Hiking - Part 68

The Dead Sea

Today we look at some naked activities and a naked hike in an extraordinary place: the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea, located between Israel and Jordan, is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world – almost ten times saltier than the ocean.

Above, a vintage photo of naked men extracting salt from the Dead Sea around 1920.  They strained the sea water through cloth and piled the salt into mounds for eventual sale.

Spencer Tunick conducted two of his mass nudity photoshoots on the shore of the Dead Sea.  The event in 2011, above, was to raise awareness of receding water levels in the Dead Sea.

The shore of the Dead Sea is the lowest spot on the surface of the Earth.  Currently it's about 440 meters (1443 feet) below sea level, and getting lower each year.

Ten years later, Spencer Tunick did another photoshoot.  The waters continue to recede.  Much of the water that used to flow into the Dead Sea has been diverted for agriculture and drinking water.  The water level is dropping by 110 centimeters (over 3 feet) per year.

For this photoshoot, Spencer Tunick's subjects were covered with white paint to evoke the Biblical story of Lot's wife, who turned into a pillar of salt.

The rest of this post follows a visit to the Dead Sea in 2010 by the late Kirill Tokarev, one of my favorite unashamed males.  Kirill visited the sea at a place called Metzoke Dragot, which has the only nude beach in Israel.  Here he is floating in the water.  Because the water is so salty, it is very dense, much denser than the human body.  You just naturally float, and it's impossible to dive under the surface.

Kirill wrote that the feeling of no gravity and warm water created an almost womb-like environment of comfort and peace.  He said "it actually was particularly pleasant for the genitals: my balls felt as relaxed and liberated as it gets, floating freely and kind of weightless, and this feeling spread to the rest of my body; in combination with perfectly warm water temperature, it provided a feeling of ultimate relaxation. This is something that non-nudist visitors may be missing out because of restricting clothes."

Here Kirill is covered with the mud found at the shore, which is supposed to be therapeutic.  Later, the mud washed off.

Here's a short video of Kirill in the Dead Sea.

Kirill also went on a hike in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve that borders the Dead Sea.  Here he is wading in a stream that flows from the reserve into the sea.

Unlike the sea, the stream is fresh water.

Exploring the stream.

We end with Kirill at a pool in Ein Gedi, an oasis in the desert.

Not the Same Old Song - Part 61

 Hole in the Wall

Hole in the Wall is a 1999 song by Mel Waiters.  He sings about going to a "hole in the wall", a small, shabby bar or club that he likes but he is ashamed to be seen in.  

My interpretation features a hole in the wall, too, but it may not be quite what Mel Waiters was thinking of.

Weighing In - Part 70

Luke Blackledge

English boxer Luke Blackledge was born Luke Robinson in 1990.  When he turned professional, he changed his name to Blackledge to avoid confusion with another English boxer named Luke Robinson.  We see him weighing in for a fight against Liam Cameron on April 4, 2015 for the Commonwealth super-middleweight title.  No modesty towels here.

In addition to a nice rear view in the video, we got a fleeting glimpse of a front view near the end of the video clip, captured in the gif above.

Luke won the match and held the super-middleweight title until the end of 2016.  His overall record is 27 wins and 16 losses.

Poem of the Day - Part 70

Samson Agonistes
by Ogden Nash

I test my bath before I sit,

                    And I'm always moved to wonderment

That what chills the finger not a bit

Is so frigid ...

upon the fundament.

Artists - Part 73

William Horace Littlefield

William Horace (Bill) Littlefield (1902-1969) was a gay American painter known for figure studies of male nudes, and later for abstract work.  Above, Littlefield in 1935.

A sketch called Triton & Nymph, 1928.  The male model was Nicholas Podiapolski, who was Littlefield's model in the late 1920s and also his lover.

A 1933 study of Apollo for a painting Apollo and Daphne.  In the final painting, Apollo is draped, not nude.  Paul Thorpe was the model.

