The untold story of Yugoslavia’s naturist paradise
calvertjournal.com
calvertjournal.com
You couldn't criticize the party but everything else was free.
I was 13, at 11am I watched TV and saw a music clip where the content was 2 people fucking and smiling while doing so. They were having fun.
You could drive a light motorbike, no helm, no license.
The food was natural. You could sleep anywhere without anyone bothering you or having to be afraid that someone would steal from you.
I just can't explain the freedom by mere examples. Likewise if you try to tell the young Croats about the freedom, they don't believe you. They're indoctrinated in school with hate for Serbs.
How can you tell a blind man the beauty of colors? You had to experience it to understand it.
I hope we can have a civil disagreement on this, without personal resentments.
This is indeed freedom, and I don't approve of violent and repressive regimes to change people's behavior.
Yet, this is not positive from my point of view. Doing this makes me closer to animals, farther from human.
Humans have the freedom to live different from animals.
A tiger simply don't think whether the way it lives and kills prey is ethical. Humans can and do.
Animals don't have intimacy. They just do their stuff wherever they are.
Humans have the freedom to look for and build intimacy.
So, although what you described is indeed freedom, it's not the behavior I want for myself. I wouldn't promote it, because it goes against the direction I would be happy to see other humans moving. And I wouldn't like to live in places that go against it as well.
That's just my personal freedom of thinking and judging what I see, not that I'll negate it by forcing others to live my way.
First, the notion that someone somewhere in society doing porn is bad for the society itself. The desire to shave off societies' "stray hairs" is deeply immoral. It has always has been, but that does not make it right.
Second, I strongly disagree that carefree attitudes towards sex/nudity is automatically dehumanising, animalistic or objectifying. Sexuality, the human body, etc. This stuff is deeply human. See: 100 thousand years of art history.
Last... what is this animal-human dichotomy anyway. Humans are animals. Is childbirth or breastfeeding "farther from human and closer to animal?" These are as viscerally mammalian as key parties on a Wednesday.
Clarifying, I didn't mean to express animal/human as a dichotomy. I see it more as a spectrum.
We surely have a LOT in common with animals, but it's also evident that we have the freedom to face everything we do in a different way.
Some animals will stop feeding their cubs to concentrate only on the strongest one. They will also stop feeding a cub if it's anomalous (i.e. physiological malformation).
On this matter, humans used to behave exactly as animals in ancient Greece (i.e. in Sparta). But we chose to live in a better way. We chose it is superior to use our faculties and ingenuity to be able to feed typical babies without sacrificing the atypical ones.
So, yes, for sure, we feed our babies. But we don't have to do it the same way as animals. Animals evolve slowly, pushed by nature. Humans can decide to evolve by their own volition.
That's where I draw a line between humans and other animals.
Perhaps one day we will have evolved to deserve our own kingdom. As we behave right now, I agree with you that we're still much closer to the animal kingdom than anything superior...
Especially given that the problems with nudity often correlate with problems with remaining sexual health aspects, ie are being promoted by institutions that equate human sexuality with that of cattle, namely the Catholic Church.
FWIW, the majority of recent, western naturist subcultures came from rationalist origins... a sort of late enlightenment movement. They pondered why we behave as we do, and rejected rote knowledge. IE, they thought we culturally avoid nudity today just because we avoided it yesterday. It's a thoughtless, irrational habit.
Being rational, thoughtful and highly evolved beings, naturalists decided they don't have to keep up pointless habits. Humans can decide to evolve by their own volition, their own rational conclusions. This is pretty closely related to humanist thought broadly.
So, why is naturism more animal than human? More importantly (to me), how can mindless adherence to tradition, custom, religion or habit possibly represent "choosing to use our superior faculties and ingenuity" or "evolving by our own volition." it seems to me that conscious, and free choice represents those things much better.
That is actually quite a good question.
I haven't thought about it thoroughly to reduce into an objective way.
Will work on doing that in the future.
This makes me think that the differences I perceive today are more of an intuition or an unconscious mental process.
Thanks for engaging in the discussion! ;)
Humans are both 100% animal and 100% human.
There is no dichotomy.
A human acting "as an animal" is doing a maximally human thing.
A human acting as a "civilized" person is also maximally human.
