Yours is a US perspective where mine is UK, but I think there a few similarities that make for relevance.
When I (a fellow “boomer” was young we played outside till we were called home, and parents hardly knew where we were. By the ‘90s parents were worrying where their children were, keeping them
In, and fretting that every passing stranger was a paedophile.
Children growing up able to explore the world have worried less about trying things - like nudity - than those who’ve been taught a base level of fear.
My experience in Ontario, Canada is that Naturism is booming here specifically. Things like The Naturist Living Show, Stephane and The Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park are the main driving factors.
Those of us that participate here eagerly listen to The Naturist Living Show as it is a positive expression of the way we think and of the lifestyle in general. The show breaks down topics into personal experience and there is an emotional connection to his audience and his guests.
Yes, we certainly need more like that - especially in the U.S. In Canada's southern neighbor there's a strong and growing trend against any kind of body freedom, including naturism. For instance, Twitter just kicked out Stephane's place without any justification or even explanation.
One thing that has changed since the boomers were growing up is the prevalence and acceptance of nudity associated with physical education. When I was at school in the 60s and 70s showers after sports were compulsory, and hence we got to commune naked with our peers at least 3 times a week during school terms (and almost daily for those of us who were involved in sports teams). Also common during those times (especially I believe in the US, and for males) was nude swimming - either in school pools or YMCAs.
Growing up in this sort of environment means that most kids grew up with a reasonably nonchalant attitude towards nudity (at least once the initial 'bare bum' experience had been passed at the start of secondary school), which then made skinny dipping with mates far less of an issue. Three or four mates from school out for a hike would've found it far less intimidating in the 1980s to peel off and go for a dip in a lake/river than their counterparts today.
And the reason for the change in schools - the paranoia over child abuse coupled with the arrival of phones with cameras on them.
That's absolutely correct, and another good point. Regarding pools and the YMCA, when there were swims that included fathers, both boys and fathers showered nude together. When I was in college, gym/swimming classes also used communal showers. I don't really know what the situation was with showers in private gyms, although I understand that nudity in men's facilities is not popular in recent years - even in locker rooms. And (of course) I don't know what the situation was for girls and women, either in school or gyms. I don't know what tie situation is in other countries either, but the U.S. situation speaks to how backward the U.S. in general is regarding nudity.
Very interesting, thought provoking article. I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but I find that a segment of the “younger generation” of today is interested in finding and being a part of a philosophy. Many doubt this — labeling them as self centered in contrast. But I see a desire to connect with something bigger — health, social issues, communities. Religion used to provide that for some. Less so today.
Presenting naturism as nothing more than a lazy, poolside, activity doesn’t connect with this whatsoever. Sure, it’s nice now and again. But I see a generation looking for something that makes them whole, engages them, makes them better, connects them. That’s great news because naturism does just that! We, and the organic that supposedly champion naturism, need to get that message out there, be visible, be active, explain a culture, a philosophy. Recreation is fine. But it’s more than that.
Naturism is many things, and different things to different people. I suspect that what people of all generations want is a circle of people who share certain values. It's not just sitting naked beside a pool. For some people it's outdoor activities like hiking or camping. For others it's travel. For still others it's socializing with a stable group of friends. And what all naturists can do is simply enjoy nudity at home. The enjoyment of nudity is what all have in common. The problem is that fear of social disapproval makes it difficult to find other naturists (except those who visit naturist parks and resorts). Strong naturist organizations could deal with that. But we don't have such organizations in the U.S. (or most other countries).
The "fear of social disapproval [that] makes it difficult to find other naturists" is definitely a factor for me. I live in one of the most sex-positive congressional districts in the nation, but my fear is that my desire to be nude would be perceived as flickering between predatory exhibitionism and triviality. I'm looking for that social moment when some event or piece of entertainment seizes the group imagination.
I'm a Boomer (1949). My girlfriend was the one who suggested exploring my family's woods nude, although I had already been doing that for a long time. I learned about nudism while watching an episode of the game show "What's My Line?" that featured nudist club owner Alois Knapp. I also watched TV Personality Art Linkletter interview at least two nudists. I thought that nudism was about the best idea I'd ever heard. That must have been about the time that nudist magazines were allowed to go through the mail, but it seems like nudism was just on the public mind. I definitely buy into the idea that home economics, especially two-income households, have dampened participation in nudism. Trying to keep a house presentable while both parents are working full-time has kept my clothes on more than I wish. My son is an older millennial who told me at twelve or so that he didn't think he was a nudist. Recently I said something to him about his generation's being more comfortable with sexual nonconformity and the range of body types. He said that while that is true, they are getting a lot less sex. I'm not sure exactly how that fits, except to suggest that the zeitgeist is finely grained and chaotic.
Rober Sapolsky has pointed out—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIOQgY1tqrU&t=2106s—that it's kids who make new slang and language. Maybe it's the same for all social innovations. I wrote the following fragment to suggest the kind of moment that might spark a nudist society.
"Your granddaughter is a nudist?"
"Adamantly. It's too much. She's majoring in German because that's where it started, and she writes letters to anybody she can think of saying that she wants to be able to walk around in the nude. She's minoring in film studies. Says that digital technology is going to make a it possible for average people to express themselves cinematically. Says she wants to make intelligent, watchable explorations of nudity."
"I seem to remember you frisking around naked and tripping your ass off at the Kickapoo rock festival."
"Shit, that's a blast from the past! It ain't the same, though. Look, I don't want her getting hurt."
"You mean by a rapist or something?"
"That. But mostly I don't want her wasting her life, or making a goddam fool of herself."
While her grandfather was having this conversation, Clare Ardmore, twenty, was at the FedEx store, sending a short she'd made about five of her skinny-dipping friends to the right person.
I'm wondering what factors during the 1960s-70s contributed to the new tolerance for nudity among young people back then. There was so much idealism then, what with the two Kennedy brothers - who were nevertheless both assassinated. There were Moon landings. There was the civil rights movement and freedom riders and Vietnam war resisters. Yet mainsteam society still elected several reactionary presidents. Society doesn't like dissenters - but that just strengthens the resolve of the dissenters.
Unpredictability is the distinctive characteristic of chaotic systems. What if it takes a sufficiently chaotic society to engender a cohort of people who reject wearing clothes? What with radical climate change and pandemics and increasingly many authoritarian governments around the world, plenty of chaos certainly lies ahead.
Yeah, you can't predict chaotic systems, but after the shit hits the fan, it can make sense. I also agree that society probably needs chaos. My wife once told me that the brainwaves of people on drugs are less chaotic than those of the non-doped. That's the best footnote I can come up with, but she's usually a reliable source. Covid seems to have, at least, permanently changed my son's work venue. He spends some of his workdays at home and some in the office. As to authoritarians, they are more like drugs, very even and regular until the crash.
