The latest nude calendar story to hit the media comes from none other than Oxford University, the prestigious London academic institution. Sixty students shed their clothes to pose for a nude calendar to benefit the university’s TravelAid, a program that provides funding for students that volunteer abroad.
Nude calendars are not really news anymore. Arguably the most well-known nude calendar is the one created 10 years ago when a group of middle-aged British women were looking for a unique way to raise money in memory of a friend’s late husband who died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Their efforts resulted in the Yorkshire Dales Nude Calendar, which spawned a hit movie, Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren and sparked a global trend in nude calendars. The women recently announced they are planning to release another nude calendar in 2010 to benefit Leukemia Research.
Statistics are available to show how nude calendars financially benefit a variety of worthwhile causes from cancer to animal rescue. Yet statistics are unclear as to whether participants in the ventures actually find a new-found body acceptance and/or respect for the fundamentals of nudism.
The Oxford students apparently did. In an article posted about the making of the calendar at SmasHits.com, the students said, “We all got such a taste for stripping after we shot the calendar that we couldn’t stop taking our clothes off around campus–it might be catching. I think we were all shocked at how much we enjoyed it.”
What do you think? Might something such as posing for a nude calendar highlight what nudists already know–the stress-free liberation of going au naturel–for someone who has never experienced it before? Might it lead to new converts to nudism?
Tags: au naturel, nude, nudism, nudist