Choosing not to play the game via "suicide" and choosing to stay in the game to see where it leads via "not suiciding" are both maximally human decisions.
The most fucked up but also a maximally human expression is to try to enforce your chosen / memetically inculcated views of "acting human" on other humans. Forcing others whom you have never met into your is/ought for "reasons".
It's fucked up because the coda one chooses to enforce shaves the weirdness of humanity off (being bullied for liking computers in the 80s slowed the rate of human computer adoption) in an attempt to socially decrease the range of acceptable expressions thus narrowing the global tree of human exploration and expression.
To be clear, I'm not enforcing anything. Just expressing, which is quite different.
I think both of us can agree that expressing points of view through words is a human thing. It's also a human thing to do that even with strangers.
That being said, I will certainly review my views in the future and hope to improve them. I expressed what is my current view on those topics.
You can obviously disagree, discard them, or anything else your judgement indicates.
My freedom to swing my fist ends where your nose begins, the saying goes.
I don't like to turn on the TV and get porn content, and especially I don't like my children to be exposed to that content. I'm not opposed to porn content to exist, as long as it is somehow ringfenced from the access of minors. A majority of the population in the US agrees with this stance. Putting porn out in the open is like swinging a fist in their nose. It's not freedom, it's aggression.
If this argument feels unconvincing to you, just replace "porn" with "Holocaust denying propaganda", and read it again.
Keep in mind that there is a vast zone between showing a couple holding hand and random people straight out fucking. What's missing on TV and the Internet these days are tasteful and varying depiction of people expressing their love in wholesome ways. People need references as to what is normal and not shameful. Banning _every_ depiction of physical emotional engagement is certainly not the way to go.
Also, there is difference between broadcasting something that leads to huge loss of freedom and life ... vs broadcasting something disgusting.
You need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
What's right from a human's point of view may not necessarily be right from nature's point of view.
> A tiger simply don't think whether the way it lives and kills prey is ethical.
Even thinking about whether a tigers' behavior is ethical is missing the point. Tigers do what they do. Accept it. It's not "wrong".
> Animals don't have intimacy. They just do their stuff wherever they are.
Depends on the animal. Elephants tend to live in close-knit families. You should go observe a bird (such as a crow) feeding its young one. Such a lovely sight.
> it's not the behavior I want for myself. I wouldn't promote it, because it goes against the direction I would be happy to see other humans moving
You've been conditioned to think that that's a better way to live. It may not be.
Here's what we "civilized" humans have collectively done:
1. Wrecked nature and have already caused much damage.
2. Kill animals for sport/entertainment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Tigers hunt for survival!)
3. Colonized and plundered places and were brutal to the natives of those places.
4. Wars.
5. Even if not a colonialist — some humans have killed other humans, and many others have hatched plans to make others' lives miserable. You see this across the world.
Wearing a tuxedo doesn't mean they're good for the world.
Think about it this way — the world would be a better place (combined, for the entire life on Earth) if there were no humans at all.
Naturists are the least of the world's problems.
Once upon a time there was a country"
(wish I could find the full transcript)
i will happily disagree with you. actually just right now my friends from belgrade have come to visit me. in the last period there have been growing number of interactions between serbs and croats, particularly amongst the youngest adult generation
correct me if im wrong but from personal experience i believe you no longer live here and base your perception on the diaspora. i find people in the diaspora to be way more nationalistic than people here (here = ex-yugand exceptions always exist) and perhaps thats why you are saying that. but its too simplistic and very incorrect to say that about younger generations here
also dont forget that many croats have grandparents who were in the partizans ;) we know quite a bit about yugoslavia (positives and negatives)
The life feels natural, undesigned and unengineered. You don't feel like you have a mission, you can do whatever you want to do or not do anything or do the bere minimum if that's your thing.
If you don't want to see nudity on TV, don't look. If you think that kids shouldn't see nudity on TV, don't let them. The state is not responsible for rising you or your kids.
An argument against this lifestyle is that it makes people unambitious. I don't agree, the passionate people can follow their passion. Sedentary lifestyle is not the norm at all.