About the sixties, the idea of nudism was at large: nudist magazines, mainstream recognition of sensational human interest, New Yorker cartoons. Nudism had been around since the beginning of the 20th century, and the Merrills and Jan Gay had some success with their books about nudism. Pre-war American nudists who were busted, whether convicted or freed, must have made a splash. If you're looking for the proverbial initial conditions to which chaos is sensitive, I could neither miss nor believe the skinny-dipper swinging on a rope as Haley Mills arrives on the train in Pollyanna. It probably is true that kids like to be naked. Nudism among the flower children was waiting to happen ( Lapel button slogan: "I'm naked under my clothes."). I can remember an arch remark out of left field about "the body beautiful" at bath time. I think Mom was pro-body. (Her mother was one of those young ladies who danced outdoors in chitons, and her grandparents took her to see Sally Rand at the World's Fair.) Dad was very uptight vis a vis bodies. He once said that two piece swimsuits only covered up what they had to—no better than they should be, I guess. In spite of my father's prudishness, I think WWII broadened that generation's horizons, and the wealth we enjoyed as children probably liberalized our generation. There was sex, too. Growing Up Absurd came out about the same time as Sunshine Book Co. v. Summerfield was decided. Margaret Sanger had been around since before WWI. Mae West. Marilyn Monroe. Playboy magazine. Oral contraception. The final state to drop regulation of contraception (New Hampshire or Connecticut, I think). My woods-exploring girlfriend liked to say "Sex is good, clean fun." There's also the Flynn Effect; since we started testing intelligence, the intelligence of each tested generation is higher than the one before. Deviance, even if it's correct, takes more than a little gray matter.
This raises a very interesting number of things to think about.
Paul Goodman (author of Growing Up Absurd) was a complex character. During the 1960s he was already in his 50s and two generations older than Boomers - but clearly had a strong influence on the 60s counterculture. He was bisexual, anarchist, pacifist, and a WW II draft resister. Yet he distanced himself from the black power and (surprisingly) the gay rights movement. I guess he thought people should be individualistic and not stake their identity on specific groupings or categories.
Many people who enjoy nudity now don't care to be typed as "nudists" or "naturists". Probably many more would be more open about enjoying nudity if they could avoid specific labels. They could simply say "I'm not a nudist, I just prefer not wearing clothes."
I think most young people today have no idea how important the influence of people like Goodman was on some Boomers when they were young. Although many then were normally conventional, some were quite rebellious and dissatisfied with bourgeois U.S. society. Enthusiasm for nudity was one way they expressed this rebelliousness. Probably almost nobody remembers Louis Abolafia, who was a very public nudist and ran for president in 1968 on the ticket of the (ersatz) Nudist Party. His slogan was "What have I got to hide?".
I suspect that Lee Baxandall was strongly influenced by Paul Goodman and others like him. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the earliest nudists in Germany around 1900 weren't also expressing their disdain for middle class society, using nudity as symbol for stripping off pretense. Wearing specific styles of clothes is too facilely used as a way to signify.
Back to the present day, going naked could simply be understood as nothing more than a personal inclination. Curently it doesn't, but it might in the future. However, it must be understood as simply an individual choice, rather than having any further meaning. In particular, going naked should not be misinterpreted as sexual. Both men and women would be much more at ease naked without the misinterpretation. "I'm naked just to be myself, not to send any other message."
The one time I've encountered sexual behavior at a nudist venue, it was predatory, but my wife told me that a friend at a club we attended in the 90s told her who to watch out for. Yikes! I've crossed paths with swingers, but they were entirely civilized. I think that social nudity can't help but be to some extent about sex, at least as a corrective for body phobia. Society tells you your private parts are naughty, that you've gotta keep them private, then—bang!—everybody's running around starkers. We're trying to liberalize attitudes toward nudity, so I don't want to scare anybody off. Something else that might scare them, though, is our being disingenuous about sex. People don't do things for moral or rational reasons. We do them because they move us somehow, and then what's good about them occurs to us. If we come on all high-minded and holy, somebody's going to think we're full of baloney.
That's tough. If you see a nude person, sexuality can usually be proven but non-sexuality cannot. It would take experience with nonsexual nudity which most textiles do not have and investigation is far more effort than most people are willing to take.
If a textile is nude socially it is sexual or it is shameful or sometimes both. The assumption is that if you are doing something, you're doing it for the same motivations they are familiar with. And lord knows there are plenty of people out there who are naked for sexual reasons. It is almost all media representation of nudity.
I think we just have to wait for the culture to evolve to a nude friendly state. Maybe we can be like Britain in a couple of decades. I don't think organized nudism will be much help in the US. Just aren't enough of us. And we are too busy dividing ourselves over minutia to ever form a unified front if there were.
1. Since most naturists are now on the old side, we can't really wait for the culture to evolve on its own. We'll be dead if/when that happens. We need naturism to be better accepted now so we can enjoy it more.
2. Organized nudism in the U.S. now isn't much help, because it's not really trying. The interest in social nudity is our there, but nothing is done to help those interested get involved. Being divided over minutia could be a factor, but wider participation could make a difference.
3. Are there enough of us? My impression is that there are a large number of people who enjoy nudity at home, but are afraid to let others know. So of course the numbers who are "out" seems small. What will persuade more to come "out" is the personal influence of acquaintances who already are. People will pay much more attention to their friends than strangers living in Kissimmee or Oshkosh.
Nudity in the clubs was governed by the same rules they had in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The freewheeling nudity of the hippies wasn't entirely welcome in established clubs. They didn't want pot smoking sexually free war protestors to join. They only wanted "responsible" married couples.
Hippies of the day did not draw a sharp line between sexual and nonsexual nudity. It was a spectrum from light to dark and entirely shades of grey. Their embrace of nudity was enabled by the sexual revolution. Sharp lines were drawn by established clubs. Such lines are artificial and didn't appeal to free thinkers and chaotic sorts.
I tried several times to join clubs in the late 70s and most said, "Not just no. Hell no!" So most established clubs got a small portion of what could have been available. General acceptance of anyone who was interested would have torn them apart. I wasn't welcomed into one until I found Elysium in LA.
Wow! Elysium. That was one that had a broader field of interest than just nudity. It was a shame that we were only twenty. The coincidence of inspiration and means is rare.
Loved that place! Young Mensa had a deal where they'd have one day a month to come in free of charge. I know other groups had a similar thing. Evening programs open to the general public on all kinds of topics. I was poor at the time but was able to use the facilities regularly in exchange for grooming the dog, Murphy. They were doing all the right things but were ultimately defeated by rising property values and politics.
Their own success was part of the issue. It put a lot of traffic on very narrow roads where two cars could not easily pass each other. That's why the neighbors and the county fire department were upset. Widening the road was expensive and a million permits would have to be drawn. The county supervisor for the area was Michael Antonovich. He was a classic right wing religious nut case and he made it his personal objective to get rid of that den of iniquity. I'm sure these forces militated against keeping the club where it was.
Topanga Cyn. had became VERY expensive and upscale real estate. I imagine the property taxes were stunning. There are things that you could do with the property that were far more profitable than a nudie club, so when Ed Lange died, the daughters sold it for a zillion bucks..
There was talk of relocating but by the late 1980s, there was no affordable real estate anywhere within a hundred miles. Former members eventually created the Southern California Naturist Association, a non-landed club which still exists today. We go on hikes to various places, sometimes have a party in a home, or rent a textile facility for nude recreation, but it is pretty low key. They are one of the sponsors for Nude Comedy LA.
1. Elysium was nice and no questions were asked on my first visit. I just paid my money and went in. Unfortunately, there were no other visitors at the time, and Elysium couldn't survive after Lange died.
