Feeling positive about your naked body The Book Forge

This week I’m thinking about women’s relationship with their own bodies, and I wanted to share with you some recordings I made last summer when I was commissioned to write an article about Nudefest. Nudefest is the UK’s largest naturist festival, and the women I spoke to on that hot day in July had so much insight into their relationship with their bodies that I’ve asked their permission to share our conversations here. In the first, I met Martha Vickery, age 25, and from Somerset, and in the second, Meleasha Carbado, 28, from Birmingham.
The insights of Martha and Meleasha didn’t make it into the final article I wrote about Nudefest, but they felt too important and insightful not to share.
“Naturism made me realise that my body is amazing just as it is, because without this body I wouldn’t get to hug people that I love, or eat wonderful food, or sing, or feel the sunshine on my skin, so instead of spending all this time and energy hating my body, shouldn’t I give it a bit of what it needs? Shouldn’t I move it a bit more and feed it a bit more of the things that it likes, doesn’t it deserve that?”
Thanks very much to Martha, Meleasha and Andrew at Nudefest for allowing me to share the interviews and images. You can find out more about Nudefest and British Naturism here:
https://shop.bn.org.uk/pages/nudefest
Top image is Meleasha, next image shows Martha and friends around the piano in the Magic Teapot.
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