For contrast, in UK it feels like you have to do something productive and reap the opportunities but be very careful(life is work). It Turkey it feels like you have very little wiggle room and have not much say in the flow of life(you are a visitor and the hosts have a plan). In Germany it feels like you need to fulfil your duties then find your place in the world(you are at school).
The switch to porn at midnight happened because state was actually restricting content. Kids entertainment was also controlled a lot.
> An argument against this lifestyle is that it makes people unambitious
But it does. Communism made people more passive in non private areas of life. Post communist setup less so, but still too due to corruption and criminality that endangered active people.
It's a subtle difference, hard to explain of you don't have the experience. It's not something in the laws, it's the attitude.
Who do you think restricted channels from showing sex/erotics/porn before midnight? It was the state. The overall attitudes are different and that reflects in the restrictions state puts on. But the idea that this is about responsibility being expected more from parents is not correct.
The state is absolutely trying to control all of this. The overall society however does not see sexuality as traumatizing or as disgusting as Americans or UK do.
> This doesn't have anything to do with communism and the not showing porn when kids are typically around is about accommodating the parents.
It is not just about that. In communism, the state or party had its own ideas about what kids should or should not seen - and restricted based on that. It is about society itself and impact on society itseft, not so much about what parents think.
Some of that attitude is residual. State controls and regulates things, but based on own ideas/perceived interests.
This is a problem for things like making roads safe or corruption, but on the other hand it also means the state does not have the power to control the daily lives of the citizens, which yields the sense of freedom that we are talking about.
The problem(or feature, if you like) in the west is that the governments do function well and some attempt to design every aspect of life. In Bulgaria the government doesn't have that power and the people actively tend to push back.
This is both nice and problematic. It's problematic, for example, when you need to vaccinate people. During the pandemic, Bulgaria had access to the same vaccines as the west but ended up to be the has some of the lowest vaccination rates and the highest death rate per capita.
Balkans have a lot of corruption. But this one seems to he followed.
Besides, I'm not sure at all of it was state regulations. Up until not too long ago there were no private TV channels or cable operators. The cable company I'm talking about was run by a few guys who got the idea of wiring cables in the city. Later they did internet services as well and included a server where you can simply connect via FTP and download DivX films for free. I don't recall even having a formal contract, you call them and they come and connect and if you don't pay the monthly fee, they come and cut the wire. I think they shut it down 2010 or something like that. Anyway that's not the point.
I don't think you understand the kind of freedom I'm talking about, it's not really about the laws but about the lack of moral panic and lack of discussions over how we should live our lives.
As a result, the sense of freedom comes from the society not caring you watch porn and the restrictions come from the parents of the kids. It's considered a trashy behaviour to let kids be exposed to that kind of stuff but no one demands the government do something about it. In the west, the discussion always revolves around government allowing or denying stuff.
I had no idea, probably no one has. As it is stated in the wikipedia article, authorities tolerate porn on TV after 23:00. On our TV cable network it was 00:00 but on others apparently it starts earlier.
As you can see, things don't work according to the laws in Bulgaria and the switch to porn at 00:00 has nothing to do with the laws.
The attitude is, this is not governments job - no matter what the laws say.
Let's call it political freedom.
Do having almost no political freedom in the society you live in prevent you from enjoying other freedom?
Well, asking myself the question makes me believe my first thought was wrong and that you are right.
Which is weird because I also still believe GP is right too about his feeling of freedom.
I'll escape with this maybe you agree: as a kid, you are not really a part of the society yet, your parents handle this for you(taxes, responsibility in case of crime, but also voting). So the lack of political freedom, as long as it didn't came with a lack of mean, didn't impact GP as much as it would an adult. The policed society can then allows you more 'freedom' (which i cannot really define).
Politics wasn't free nor was there economic freedom. There's a reason why this Island had temporary visitors :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goli_Otok
Among them, not just political dissidents, people who touched on subjects they weren't supposed to touch on be it in social sciences, economics, art.
>You could drive a light motorbike, no helm, no license.
>The food was natural. You could sleep anywhere without anyone bothering you or having to be afraid that someone would steal from you.
Seems like you're just rendering a nostalgic view of the past common just about everywhere.
It seems like you are betraying a personal bias here. Do you have anything to support this comment? Isn't it more likely that their parents, whether Serb or Croat, have shared their personal experiences/perspectives of the Bosnian War [0] in the mid-nineties.