2. Starting in the mid-80s I visited 2 clubs in So. California and all 3 in No. Cal. - always as a single male. Not a single one gave me any hassle - no required tours, no lectures about proper behavior, no waiting period. Just pay and go in. I wasn't even a TNS or ANNR member at the time. I gather that many clubs on the East coast are still pretty restrictive (or now defunct).
Are you retired, Tom? At some point there comes a time for people to adopt the outlook expressed in the title of a Feynman book: What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Generations are twenty years because that a nice round number that roughly lines up with the age a woman would typically get married and pregnant in most of the last half of the 20th century. The time to generate a replacement. It no longer matches that period as women delay childbirth longer and longer. But it is still traditional.
However a named generation (GenX, Millenials, Gen Z, is typically a ten year range) is not defined by how long it takes to "generate" a replacement. They are usually divided up according to the historical event that shaped their attitudes. The lost generation was dominated by WWI. The greatest generation was shaped by WWII. The silent generation was shaped by the McCarthyism, Cold War, and Korea. The boomers can be divided up in the early (1945-54) and late boomers (1955-1964.) Late boomers just missed the draft but had to be worried about it as teenagers.
The pill, urbanization, a large college population and the gradual replacement of religion by science and technology allowed the sexual revolution to flourish.
Boomers were shaped by Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination, and unprecedented education, wealth and numbers. They had the freedom to be idealistic and hedonistic and the numbers to actually be a force. Unfortunately they were often not welcome in organized nudism.
With all due respect, I have to disagree. At least, Wikipedia does (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation). In cases listed there the lengths are from 15 to 18 years. Still, that's older teens, who're well known for rebelliousness - certainly the case with my teenage daughter. The generation names listed there are different from your list, but that's a minor point. Boomers, especially single ones, were unwelcome in organized nudism. But the result was nude beaches and a wider tolerance for nudity among young people.
The problem is that the boomers got old. They didn't really embrace nudity. It was just an act of hedonism and rebellion and didn't pass it on to their children. At least in California, those beaches are mostly closed and it was boomers who did it.
I went camping back in 1978 in Michigan in a national forest. The place I went to had "hippies" already there, all kids from late teens to mid 20s on vacation. (I was 22) We all got stoned the night I got there and I ended up naked and nobody cared. And I stayed naked for the entire week and nobody cared. So yeah, they "accepted" nudity but didn't participate.
Most kids at Woodstock did not get nude, that's just where the cameras liked to go. But they didn't become nudists.
I suspect that 44 years later they would not be so accepting.
I saw a cartoon of a Woodstock reunion, with a bunch of elderly people in a muddy field listening to a band. They were dressed in suits and evening gowns and sipping champagne. And that is what happened to many of us. Only a few of us "kept the faith."
Many nude beaches in Calif. are still there - they just see less use. Near Santa Cruz and San Francisco they haven't been closed. Also the one near San Luis Obispo is still there too, I think. Black's Beach also had nude use - but just last month during the storms a landslide made it inaccessible. And, of course, it was textiles who were responsible for the closures, especially near population centers - Boomer naturists have always been a distinct minority and couldn't do much about the closures.
I should also mention Burning Man. I never attended, but I think nudity was very common there, certainly not prohibited. However, it apparently became more of a thing for wealthy Bay Area types who just wanted to be part of the "scene".
There are a whole string of nude beaches shut down by the state and various cities. City and county of LA Parks and Rec commissions both passed antinudity regulations specifically to shut down nude beaches within LA city and county. Pirates Cove by Malibu and Venice Beach are just the two that come to mind off hand.
Bates Beach by Carpenteria is the only one that I know of that was shut down and then regained. Friends of Bates Beach formed up and got a small section on the northern end opened for nude use. They used tourist dollars as the incentive.
There's another Pirate's Cove out by Avila which is near San Louis Obispo. SLO county never passed an anti-nudity ordinance and the beach is backed by private property so it still survives. Here's an interesting article:
I have notices that the surviving nude beaches in SoCal are often close to universities. When I went to college out here decades ago there was even an official nudist club at Cal State Northridge. They could reserve the school swimming pool but instead usually opted to use the faculty adviser's home pool. Unfortunately when the advisor left they couldn't find another and it shut down. But that was around 1980.
Burning man got hugely commercial and way beyond my budget. There's still nudity but it is a small proportion of the people. Wife and I would like to have gone out there when it was a bunch of hippies and new age people.
Southern California "officials" have usually been hostile to naturism. They tried to shut down the place later called McConville (it had been called Elysian Fields before - different from Elysium). Ed Lange successfully fought officials who wanted to shut his place down for many years - almost to his dying days. Up here in No. Cal. there's been almost no official opposition to naturist clubs, and not that much to the nude beaches.
SoCal used to be culturally conservative. It is where Ronald Reagan got most of his support. Things have shifted and I think nudists would be more welcome except the property prices have made landed clubs anywhere near the LA urban center impossible.
DeAnza and Olive Dell are WAY out there. A hundred mile trip for me, most of it through LA traffic.
Regarding nude beaches and universities... In the 1970s and probably earlier Lake Lagunita - right behind some dorms on Stanford's campus - had a LOT of nude use. Even local teenagers got naked there, until the university put up a fence to keep 'em out. And then there was the "Naked Guy" at Berkeley. UCB eventually stopped him from going naked in class. But he was sort of bonkers. There was also nudity at a small city park next to campus - "People's Park" I think it was called. There were also nude marches for various causes adjacent to the campus. I saw Morley Schloss at one - maybe 25 years ago - he's still around and now owns Sunsport Gardens in Florida.
Feb 24, 2023·edited Feb 24, 2023Liked by Charles Daney
I remember when the Naked Guy (Andrew Martinez, IIRC) single handedly got casual nudity banned in the city and the university of Berkeley. There was concern that the nudity ban on campus was so complete it might prohibit nude models for art classes or even locker room nudity. The city ban had an exemption for special events, just like San Francisco's does.
Not everyone was offended and there was some pro-Naked Guy sentiment on the campus. But the people who were offended were VERY offended and felt outright threatened.
Some people commented on him absently handling and scratch his genitalia during class. People on the street complained he wasn't leaving enough personal space. There are more than a few who consider a visible penis - without the consent of the viewer - to be a form of sexual assault. The campus freaked about losing students and donors due to the publicity. Heckler's veto rules.
He was eventually diagnosed a schizophrenic. In and out of mental facilities. Arrested for assault at a half-way house and committed suicide in jail, his second attempt.
Marches and protests and bike rides and recreational water and such offer textiles a nonthreatening explanation for the nudity. I've even noticed on the trail that the reaction to a nude encounter is different if you're at a swimming hole than if you're just walking down the trail. Without a ready explanation, the textile mind goes negative.
My solution is for organizations to set up as many nude public events as possible. Events at nude beaches and private clubs are nice but do nothing to change the cultural zeitgeist. Some areas are more accepting than others, so start there and slowly expand out. The more people see nudity, the less threatened they'll be by it. See enough of it and it becomes unremarkable background noise. It is way beyond my private resources to do so but I'll help and I'll participate.
I do put a fair amount of nudity in my WP and Medium blogs which are directed at the textile community and nobody (that I know of) has a problem with it.
If I were gay, some people would think that I'm a pervert, but some would recognize that I'm wired for sex and romance with other men. My fear is that my nudism would make people think I'm shallow.
