The Naked Lunch

The news that rocked the naturist world - and much of the media beyond that - this month, was that London would get its own nude restaurant.
A restaurant where not the waiters or only the female waiters would go topless or naked, but where the guests would actually be allowed to disrobe and dine or lunch completely nude.
The idea was so popular that the number of people who registered to reserve a place shot up to 11,000 just within a few days, and has now surpassed 28,000 as I am writing this.
Most of those people will never make it, for the simple reason that The Bunyadi is a limited space operating for a limited time as a "pop-up" restaurant. Gawkers will be thrown out as they should be, and according to the website http://thebunyadi.com, visitors will even hardly see their fellow diners naked because of the interior outlay of the place.
So imagine my surprise to find the first criticism of the place not coming from puritanical or religious sources, but from nobody else than the head of the Dutch naturist federation NFN speaking to a women's magazine.
In the interview with vrouw.nl, Christine Kouman says the location might be wrong for naturism, and no real naturist would feel comfortable eating "in the middle of a busy city." Really, Miss Kouman?
You won't be sitting naked in front of a window for all passersby to see. It won't be a naked Starbucks, where anyone outside will be allowed to peek in and watch everything. As the organizers have said, there will be absolute privacy, and diners at different tables might not even see each other.
As a naturist myself, I was absolutely stunned during my first visit to a naturist resort, in Croatia more than a decade ago, when I was not allowed naked inside its restaurant.
As a result, after I woke up from my naked sleep, I had to put on clothes to go and have breakfast, then return to my room to take my clothes off before heading for the beach. By noon, I would go to my room to wear some clothes to go to lunch, then back to take them off, and the same annoying routine again for dinner. Is that how real naturists want to live? No, when they are at a naturist resort, they want to be naked all the time and wherever they can, weather permitting.
So I think NFN chairwoman Christine Kouman is totally wrong to condemn The Bunyadi initiative. She does have a point when she says that naturists on a nude beach should not be required to put on clothing when they go and order something at the beach bar, but her rejection of the London restaurant is something I cannot agree with.
Just like Spencer Tunick's mass naked photo shoots and the topless equality movement, The Bunyadi might not be true naturism, but as a form of promotion of non-sexual social nudity, it deserves the full support of all true naturists.
The Bunyadi website is http://thebunyadi.com/home.php
The article about Miss Kouman's views - in Dutch - is http://www.telegraaf.nl/vrouw/actueel/25648342/__Naturist_Christine__45____Naakt_dineren_is_geen_naaktrecreatie___.html
A general media article, one of dozens, about The Bunyadi project is http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/restaurants/would-you-dine-at-londons-first-naked-restaurant/
The picture above comes from the Croatia camping website camping.hr and shows guests at the Koversada naturist resort.