The way the head Bosnian guy explains it to me is that it’s all about money. People want to be able to eat, buy a car, take a vacation. If they paid well, everyone gets along, there’s no politics involved.
This was really surprising for me to hear. My best friend growing up was Serbian, one of my best friends in college was Croatian. It seemed all they did was talk politics. The Serbian would claim they were being bullied by the world for pushing unity, the Croatian about atrocities.
Here, in Silicon Valley, an actual refugee from the minority group, was looking above it all. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it in the daily interactions of these different ethnic groups. It’s strange but also amazing. My colleague should figure out how to apply his work hard, get paid friendly attitude to create world peace.
We have talked about how hard it was for him as a refugee to come to the US when he was a child, and now he's explaining to his 9 year old the Ukrainian refugees remind him of his own experience growing up. It seems like he genuinely doesn't care for identity politics and is looking for good people to work with. Most likely he's in the minority and maybe left at a young enough age where he didn't see and experience some of the things that the Bosnians with PTSD did.
One thing about naturist beaches and how that resonated, there is/was a belief that especially for the kids, you should allow them to run naked and swim naked in the sea. When they get older, once they learn to be shy, they would be clothed, but when they are kids and innocent, they should be free to go how they want ie. naked.
And also I don't see what does not wearing a helmet have to do with hating Serbs, but I don't get the rest of it either.
I definitely helps that most attendees are not particularly attractive. But as soon as an actually attractive girl/woman is present - I do have to manage my attention to avoid ... ahem ... drawing unwanted attention. Happens very rarely, though. And I'm saying that as someone having gone to the sauna for many years.
--
just to be clearer - I never go to the sauna with sexual intentions and never ever made anybody feel uncomfortable for sure. I just don't find this often proclaimed "saunas are asexual" credible. they can be very sexual and many people go there with that mindest - as far as I can tell (as a man) mostly from the gay community. and for me as a man who very well can admire a firm female body I simply have to say that indeed it helps that there are very few of that kind. most people are old and wrinkled and I just keep my eyes everywhere else.
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also this "naked is cool" but "sexuality is inappropriate" attitude is not fitting the lifestyle and mindest described in the article. it's a prude and artificial take on human life and desires.
> I [. . .] never ever made anybody feel uncomfortable for sure
Really doubt both of these things are true. It's very obvious if someone has to intentionally avoid looking around a place naturally. The people around you will notice and they will know why, and that will make them uncomfortable.
I really don't understand this impulse either. As someone who has frequently hung out with friends of my age naked, and I consider many of them very attractive, I just do not get aroused in this situation. If it's clear that it's not a sexual situation what is there to get excited about? Are you so sexually repressed that any attractive person in the nude causes such an involuntary reaction?
> Are you [and certainly not me] so sexually repressed that any attractive person in the nude causes such an involuntary reaction?
both of these things can't be true either :D
A sauna is usally small with seats arranged around an oven. If an attractive woman with ample bosom is sitting at right angles to me then it can be optically impossible not to constantly notice ... and yes, there are women who are seeking attention and optimize for it actively.
In my experience, the gay male community has a pretty good culture of noticing bodies and then moving on.
First, a huge a mount of people are sexually repressed in the west. Second, is a double standard where looking around naturally is upsetting to some in a nude setting. This causes a lot of issues with people trying to behave in ways that were never natural to them.
When I meet someone at a work or a coffee shop, I will look at them and notice what shit, pants, and shoes they are wearing. What their body type is and if they work out. It isn't a sexual thing, just part of being an observant and curious person.
This level of attention is generally regarded as impolite for some nudists. They want to be naked but they also want their bodies to be invisible to others, which causes some serious conflicts with reality.
That's the opposite of sexual repression isn't it? (Taking the term literally). If you are getting more aroused in a situation than is socially acceptable, then it seems you are insufficiently repressed.
Or maybe it can look suspicious if suddenly one reaches for one's towel?
I've never been in a nude sauna though, not common around here. Seems as if could be good, anyway, with a "safety plan" to avoid getting embarrassed
all a boy needs to bring for such a situation is fond memories of your grandma :D
There are times I can watch an orgy disinterestedly. Then there are times someone wears a slightly tight shirt and I need to go hide behind a counter.