So what? How long should naturism remain in the shadows because of what some people might think? I agree it can be a tough problem. The question is whether important others will be considerate of our opinions. Many people now respect others who are gay. Is enjoyment of simple nudity so much more controversial? In England being gay was a crime until the 1950s, at least. Alan Turing committed suicide not long after being convicted of "gross indecency", resulting in serious depression and eventual suicide. Yet nudism, as far as I know, had been at least tolerated in England since the 1930.
A think tank for nudism/naturism sounds like a great idea to me. If I could do it now all by myself, I would. But, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day. Having a serious discussion here could at least be a start.
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy in a certain period and in a certain context of clothing, shoes, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle and body posture. This term implies an appearance defined by the fashion industry as one that is trending. Everything that is considered fashion is accessible and popularized by the fashion system (industry and media).
en.wikipedia.org . Young people have always followed fashion. It is enough to make naturism a fashion trend and young people will love naturism.
All that's true about "fashion", unfortunately. Humans, generally, are often like herd animals. That's not really a good thing, so trying to make nudity a "fashion" probably isn't a great idea. But in any case, to "make" naturism a fashion would require a huge effort that's nearly impossible given prevalent legal, social, and religious factors. In my opinion, at least, what naturists need to work for is tolerance and acceptance of their preferences rather than the sort of suppression that now exists.
And how much money did it take to give birth to the Hippie movement? And it was the fashion for nudity, as a symbol of equality and the struggle for peace, which attracted a huge number of young people to nudism in the 60s - 70s. Now we need a similar new idea.
The problem with fads - which the "Hippie movement" was - is that they have a short shelf life and don't last. Social changes that can endure need to have real substance. Why is that? It's because things that challenge social norms - even bad norms - are heavily resisted by the larger society. Consider how long it's been to achieve racial equality. That's still being fought over.
Late to the party on this post, but I just found your substack through Evan, read through your past post and as a 36 year old, I think I should comment on my observations. A lot has already been said about the decline of communal showers in the 90s (though I still have found memories of them, from when I was young. Even as late as the early 00 at an overnight camp) to which I think is because of the fear of the media hype "stranger danger", that got parents to fear sex abuse in the locker rooms, leaving a generation without non-sexual nudity.
However, I am.also optimistic too. The resort I have been attending for the past 5 years, Solair in Woodstock, CT, had seen a increase of young college age people traveling out in groups, more so then when I started going to nude places 10 years ago, when I was in my 20s.
Another thing about the "wave" Solair did have a huge family population in the late 90s till early 00s. They had about 40 family members, who also brought their friends, and the beach would be crowded with kids. When those kids become 20 somethings and went off to college, they wanted to do there own thing, and ofcourse the numbers dropped off, to a point, for awhile Solair had no families. However, now in their 30s many of those 'kids" are coming back with families and kids of their own who are embracing it.
When we went on our honeymoon in Southern Portugal in 1982 nudity was common on many beaches except close to the town. It was also customary on all beaches for women to be topless. Even young teenagers would be topless, not, I think, because they were ardent devotees of topfreedom but because it was a normal thing to do. Today it seems that teenage girls would rather die than go nude or topless under any circumstances.
I sometimes wonder whether, in the 1980s, swimwear manufacturers realised that if fashions continued then their business would collapse before the year 2000. To head off the trend of even diminishing beachwear they launched a subtle publicity campaign to promote the idea of greater modesty.
In the 21st century it has become far less common for women to go topless in Europe than in was in the 80s.
In recent decades I think there has been a tendency for young people to avoid getting involved in any formal organisations. I was a member of running clubs for many years and saw the average age of members getting steadily older even in a sport that you would think was largely a young person's game
As far as women in naturism goes, I think a large factor is that many feel their bodies are objectified too often and their nudity's only for the pleasure of men they don't even know. I think that's not an unjustified feeling. But not being a woman, that's just a guess. I don't think swimwear companies have much ability to be responsible or even that they've tried to. In any case, there's nothing naturists can do about the companies.
As far as teenagers are concerned, once again I'm in no position to have a good opinion. But I think it's well known that teenagers - male as well as female - are concerned and uncomfortable about their changing bodies. Naturists whose whole families have participated in naturism often find that both the boys and the girls no longer want to be naked even in a naturist context.
It is interesting that older teens and young women - in some cases - seem OK exchanging naked selfies with people they're attracted to. Another thing is interesting about women compared with men. It's pretty common that women's everyday clothing choices expose more skin than men's choices - sleeveless tops, low necklines, short shorts, at least half bare legs, sandals or flip-flops, etc. Is there more to that than leaving skin exposed to the air is simply pleasurable? I don't know.
Regarding membership in formal organizations, there's clearly a trend against it. It's especially obvious in religious membership, but that's a special case. Young people are simply less religious in all respects. But membership in all sorts of organizations has significantly declined in recent decades. Putnam's book goes into that in great detail and cites several factors for the decline.
So, what are the implications for naturism? Obviously, attendance at naturist clubs and resorts has been declining, along with most other types of organizations, so many have simply closed. But naturism is in a somewhat unusual situation, since social nudity is a difficult idea for most people. Apparently, clothesfreedom is mostly enjoyed only at home. Of course, that's a big mistake. Enjoying nudity in private is understandable, but social nudity is even more enjoyable. The problem is the difficulty of finding others to enjoy nudity with, because people are so secretive about it. Formal clubs and resorts are easily the best way to find other naturists for friendships. But the overall reluctance to participate in organizations of any sort is a major problem.
I'm only speculating about swimwear companies influencing attitudes to nudity but I wouldn't be too surprised if the fashion industry had subtly talked down the idea of not wearing anything on the beach. I noticed that when it became popular for women to be braless during lockdown some 'experts' came out of the woodwork to declare that it was 'dangerous' for women to not wear bras.
Just think about one basic meaning of the word "fashion". It means something "new" or different from what came the season or year before. The fact that it's different means that anyone who wants to "keep up" with the "trend" needs to replace something (usually clothes, but also cars, TV shows, etc.) with something new and different. Hence a steady flow of business for whatever the commodity in question is. It's a perpetual motion machine for profits.
So, yes, of course, the clothing fashion industry depends on most people always wearing clothes, and buying newer versions regularly. If too many people just go naked, the whole scam collapses. Exposing this scam should be a major talking point for naturists. Listen, folks, get smart and spend your hard-earned income on something more useful than the latest "fashion" in clothes you don't actually need at all.
Look around any large store that sells general merchandise, whether it's Walmart or Macy's. A huge portion of such stores is nothing but clothes, shoes, "accessories", etc. So refusing to keep buying useless clothes would be a real shock to the economy. What could the replacement be? I don't know, but how about travel, exercise, better education, more and better health care, etc. Anything that improves that actual quality of life. We generally understand we'd be better off with more nutritious food instead of junk food. Same thing with clothing. Get off dependence on junk clothes and enjoy being naked instead.
Yours is a US perspective where mine is UK, but I think there a few similarities that make for relevance.
When I (a fellow “boomer” was young we played outside till we were called home, and parents hardly knew where we were. By the ‘90s parents were worrying where their children were, keeping them
In, and fretting that every passing stranger was a paedophile.
