Stephanie McManus is a 30 year old nurse from New Zealand. When I originally met Steph online, she was living in Costa Rica. She was building a business called Body Freedom International which was all about being naked and body positivity, and about using nudity as a ‘healing tool’. Steph has helped a lot of people through BFI, and whilst that business didn’t really take off in the way that she hoped, she continues to empower people through building spaces for women to be authentic with themselves.
Q: What got you into naturism/nudism?
A: Basically I had an eating disorder for a decade and it got to a point where I was just sick of hating my body. I was very aware that my upset and my hate for myself was because I had an expectation of the way I should look and it just never presented itself in the mirror. So one day I just randomly thought about having a naked photo shoot. It was the most transformationally liberating experience of my life. And so that's how I jumped into the world of being naked and exploring that element of life.
Q: Is there a difference between the two labels?
A: Good question. Naturism comes with a stigma or a definition that society wise we've already created. So in my line of work, and when I've been working with other individuals, I've kept to the language of being naked as a more neutral space. But in essence, it's not really that different. I guess naturism is more about being in nature is how I would read it, whereas I don't focus on that. For me it’s more about being physically naked, regardless of who you're with, or who you're not with or where you are. Nudism probably brings more of a community feel to it by being naked with other people. Whereas the first element to what I teach others is about witnessing yourself and being naked with yourself personally.
Q: How does it impact your life on a day-to-day basis?
A: Sleeping naked is a really important thing for me. For some people, that might seem really simple but for a lot of people, including my partner, it’s quite a big deal. He didn't even think about sleeping naked, like it wasn't even part of his space until we got together. Now even he's noticed better sleep, and more peace with himself instead and even the connection between two people, skin to skin. I believe that having that skin to skin has a lot of physical health impacts on you in terms of having your heart rate and your breathing and stress levels managed.
I’m creating spaces for women to get together internationally, naked online and we're talking about the pink elephants in our life. So it's all about unleashing pink elephants as a taboo topic that you don't allow yourself to talk about. It's like giving women the freedom to talk about, for example, an affair that they've had, not only to talk about the guilt, the shame and the impact of that affair on their relationship with their partner, but also talked about, the joy of the chase, and all their happy feelings that comes with the affair, which in society would be wrong to talk about. Also talking about just anything and everything. But that's just a really good way of encapsulating the things we talk about. We talk about self pleasure, sex, relationships, nothing is off-topic and we do it all in the space of being naked in a safe environment.
Q: What challenges do women face in naturism, or being naked generally?
A: I think there is the sexualizing and the objectifying that is sometimes present. What I've discovered working with men and women is women are more concerned about how other women think about them. We're always scrutinizing who we are so we can fit into those norms, whatever that norm is for a human body. And if we don’t fit that norm, all that doubt, insecurity and shame comes through. But when you discover how ordinary you are, that's when you become extraordinary.
Q: What could men do to encourage women to feel safe in a socially nude environment?
A: It could simply be by just having a conversation, for example “I want you to be comfortable”, or “what do you need from me”? Or the guy could suddenly be like, “I have a concern that you think that I'm being this or that. I want you to know that that's not the case.” I think we all have these concerns because we just don't talk about them. And I think if we just had conversations and asked the vulnerable questions with our peers, a lot of that would be alleviated.
Q: What advice would you offer to women curious about naturism?
A: Creating a space for other people to be able to share their feelings and be vulnerable is really important because everybody is going to have a feeling or a thought or a fear around being naked. It's not about asking or forcing them to discover it because you know the magic, it's all about hearing their fears and thoughts. They might not want to do it; it's a tool, and it doesn't fit everyone and I think sometimes campaigning for nudity can be perceived as people pushing it on other people. People's feelings matter. And it's not an everybody thing. Yes, we've seen the lights and we get to be responsible for that and we get to demonstrate that love and we get to demonstrate that joy, not only in being naked but also in the words that we use and how we create community for other people to join in and be part of it and be able to discover it for themselves as well.
Steph was featured on episode 7 of the Women in Focus podcast. You can listen to her episode here.