I think this reaction is entirely normal. Humans have emotions but should be judged on their actions, not thoughts.
If someone takes issue with you averting your gaze, they have an issue with reality.
It unreasonable to expect others to simultaneously pay attention to your genitals and but also not notice them.
That said, I think there is a lot less cognitive dissonance in taking a polite look and moving on than trying to pretend people are disembodied heads floating around.
Never experienced that as a tourist at nude beaches in Croatia but then again they were never as crowded as here.
I feel like there was this great period from about 1950 to the mid 70s (I wasnt born until mid 80s) where people tried new and different things. Everything from nudism to environmentalism to living in communes to drugs and sex.
And now we're all back to doing the same BS things as the next guy and trying to be 1% more efficient than the next guy. Make sure you fit in. Join an HOA because you want your property price to rise as much as possible even though you don't care about lawns and picket fences. Don't have a hole in your CV, how will you explain taking 6m off to backpack Europe in your 30s!?
And I just think fuck all this shit.
Yup. Fuck it. Totally agree.
Cannibals is legal in parts of the US, and the richest person on earth is as famous for doing interviews high as the number of companies he runs.
And Feeld makes the NewYorker as in a story about how it lets you easily organise threesomes or find a fetish partner.
Open your eyes a bit - the world has never been as encouraging of trying different things as now.
>the world has never been as encouraging of trying different things as now
In some ways yes, but in general no - at least in USA
Weed was the counterculture of 50 years ago. Teens exploring drugs in that era are literal boomers.
It's just normalized now. I don't think it has anything to do with tolerance of engaging in the abnormal.
Kink is sorta becoming normalized, but you point to an article about using a hookup app. Wake me up when they publish an article that covers cruising for an understall tugjob positively.
Maybe you just need to hang out with weirder people?
FKK still seems to be booming here, I noticed huge campings, 2000 or more spots, lots of facilities, all FKK.
Also spend many holidays as a kid on an FKK camping in Yugoslavia, wasn’t always easy, especially as a adolescent (always bring a towel), but it always felt like a normal family camping.
Also, I've yet to work out the correct edicate for the (very necessary) process of applying sunscreen to your genitals on the beach, especially in mixed company.
https://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/details-photo/crowded-be...
https://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1318/1785/1600/IMG_6196....
shows that people often do not cover or have shade, as such I don't see any difference
I'm a Slovene with fond memories going to FKK camps in Croatia. Koversada is like a small city where everyone is naked all the time except visiting the shop or restaurant. I feel that FKK culture has a lot to offer to children especially as they see all the varieties of naked bodies which probably helps with self-image in later years.
While I don't go to FKKs anymore due to my wife, we still hunt beaches where we can be naked all day.
Do you mean that you are not going to FKK beaches because your wife doesn't want to? At the same time do you mean you go to baches where you can be naked privately?
Seattle even has a clothing optional beach! It’s not officially one, but it’s fully normal take your clothes off over there. This article [0] has more about the subject.
[0] https://www.kuow.org/stories/it-s-totally-legal-to-be-naked-...
"Yugoslavia meets Silicon Valley in post-apocalyptic video game"
https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/13034/yugoslavi...
In particular these restrictions are broadly a cultural thing rather than innate and part of the taboo about being naked in some cultures is because they sexualize some body parts to the point of fetish. This isn't universally true, even historically within cultures where it is true now and is often lopsided based on power relationships. For example women often bear the brunt of more restrictive dress codes because they stem from patriarchal societies.
Or did you mean the opposite, that there are eg more nudist beaches there
(Did you reply to "more open to nudism" or to "The west is prude")
yes, no doubt: very few goes to church, but catholic background is really strong.
I think the Italian youths are most conservative then their parents
(Or both?)
The anglosphere most certainly is.
If you need convincing, just look at the pics in the article: not a single full frontal.
Prudishness gives us mental super powers so we can do things like the Industrial Revolution.
You think we could have made those steam engines if we were looking at nipples all day?!
Almost every beach has a remote FKK spot that is out of view.
btw, they have the cleanest bathrooms ever (!)
- Gunninson Beach in Sandy Hook, NJ
- Haulover Beach in Northern Miami
- Black's Beach in San Diego (anything goes there)
I'm sure there are more! America isnt totally prudish!