Children growing up able to explore the world have worried less about trying things - like nudity - than those who’ve been taught a base level of fear.
My experience in Ontario, Canada is that Naturism is booming here specifically. Things like The Naturist Living Show, Stephane and The Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park are the main driving factors.
Those of us that participate here eagerly listen to The Naturist Living Show as it is a positive expression of the way we think and of the lifestyle in general. The show breaks down topics into personal experience and there is an emotional connection to his audience and his guests.
We need more of this for the movement to grow.
Yes, we certainly need more like that - especially in the U.S. In Canada's southern neighbor there's a strong and growing trend against any kind of body freedom, including naturism. For instance, Twitter just kicked out Stephane's place without any justification or even explanation.
Twitter dumb. Tom not like Twitter. Your substack and Evan Nix's are bright lights.
One thing that has changed since the boomers were growing up is the prevalence and acceptance of nudity associated with physical education. When I was at school in the 60s and 70s showers after sports were compulsory, and hence we got to commune naked with our peers at least 3 times a week during school terms (and almost daily for those of us who were involved in sports teams). Also common during those times (especially I believe in the US, and for males) was nude swimming - either in school pools or YMCAs.
Growing up in this sort of environment means that most kids grew up with a reasonably nonchalant attitude towards nudity (at least once the initial 'bare bum' experience had been passed at the start of secondary school), which then made skinny dipping with mates far less of an issue. Three or four mates from school out for a hike would've found it far less intimidating in the 1980s to peel off and go for a dip in a lake/river than their counterparts today.
And the reason for the change in schools - the paranoia over child abuse coupled with the arrival of phones with cameras on them.
That's absolutely correct, and another good point. Regarding pools and the YMCA, when there were swims that included fathers, both boys and fathers showered nude together. When I was in college, gym/swimming classes also used communal showers. I don't really know what the situation was with showers in private gyms, although I understand that nudity in men's facilities is not popular in recent years - even in locker rooms. And (of course) I don't know what the situation was for girls and women, either in school or gyms. I don't know what tie situation is in other countries either, but the U.S. situation speaks to how backward the U.S. in general is regarding nudity.
Very interesting, thought provoking article. I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but I find that a segment of the “younger generation” of today is interested in finding and being a part of a philosophy. Many doubt this — labeling them as self centered in contrast. But I see a desire to connect with something bigger — health, social issues, communities. Religion used to provide that for some. Less so today.
Presenting naturism as nothing more than a lazy, poolside, activity doesn’t connect with this whatsoever. Sure, it’s nice now and again. But I see a generation looking for something that makes them whole, engages them, makes them better, connects them. That’s great news because naturism does just that! We, and the organic that supposedly champion naturism, need to get that message out there, be visible, be active, explain a culture, a philosophy. Recreation is fine. But it’s more than that.
Naturism is many things, and different things to different people. I suspect that what people of all generations want is a circle of people who share certain values. It's not just sitting naked beside a pool. For some people it's outdoor activities like hiking or camping. For others it's travel. For still others it's socializing with a stable group of friends. And what all naturists can do is simply enjoy nudity at home. The enjoyment of nudity is what all have in common. The problem is that fear of social disapproval makes it difficult to find other naturists (except those who visit naturist parks and resorts). Strong naturist organizations could deal with that. But we don't have such organizations in the U.S. (or most other countries).
The "fear of social disapproval [that] makes it difficult to find other naturists" is definitely a factor for me. I live in one of the most sex-positive congressional districts in the nation, but my fear is that my desire to be nude would be perceived as flickering between predatory exhibitionism and triviality. I'm looking for that social moment when some event or piece of entertainment seizes the group imagination.
I'm a Boomer (1949). My girlfriend was the one who suggested exploring my family's woods nude, although I had already been doing that for a long time. I learned about nudism while watching an episode of the game show "What's My Line?" that featured nudist club owner Alois Knapp. I also watched TV Personality Art Linkletter interview at least two nudists. I thought that nudism was about the best idea I'd ever heard. That must have been about the time that nudist magazines were allowed to go through the mail, but it seems like nudism was just on the public mind. I definitely buy into the idea that home economics, especially two-income households, have dampened participation in nudism. Trying to keep a house presentable while both parents are working full-time has kept my clothes on more than I wish. My son is an older millennial who told me at twelve or so that he didn't think he was a nudist. Recently I said something to him about his generation's being more comfortable with sexual nonconformity and the range of body types. He said that while that is true, they are getting a lot less sex. I'm not sure exactly how that fits, except to suggest that the zeitgeist is finely grained and chaotic.
Rober Sapolsky has pointed out—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIOQgY1tqrU&t=2106s—that it's kids who make new slang and language. Maybe it's the same for all social innovations. I wrote the following fragment to suggest the kind of moment that might spark a nudist society.
"Your granddaughter is a nudist?"
"Adamantly. It's too much. She's majoring in German because that's where it started, and she writes letters to anybody she can think of saying that she wants to be able to walk around in the nude. She's minoring in film studies. Says that digital technology is going to make a it possible for average people to express themselves cinematically. Says she wants to make intelligent, watchable explorations of nudity."
"I seem to remember you frisking around naked and tripping your ass off at the Kickapoo rock festival."
"Shit, that's a blast from the past! It ain't the same, though. Look, I don't want her getting hurt."
"You mean by a rapist or something?"
"That. But mostly I don't want her wasting her life, or making a goddam fool of herself."
While her grandfather was having this conversation, Clare Ardmore, twenty, was at the FedEx store, sending a short she'd made about five of her skinny-dipping friends to the right person.
I'm wondering what factors during the 1960s-70s contributed to the new tolerance for nudity among young people back then. There was so much idealism then, what with the two Kennedy brothers - who were nevertheless both assassinated. There were Moon landings. There was the civil rights movement and freedom riders and Vietnam war resisters. Yet mainsteam society still elected several reactionary presidents. Society doesn't like dissenters - but that just strengthens the resolve of the dissenters.
Unpredictability is the distinctive characteristic of chaotic systems. What if it takes a sufficiently chaotic society to engender a cohort of people who reject wearing clothes? What with radical climate change and pandemics and increasingly many authoritarian governments around the world, plenty of chaos certainly lies ahead.
Yeah, you can't predict chaotic systems, but after the shit hits the fan, it can make sense. I also agree that society probably needs chaos. My wife once told me that the brainwaves of people on drugs are less chaotic than those of the non-doped. That's the best footnote I can come up with, but she's usually a reliable source. Covid seems to have, at least, permanently changed my son's work venue. He spends some of his workdays at home and some in the office. As to authoritarians, they are more like drugs, very even and regular until the crash.
