Nudist camps are a little behind on their memberships.
So they’re offering discounts and other programs to attract young people.
The AP has this revealing story:
Here’s the naked truth about nude recreation: The people who practice it aren’t getting any younger.
To draw 20- and 30-somethings, nudist groups and camps are trying everything from deep discounts on membership fees to a young ambassador program that encourages college and graduate students to talk to their peers about having fun in the buff.
“We don’t want the place to turn into a gated assisted living facility,” said Gordon Adams, membership director at Solair Recreation League, a nudist camp in northeastern Connecticut that recently invited students from dozens of New England schools to a college day in hopes of piquing their interest.
The median age is 55 at Solair, where a yearly membership is $500 for people older than 40, $300 for people younger than 40 and $150 for college students.
The Kissimee, Fla.-based American Association for Nude Recreation, which represents about 270 clubs and resorts in North America, estimates that more than 90 percent of its 50,000 members are older than 35.
“If a young person is enlightened enough to go to a beach or resort, they’ll find that they’re outnumbered by people who are not like them,” said Sam Miller, 32, a medical student in Riverside, Calif., who is helping to plan a youth ambassadors workshop being held next month in Orlando, Fla.”Oftentimes they won’t go back for that reason. They may go once or twice, but going back becomes a lonesome kind of endeavor.”
The story notes that there are other reasons, too, such as the rising costs of nudist resorts.
PERSONAL NOTE: I agree with that assessment. About 12 years ago I did a show in my other incarnation at a very pretty nudist resort in California (and, NO, yours truly and the dummies in my ventriloquism show were not in the nude: we will only do so much for our art). The people there were a mix of ages, virtually none with clothes, but the majority of people seemed on the older side.
Fast forward to several years ago. I was invited by the same resort to do a show. There was a marked generational shift. The mix seemed older. And any kids or youths there wore wearing bathing suits.
Perhaps the entire idea of nudism doesn’t have the same appeal that it once did in more socially constrained times.
OTHER RESOURCES:
The American Association for Nude Recreation
Naturalist Sites
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.