In France you get shampoo ads that just casually show a boob, in the day time. And topless sunbathing is common around a lot of Europe.
>In France you get shampoo ads that just casually show a boob
If you have to show a breast to sell shampoo, there's something wrong with your culture.
A quick Google query didn't find it but this comment came up that is similar
>, I remember being stuck for half an hour in a traffic jam in east Beirut with my husband and kids on the way to a mountain picnic. Right in front of us were two giant billboards (both the same) advertising jeans with a man and woman in a sexy pose, and the woman (of course) without a top. I guess by then I was not shocked but did feel it was gratuitous (to sell jeans? or to sell sex?).
NSFW WARNING FOR FOLLOWING LINK
NSFW WARNING FOR FOLLOWING LINK!
https://youlookfab.com/2010/04/09/nudity-and-sexuality-in-eu...
And the article that comment is for has comparable still image ads.
And frontal male nudity in childrens movies (Ronja Räubertochter): https://www.schnittberichte.com/www/SBs/4581/r41.jpg
Also, that advert is just "sex sells" style objectification. Not sure I'm sad too see that gone.
Was a basic enough movie that I could follow along with the French subtitles. Then it was just playing in the background and only the un-translated parts stood out. Either French doesn’t have a term for “fisting” or it gets by the censors if they don’t dub it?
Also, this article have me a flashback of when I was very young and in Dubrovnik, passing by a nudist beach and seeing naked people all around. Was a shock at that age.
I sve je dobro i lepo u ovom svetu.
Bolje da budemo goli.
Nude beaches are mostly asexual. Sure, there is some fucky-fucky going on at times but in the bushes not in the open.
> There is certainly little evidence of sex orgies or swinging at Yugoslavia’s nudist resorts.
Croatia is very socially conservative, so I don't get these contrasts with America. We can't even legalise weed - I'd say largely due to religious connotations/pushback.
Hell people even get on busses topless.
No, Croatia is not "very socially conservative". It is maybe a bit more conservative than typical EU state which is still way more progressive than American notion of "conservative" let alone "very conservative".
Then the thing is that places mentioned in the thread are not conservative at all. Coastal towns are not conservative.
I come from Split and I have never ever had any troubles or whatsoever of being shirtless. You know that we only have those fines because of uncultured tourists. Because they think they can enter museum or bank in their swimsuits.
Also there have always been undesignated nudist zones everywhere. There's one 20 minutes walk from Split downtown. On the islands, wherever urbanization stops, there could be naked people on the rocks of the shoreline. They just move a bit away, like 200-300m further from the last accessible beach in the area, and sun on the rocks. Every child that has spent more than 2-3 hours in a boat in Dalmatia was bound to see naked human genitalia up front or in the distance.
Umm they are literally putting up boards that they will fine people walking shirtless on islands. Apparently they can't actually fine them because it's not based on any laws - but it's cities putting up these signs.
> Also there have always been undesignated nudist zones everywhere.
Designated or not is a technically, how many people out of general population actually go there ? This notion that it's generally acceptable - it's not. When I've wondered into to those places on Pag as a kid it was almost exclusively tourists and the locals would talk about it very judgementally.
>It is maybe a bit more conservative than typical EU state which is still way more progressive than American notion of "conservative" let alone "very conservative".
A country where we have like 50% of people vaccinated for COVID because of conspiracy theories fuelled by religious community ? Where 86% of population declared as Chatolic ? Where no doctor would perform an abortion on fetus with brain tumor because of call to consciousness (even when it was legal) and a woman had to go to Slovenia ?
Croatia is a religious and conservative country, comparing to US pointless, but pretending we're some progressive nudist friendly country is just counterfactual. We have nudist beaches, and people get naked on boats.
lol at this. generally former yugoslavia is only superficially conservative. i mean that in a good way. particularly we care about politeness manners and about our image and how we are percieved (again exceptions always exist). but trust me we also know how to have fun and enjoy life. nije prisa ;)
someone apparently also living in Croatia (maybe another city? other social circles?)
I haven't noticed (although in Europe, northern)
(I run without a shirt :-))
A female nipple
Ljepše je biti gol