About the sixties, the idea of nudism was at large: nudist magazines, mainstream recognition of sensational human interest, New Yorker cartoons. Nudism had been around since the beginning of the 20th century, and the Merrills and Jan Gay had some success with their books about nudism. Pre-war American nudists who were busted, whether convicted or freed, must have made a splash. If you're looking for the proverbial initial conditions to which chaos is sensitive, I could neither miss nor believe the skinny-dipper swinging on a rope as Haley Mills arrives on the train in Pollyanna. It probably is true that kids like to be naked. Nudism among the flower children was waiting to happen ( Lapel button slogan: "I'm naked under my clothes."). I can remember an arch remark out of left field about "the body beautiful" at bath time. I think Mom was pro-body. (Her mother was one of those young ladies who danced outdoors in chitons, and her grandparents took her to see Sally Rand at the World's Fair.) Dad was very uptight vis a vis bodies. He once said that two piece swimsuits only covered up what they had to—no better than they should be, I guess. In spite of my father's prudishness, I think WWII broadened that generation's horizons, and the wealth we enjoyed as children probably liberalized our generation. There was sex, too. Growing Up Absurd came out about the same time as Sunshine Book Co. v. Summerfield was decided. Margaret Sanger had been around since before WWI. Mae West. Marilyn Monroe. Playboy magazine. Oral contraception. The final state to drop regulation of contraception (New Hampshire or Connecticut, I think). My woods-exploring girlfriend liked to say "Sex is good, clean fun." There's also the Flynn Effect; since we started testing intelligence, the intelligence of each tested generation is higher than the one before. Deviance, even if it's correct, takes more than a little gray matter.
This raises a very interesting number of things to think about.
Paul Goodman (author of Growing Up Absurd) was a complex character. During the 1960s he was already in his 50s and two generations older than Boomers - but clearly had a strong influence on the 60s counterculture. He was bisexual, anarchist, pacifist, and a WW II draft resister. Yet he distanced himself from the black power and (surprisingly) the gay rights movement. I guess he thought people should be individualistic and not stake their identity on specific groupings or categories.
Many people who enjoy nudity now don't care to be typed as "nudists" or "naturists". Probably many more would be more open about enjoying nudity if they could avoid specific labels. They could simply say "I'm not a nudist, I just prefer not wearing clothes."
I think most young people today have no idea how important the influence of people like Goodman was on some Boomers when they were young. Although many then were normally conventional, some were quite rebellious and dissatisfied with bourgeois U.S. society. Enthusiasm for nudity was one way they expressed this rebelliousness. Probably almost nobody remembers Louis Abolafia, who was a very public nudist and ran for president in 1968 on the ticket of the (ersatz) Nudist Party. His slogan was "What have I got to hide?".
I suspect that Lee Baxandall was strongly influenced by Paul Goodman and others like him. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the earliest nudists in Germany around 1900 weren't also expressing their disdain for middle class society, using nudity as symbol for stripping off pretense. Wearing specific styles of clothes is too facilely used as a way to signify.
Back to the present day, going naked could simply be understood as nothing more than a personal inclination. Curently it doesn't, but it might in the future. However, it must be understood as simply an individual choice, rather than having any further meaning. In particular, going naked should not be misinterpreted as sexual. Both men and women would be much more at ease naked without the misinterpretation. "I'm naked just to be myself, not to send any other message."
The one time I've encountered sexual behavior at a nudist venue, it was predatory, but my wife told me that a friend at a club we attended in the 90s told her who to watch out for. Yikes! I've crossed paths with swingers, but they were entirely civilized. I think that social nudity can't help but be to some extent about sex, at least as a corrective for body phobia. Society tells you your private parts are naughty, that you've gotta keep them private, then—bang!—everybody's running around starkers. We're trying to liberalize attitudes toward nudity, so I don't want to scare anybody off. Something else that might scare them, though, is our being disingenuous about sex. People don't do things for moral or rational reasons. We do them because they move us somehow, and then what's good about them occurs to us. If we come on all high-minded and holy, somebody's going to think we're full of baloney.
That's tough. If you see a nude person, sexuality can usually be proven but non-sexuality cannot. It would take experience with nonsexual nudity which most textiles do not have and investigation is far more effort than most people are willing to take.
If a textile is nude socially it is sexual or it is shameful or sometimes both. The assumption is that if you are doing something, you're doing it for the same motivations they are familiar with. And lord knows there are plenty of people out there who are naked for sexual reasons. It is almost all media representation of nudity.
I think we just have to wait for the culture to evolve to a nude friendly state. Maybe we can be like Britain in a couple of decades. I don't think organized nudism will be much help in the US. Just aren't enough of us. And we are too busy dividing ourselves over minutia to ever form a unified front if there were.
"Be the change..." right?
1. Since most naturists are now on the old side, we can't really wait for the culture to evolve on its own. We'll be dead if/when that happens. We need naturism to be better accepted now so we can enjoy it more.
2. Organized nudism in the U.S. now isn't much help, because it's not really trying. The interest in social nudity is our there, but nothing is done to help those interested get involved. Being divided over minutia could be a factor, but wider participation could make a difference.
3. Are there enough of us? My impression is that there are a large number of people who enjoy nudity at home, but are afraid to let others know. So of course the numbers who are "out" seems small. What will persuade more to come "out" is the personal influence of acquaintances who already are. People will pay much more attention to their friends than strangers living in Kissimmee or Oshkosh.
Nudity in the clubs was governed by the same rules they had in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The freewheeling nudity of the hippies wasn't entirely welcome in established clubs. They didn't want pot smoking sexually free war protestors to join. They only wanted "responsible" married couples.
Hippies of the day did not draw a sharp line between sexual and nonsexual nudity. It was a spectrum from light to dark and entirely shades of grey. Their embrace of nudity was enabled by the sexual revolution. Sharp lines were drawn by established clubs. Such lines are artificial and didn't appeal to free thinkers and chaotic sorts.
I tried several times to join clubs in the late 70s and most said, "Not just no. Hell no!" So most established clubs got a small portion of what could have been available. General acceptance of anyone who was interested would have torn them apart. I wasn't welcomed into one until I found Elysium in LA.
Wow! Elysium. That was one that had a broader field of interest than just nudity. It was a shame that we were only twenty. The coincidence of inspiration and means is rare.
Loved that place! Young Mensa had a deal where they'd have one day a month to come in free of charge. I know other groups had a similar thing. Evening programs open to the general public on all kinds of topics. I was poor at the time but was able to use the facilities regularly in exchange for grooming the dog, Murphy. They were doing all the right things but were ultimately defeated by rising property values and politics.
Their own success was part of the issue. It put a lot of traffic on very narrow roads where two cars could not easily pass each other. That's why the neighbors and the county fire department were upset. Widening the road was expensive and a million permits would have to be drawn. The county supervisor for the area was Michael Antonovich. He was a classic right wing religious nut case and he made it his personal objective to get rid of that den of iniquity. I'm sure these forces militated against keeping the club where it was.
Topanga Cyn. had became VERY expensive and upscale real estate. I imagine the property taxes were stunning. There are things that you could do with the property that were far more profitable than a nudie club, so when Ed Lange died, the daughters sold it for a zillion bucks..
There was talk of relocating but by the late 1980s, there was no affordable real estate anywhere within a hundred miles. Former members eventually created the Southern California Naturist Association, a non-landed club which still exists today. We go on hikes to various places, sometimes have a party in a home, or rent a textile facility for nude recreation, but it is pretty low key. They are one of the sponsors for Nude Comedy LA.
https://socalnaturist.org/
1. Elysium was nice and no questions were asked on my first visit. I just paid my money and went in. Unfortunately, there were no other visitors at the time, and Elysium couldn't survive after Lange died.
