites, and other online methods. Another effective way is to go to where this age group hangs out and pass out flyers and free passes to some special nudist event, such as a concert or themed event on the club property. If we can get this group to visit without paying, a large percentage of them will come back, or if they don’t, will have a positive image of nude recreation to share with their friends. The more youth we get to the clubs, the more people will be sharing their experiences with their friends.