Eros with a Bow, 1933.  We'll see another Eros with a Bow later.

These look like gay lovers, but it's a depiction of Odysseus & Telemachus reunited after the Trojan War.  In Homer's Odyssey, Telemachus was Odysseus' son.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa, 1941.

Acteon in Flight, Arrested by Swift Arrows, 1941-42.  All of these subjects are mythological.  Portraying a mythological naked male was socially acceptable at the time.

In the 1950s, Littlefield's style, which had been realistic, switched to abstract expressionist.  Warrior, 1950, is still recognizable as a human figure with buttocks.

Compare Eros with a Bow and Quiver, 1953 (above) to Eros with a Bow twenty years earlier.  The bow looks pretty much the same.  Eros, not so much.

Sometimes Littlefield plunged into pure abstract art.  This is called The Force of Modesty, 1956.

But his interest in nude males was still there.  We end with Dog Tags, 1959, a rare non-abstract late work.

Beach Bums - Part 67

Larsen's Beach, Kauai

We've previously seen a couple of photos of Larsen's Beach in posts on beaches in Hawaii.  Larsen's Beach is located on the northeast corner of the island of Kauai.  It's pretty remote and uncrowded.  The trees at the back of the beach provide shade, so you don't have to bring a beach umbrella.

Beyond the rocks is another section of the beach, reachable only by a long trail and even less crowded.

There is a reef just offshore.  The shallow water between the shore and the reef is good for snorkeling, but a couple of channels have rip tide currents that can be dangerous.

Because Larsen's Beach is remote and uncrowded, it has become a nude beach.  Technically, nude beaches are not legal in Hawaii, but authorities don't bother to enforce that in remote places like Larsen's Beach.

Here's a nude beach-goer ...

and another one.

I think this is the same guy as the previous photo but on a different day (with a different hat).

Larsen's Beach is also favored by monk seals.  It's an endangered species, so it you see one, leave it alone and don't approach too close.  Let everyone (and everything) enjoy the beach!

Gods, Myths, and Heroes - Part 64

Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egyptian religion, the god Atum, above, was the primordial god who created the world.  The story of how he did it is interesting.  Atum masturbated, and from his semen he created the gods Shu and Tefnut, who then became the father and mother of all the other gods, including the gods of the earth, water, and sky, i.e. the world.

Later, Atum became identified with the head god Amun-Ra.  This is an image of either Atum or Amun-Ra with an erection, dating from about 1500-1000 BC.

Above is Min, the god of fertility, masculine sexuality, and the harvest.  This statue dates from about 2000-1500 BC.

A representation of the Pharaoh interacting with the god Min, who again has an erection.  That brings us to the Pharaoh's role in Egyptian religion.

In a yearly fertility festival, the Pharaoh actually publicly masturbated into the Nile with crowds of people watching, in an act that mirrored how the god Atum created the world.  This act was seen as a blessing, bringing fertility and prosperity.

I haven't found any ancient Egyptian images of the Pharaoh doing this, so I have substituted a modern equivalent.

World Naked Bike Ride - Part 73

Chicago 2024

I have been featuring World Naked Bike Rides in Europe, such as London and Brighton and Brussels, so you might have gotten the impression that WNBR is mainly a European thing.  No!  There are many WNBR events in the United States.  Today we look at the WNBR that was held in Chicago on June 29th, 2024.

Some of the riders attracted my attention, perhaps because of their costume, like this guy with a touch of the Irish ...

and this guy in a winged helmet ...

and this guy in a blond wig ...

and this guy in a Chewbacca mask riding a special tall bike ...

and Donald Trump riding naked – you don't see that every day ...

and this guy in golden boots and gold glitter.

This guy was running along the route, not riding at all.

Others stood out to me because they looked so happy and friendly, like this guy ... 

and these guys ...

and this guy.

We end with this guy greeting us while his bike is stopped.  Welcome to Chicago!