2. Starting in the mid-80s I visited 2 clubs in So. California and all 3 in No. Cal. - always as a single male. Not a single one gave me any hassle - no required tours, no lectures about proper behavior, no waiting period. Just pay and go in. I wasn't even a TNS or ANNR member at the time. I gather that many clubs on the East coast are still pretty restrictive (or now defunct).
Are you retired, Tom? At some point there comes a time for people to adopt the outlook expressed in the title of a Feynman book: What Do You Care What Other People Think?
I hope it's not confusing that I'm replying in reverse order to your comments. Anyhow, when will you start writing in your Substack?
Human societies have always been more or less chaotic. Russians have always had a strong barbarian streak. but that's hardly unique.
Generations are twenty years because that a nice round number that roughly lines up with the age a woman would typically get married and pregnant in most of the last half of the 20th century. The time to generate a replacement. It no longer matches that period as women delay childbirth longer and longer. But it is still traditional.
However a named generation (GenX, Millenials, Gen Z, is typically a ten year range) is not defined by how long it takes to "generate" a replacement. They are usually divided up according to the historical event that shaped their attitudes. The lost generation was dominated by WWI. The greatest generation was shaped by WWII. The silent generation was shaped by the McCarthyism, Cold War, and Korea. The boomers can be divided up in the early (1945-54) and late boomers (1955-1964.) Late boomers just missed the draft but had to be worried about it as teenagers.
The pill, urbanization, a large college population and the gradual replacement of religion by science and technology allowed the sexual revolution to flourish.
Boomers were shaped by Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination, and unprecedented education, wealth and numbers. They had the freedom to be idealistic and hedonistic and the numbers to actually be a force. Unfortunately they were often not welcome in organized nudism.
With all due respect, I have to disagree. At least, Wikipedia does (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation). In cases listed there the lengths are from 15 to 18 years. Still, that's older teens, who're well known for rebelliousness - certainly the case with my teenage daughter. The generation names listed there are different from your list, but that's a minor point. Boomers, especially single ones, were unwelcome in organized nudism. But the result was nude beaches and a wider tolerance for nudity among young people.
The problem is that the boomers got old. They didn't really embrace nudity. It was just an act of hedonism and rebellion and didn't pass it on to their children. At least in California, those beaches are mostly closed and it was boomers who did it.
I went camping back in 1978 in Michigan in a national forest. The place I went to had "hippies" already there, all kids from late teens to mid 20s on vacation. (I was 22) We all got stoned the night I got there and I ended up naked and nobody cared. And I stayed naked for the entire week and nobody cared. So yeah, they "accepted" nudity but didn't participate.
Most kids at Woodstock did not get nude, that's just where the cameras liked to go. But they didn't become nudists.
I suspect that 44 years later they would not be so accepting.
I saw a cartoon of a Woodstock reunion, with a bunch of elderly people in a muddy field listening to a band. They were dressed in suits and evening gowns and sipping champagne. And that is what happened to many of us. Only a few of us "kept the faith."
Many nude beaches in Calif. are still there - they just see less use. Near Santa Cruz and San Francisco they haven't been closed. Also the one near San Luis Obispo is still there too, I think. Black's Beach also had nude use - but just last month during the storms a landslide made it inaccessible. And, of course, it was textiles who were responsible for the closures, especially near population centers - Boomer naturists have always been a distinct minority and couldn't do much about the closures.
I should also mention Burning Man. I never attended, but I think nudity was very common there, certainly not prohibited. However, it apparently became more of a thing for wealthy Bay Area types who just wanted to be part of the "scene".
There are a whole string of nude beaches shut down by the state and various cities. City and county of LA Parks and Rec commissions both passed antinudity regulations specifically to shut down nude beaches within LA city and county. Pirates Cove by Malibu and Venice Beach are just the two that come to mind off hand.
Bates Beach by Carpenteria is the only one that I know of that was shut down and then regained. Friends of Bates Beach formed up and got a small section on the northern end opened for nude use. They used tourist dollars as the incentive.
There's another Pirate's Cove out by Avila which is near San Louis Obispo. SLO county never passed an anti-nudity ordinance and the beach is backed by private property so it still survives. Here's an interesting article:
https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article172259707.html
I have notices that the surviving nude beaches in SoCal are often close to universities. When I went to college out here decades ago there was even an official nudist club at Cal State Northridge. They could reserve the school swimming pool but instead usually opted to use the faculty adviser's home pool. Unfortunately when the advisor left they couldn't find another and it shut down. But that was around 1980.
Burning man got hugely commercial and way beyond my budget. There's still nudity but it is a small proportion of the people. Wife and I would like to have gone out there when it was a bunch of hippies and new age people.
Southern California "officials" have usually been hostile to naturism. They tried to shut down the place later called McConville (it had been called Elysian Fields before - different from Elysium). Ed Lange successfully fought officials who wanted to shut his place down for many years - almost to his dying days. Up here in No. Cal. there's been almost no official opposition to naturist clubs, and not that much to the nude beaches.
SoCal used to be culturally conservative. It is where Ronald Reagan got most of his support. Things have shifted and I think nudists would be more welcome except the property prices have made landed clubs anywhere near the LA urban center impossible.
DeAnza and Olive Dell are WAY out there. A hundred mile trip for me, most of it through LA traffic.
Regarding nude beaches and universities... In the 1970s and probably earlier Lake Lagunita - right behind some dorms on Stanford's campus - had a LOT of nude use. Even local teenagers got naked there, until the university put up a fence to keep 'em out. And then there was the "Naked Guy" at Berkeley. UCB eventually stopped him from going naked in class. But he was sort of bonkers. There was also nudity at a small city park next to campus - "People's Park" I think it was called. There were also nude marches for various causes adjacent to the campus. I saw Morley Schloss at one - maybe 25 years ago - he's still around and now owns Sunsport Gardens in Florida.
I remember when the Naked Guy (Andrew Martinez, IIRC) single handedly got casual nudity banned in the city and the university of Berkeley. There was concern that the nudity ban on campus was so complete it might prohibit nude models for art classes or even locker room nudity. The city ban had an exemption for special events, just like San Francisco's does.
Not everyone was offended and there was some pro-Naked Guy sentiment on the campus. But the people who were offended were VERY offended and felt outright threatened.
Some people commented on him absently handling and scratch his genitalia during class. People on the street complained he wasn't leaving enough personal space. There are more than a few who consider a visible penis - without the consent of the viewer - to be a form of sexual assault. The campus freaked about losing students and donors due to the publicity. Heckler's veto rules.
He was eventually diagnosed a schizophrenic. In and out of mental facilities. Arrested for assault at a half-way house and committed suicide in jail, his second attempt.
Marches and protests and bike rides and recreational water and such offer textiles a nonthreatening explanation for the nudity. I've even noticed on the trail that the reaction to a nude encounter is different if you're at a swimming hole than if you're just walking down the trail. Without a ready explanation, the textile mind goes negative.
My solution is for organizations to set up as many nude public events as possible. Events at nude beaches and private clubs are nice but do nothing to change the cultural zeitgeist. Some areas are more accepting than others, so start there and slowly expand out. The more people see nudity, the less threatened they'll be by it. See enough of it and it becomes unremarkable background noise. It is way beyond my private resources to do so but I'll help and I'll participate.
I do put a fair amount of nudity in my WP and Medium blogs which are directed at the textile community and nobody (that I know of) has a problem with it.
If I were gay, some people would think that I'm a pervert, but some would recognize that I'm wired for sex and romance with other men. My fear is that my nudism would make people think I'm shallow.
So what? How long should naturism remain in the shadows because of what some people might think? I agree it can be a tough problem. The question is whether important others will be considerate of our opinions. Many people now respect others who are gay. Is enjoyment of simple nudity so much more controversial? In England being gay was a crime until the 1950s, at least. Alan Turing committed suicide not long after being convicted of "gross indecency", resulting in serious depression and eventual suicide. Yet nudism, as far as I know, had been at least tolerated in England since the 1930.
Nobody ever committed suicide for being a nudist. But that's my problem. Are we starting a PR think tank for nudism?
A think tank for nudism/naturism sounds like a great idea to me. If I could do it now all by myself, I would. But, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day. Having a serious discussion here could at least be a start.
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy in a certain period and in a certain context of clothing, shoes, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle and body posture. This term implies an appearance defined by the fashion industry as one that is trending. Everything that is considered fashion is accessible and popularized by the fashion system (industry and media).
en.wikipedia.org . Young people have always followed fashion. It is enough to make naturism a fashion trend and young people will love naturism.
All that's true about "fashion", unfortunately. Humans, generally, are often like herd animals. That's not really a good thing, so trying to make nudity a "fashion" probably isn't a great idea. But in any case, to "make" naturism a fashion would require a huge effort that's nearly impossible given prevalent legal, social, and religious factors. In my opinion, at least, what naturists need to work for is tolerance and acceptance of their preferences rather than the sort of suppression that now exists.
And how much money did it take to give birth to the Hippie movement? And it was the fashion for nudity, as a symbol of equality and the struggle for peace, which attracted a huge number of young people to nudism in the 60s - 70s. Now we need a similar new idea.
"Now we need a similar new idea."
Sure, that would be good. So what do you suggest?
The problem with fads - which the "Hippie movement" was - is that they have a short shelf life and don't last. Social changes that can endure need to have real substance. Why is that? It's because things that challenge social norms - even bad norms - are heavily resisted by the larger society. Consider how long it's been to achieve racial equality. That's still being fought over.
Hello,
Late to the party on this post, but I just found your substack through Evan, read through your past post and as a 36 year old, I think I should comment on my observations. A lot has already been said about the decline of communal showers in the 90s (though I still have found memories of them, from when I was young. Even as late as the early 00 at an overnight camp) to which I think is because of the fear of the media hype "stranger danger", that got parents to fear sex abuse in the locker rooms, leaving a generation without non-sexual nudity.
However, I am.also optimistic too. The resort I have been attending for the past 5 years, Solair in Woodstock, CT, had seen a increase of young college age people traveling out in groups, more so then when I started going to nude places 10 years ago, when I was in my 20s.
Another thing about the "wave" Solair did have a huge family population in the late 90s till early 00s. They had about 40 family members, who also brought their friends, and the beach would be crowded with kids. When those kids become 20 somethings and went off to college, they wanted to do there own thing, and ofcourse the numbers dropped off, to a point, for awhile Solair had no families. However, now in their 30s many of those 'kids" are coming back with families and kids of their own who are embracing it.
When we went on our honeymoon in Southern Portugal in 1982 nudity was common on many beaches except close to the town. It was also customary on all beaches for women to be topless. Even young teenagers would be topless, not, I think, because they were ardent devotees of topfreedom but because it was a normal thing to do. Today it seems that teenage girls would rather die than go nude or topless under any circumstances.
I sometimes wonder whether, in the 1980s, swimwear manufacturers realised that if fashions continued then their business would collapse before the year 2000. To head off the trend of even diminishing beachwear they launched a subtle publicity campaign to promote the idea of greater modesty.
In the 21st century it has become far less common for women to go topless in Europe than in was in the 80s.
In recent decades I think there has been a tendency for young people to avoid getting involved in any formal organisations. I was a member of running clubs for many years and saw the average age of members getting steadily older even in a sport that you would think was largely a young person's game
As far as women in naturism goes, I think a large factor is that many feel their bodies are objectified too often and their nudity's only for the pleasure of men they don't even know. I think that's not an unjustified feeling. But not being a woman, that's just a guess. I don't think swimwear companies have much ability to be responsible or even that they've tried to. In any case, there's nothing naturists can do about the companies.
As far as teenagers are concerned, once again I'm in no position to have a good opinion. But I think it's well known that teenagers - male as well as female - are concerned and uncomfortable about their changing bodies. Naturists whose whole families have participated in naturism often find that both the boys and the girls no longer want to be naked even in a naturist context.
It is interesting that older teens and young women - in some cases - seem OK exchanging naked selfies with people they're attracted to. Another thing is interesting about women compared with men. It's pretty common that women's everyday clothing choices expose more skin than men's choices - sleeveless tops, low necklines, short shorts, at least half bare legs, sandals or flip-flops, etc. Is there more to that than leaving skin exposed to the air is simply pleasurable? I don't know.
Regarding membership in formal organizations, there's clearly a trend against it. It's especially obvious in religious membership, but that's a special case. Young people are simply less religious in all respects. But membership in all sorts of organizations has significantly declined in recent decades. Putnam's book goes into that in great detail and cites several factors for the decline.
So, what are the implications for naturism? Obviously, attendance at naturist clubs and resorts has been declining, along with most other types of organizations, so many have simply closed. But naturism is in a somewhat unusual situation, since social nudity is a difficult idea for most people. Apparently, clothesfreedom is mostly enjoyed only at home. Of course, that's a big mistake. Enjoying nudity in private is understandable, but social nudity is even more enjoyable. The problem is the difficulty of finding others to enjoy nudity with, because people are so secretive about it. Formal clubs and resorts are easily the best way to find other naturists for friendships. But the overall reluctance to participate in organizations of any sort is a major problem.
I'm only speculating about swimwear companies influencing attitudes to nudity but I wouldn't be too surprised if the fashion industry had subtly talked down the idea of not wearing anything on the beach. I noticed that when it became popular for women to be braless during lockdown some 'experts' came out of the woodwork to declare that it was 'dangerous' for women to not wear bras.
Just think about one basic meaning of the word "fashion". It means something "new" or different from what came the season or year before. The fact that it's different means that anyone who wants to "keep up" with the "trend" needs to replace something (usually clothes, but also cars, TV shows, etc.) with something new and different. Hence a steady flow of business for whatever the commodity in question is. It's a perpetual motion machine for profits.
So, yes, of course, the clothing fashion industry depends on most people always wearing clothes, and buying newer versions regularly. If too many people just go naked, the whole scam collapses. Exposing this scam should be a major talking point for naturists. Listen, folks, get smart and spend your hard-earned income on something more useful than the latest "fashion" in clothes you don't actually need at all.
Look around any large store that sells general merchandise, whether it's Walmart or Macy's. A huge portion of such stores is nothing but clothes, shoes, "accessories", etc. So refusing to keep buying useless clothes would be a real shock to the economy. What could the replacement be? I don't know, but how about travel, exercise, better education, more and better health care, etc. Anything that improves that actual quality of life. We generally understand we'd be better off with more nutritious food instead of junk food. Same thing with clothing. Get off dependence on junk clothes and enjoy being naked instead.
I'm not kidding.